Young Children’s Use of Technological Devices: Parents’ Views

Abstract

This paper presents parents’ views of their young children’s access and use of technological devices, the duration spent on technological devices and the benefits and risks associated with that. 500 parents completed a questionnaire and findings suggest that parents hold positive beliefs about technology with smartphones being the most used among their children and the most effective device, while e-reading was the least used. Findings indicated that parents believe technology benefits their children in developing intellectually, socially, physically and emotionally respectively, thus it enhances children’s educational development through educational activities while they interact with peers at the same time; physical development was number 1 risk on children which was associated to health and mental development. Recommendations were given at the end of the paper to examine in depth how technological devices can used in educational settings in favour of children.