Don't Worry About Kids and Touch Screens, Worry About the Parents

We almost all have touch screen electronic devices these days, but the latest must-have accessory among middle-class parents isn’t something you can hold. It is our well-meaning angst about the effect such devices -- smart phones and tablets and the like -- have on the minds of developing children. Hanna Rosin’s piece in this month’s Atlantic, “The Touch-Screen Generation,” lays out all the fears and questions, along with the latest research. You can find other smart people worrying about it here and here, and a lot of other places besides.

Rosin doesn’t provide a definitive answer because there isn't one yet, but she leaves you thinking that in the end, most kids can probably learn and grow just fine with access to touchpad devices, the same way they have been learning and growing through all of the other technological revolutions of human history. Which seems sensible enough to me.