Children Struggle To Hold Pencils Due To Too Much Tech, Doctors Say (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Children are increasingly finding it hard to hold pens and pencils because of an excessive use of technology, senior pediatric doctors have warned. An overuse of touchscreen phones and tablets is preventing children's finger muscles from developing sufficiently to enable them to hold a pencil correctly, they say. "Children are not coming into school with the hand strength and dexterity they had 10 years ago," said Sally Payne, the head pediatric occupational therapist at the Heart of England foundation NHS Trust. "Children coming into school are being given a pencil but are increasingly not be able to hold it because they don't have the fundamental movement skills. "To be able to grip a pencil and move it, you need strong control of the fine muscles in your fingers,. Children need lots of opportunity to develop those skills." Payne said the nature of play had changed. "It's easier to give a child an iPad than encouraging them to do muscle-building play such as building blocks, cutting and sticking, or pulling toys and ropes. Because of this, they're not developing the underlying foundation skills they need to grip and hold a pencil."

Comments

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[Tom]

It might be just because I'm a very kinaesthetic person, but this is something I find in general computer tech has failed to grasp: How important it is to hold something, to touch something, to feel something touching you.

Among other things, this is the primary reason most keyboards on the market suck, and why VR still hasn't taken off. We techies tend to believe too much that 80% of the human perception is visual, and that is just plain out wrong. The largest sensory organ in your body is your skin.

Computers make great toys for kids, they allow so much creativity and agency, and there are so many skills you can develop with them. But kids should also play with sticks, with Legos, with tools, with wood and metal and stone.

And, frankly speaking, if you don't give your child real, physical books to read, IMHO you should be locked up for child abuse.