But for many children, plain old books aren’t enough. Companies are rolling out an ever-growing line of products, from apps for learning ABCs to toddler-size tablets, that are giving rise to a generation of digital natives. The trend is just emerging, and many specialists can’t say how much technology is the right amount and whether it will hamper child development. But there is little doubt we are seeing only early stages of a hyperconnected world that is changing childhood.
“We are conducting the world’s greatest experiment in real time on our children,’’ said Liz Perle, editor in chief at Common Sense Media, a San Francisco nonprofit group that helps parents manage media and technology.
The combination of a smartphone’s intuitive interface and thousands of apps for iPhones and Androids aimed at young children has fast made it a child’s favorite plaything. And as the smartphone market continues to explode, more parents are passing their phones to their offspring as tools to educate or gadgets to pacify.
Two-thirds of 4- to 7-year-olds have used an iPhone or iPod, according to a 2010 survey from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop.
An upcoming study by the center illustrates how quickly children are picking up the technology: 72 percent of the 100 top-selling education apps in Apple’s iTunes App store this year were aimed at preschoolers and those in elementary school. That number is sharply higher than what the center found in 2009, before the debut of the iPad.
The latest study was partially funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Not only are parents sharing phones with young children, many are buying them their own devices. Six percent of 2- to 5-year-olds have their own smartphone, according to a report this month from Play Science, a research firm in New York.
Matt Kealey has not bought his 3-year-old daughter, Meghan, a smartphone, but she knows how to snap photos, shoot video, and play music on her mother’s iPhone 4. Meghan can even surf videos on YouTube, “which we weren’t very happy with because you can find some weird stuff,’’ said Kealey, a civil engineer who lives in Framingham.
