Jessica  Perez      Instructor:  Malcolm  Campbell      English  1102    February  4,  2013    

Topic  Proposal:  Children  and  Technology      

Introduction/Overview:         Technology  has  grown  in  the  past  twenty  years  to  become  a  major  part  of  

human  day-­‐to-­‐day  life.    It  is  almost  impossible  to  imagine  life  without  some  form  of  

technology.    But  what  effects  is  it  having  on  us  as  individuals?  Specifically,  I  will  be  

focusing  on  the  children  and  how  the  use  of  technology  effects  their  development.      

  Although  many  people  may  find  that  exposing  children  to  technology  from  an  

early  age  may  be  an  advantage  to  them  in  the  future,  I  would  like  to  further  

investigate  the  negative  aspects  this  would  have  on  the  development  of  human  

characteristics,  such  as  creativity  and  social  skills.      

 

Initial  Inquiry  Question(s):  

  There  are  many  questions  that  I  have  about  how  technology  affects  a  child.        

The  one  that  I  find  to  be  the  most  interesting  is:  What  psychological  and  physical  

effects  does  technology  have  on  the  developing  mind  of  a  child.    This  allows  for  

many  aspects  to  be  analyzed  and  dissected  and  also  has  various  sides  to  the  

arguments  presented.    I  might  also  want  to  question  parenting  styles  associated  

with  the  amount  of  technology  a  child  is  exposed  too.    By  asking  this  question,  I  may  

be  able  to  find  more  research  on  the  topic  at  hand.      

Operator A� 2/5/13 5:07 PMComment [1]: Maybe  add  significantly,  greatly  just  to  add  some  substance  besides  just  “grown”  

Operator A� 2/5/13 5:10 PMComment [2]: For  some  one    

Operator A� 2/5/13 5:14 PMComment [3]: How  is  that  studied?  

 

My  Interest  in  this  Topic:    

  As  I  look  around  our  society  today,  I  see  that  more  and  more  parents  are  

substituting  human  attention  and  discipline,  with  technology.    Instead  of  interacting  

with  their  children,  they  seem  to  find  it  easier  and  more  convenient  to  just  hand  

them  some  sort  of  technology  that  will  keep  them  entertained  and  out  of  their  way.    

I  do  not  have  much  background  on  this  topic  in  general.      Although,  I  think  that  it  is  

interesting  because  technology  is  so  new  to  us  that  we  are  just  starting  to  see  how  

children  who  are  constantly  surrounded  by  modern  technology  are  affected.    This  is  

definitely  a  topic  that  relates  to  the  future  and  will  be  discussed  and  debated  for  

years  to  come.      I  hope  to  learn  the  physical  and  psychological  effects  that  the  

habitual  use  of  technology  has  on  a  developing  brain  and  human  being.      

 

Next  Steps:    

In  order  to  gather  research  for  my  topic,  I  will  use  credible  studies  conducted  

in  the  recent  years.    They  will  vary  from  psychological  studies  and  medical  studies.    

This  might  be  a  bit  difficult,  considering  this  is  a  fairly  new  topic  of  debate  in  society.    

I  will  also  try  to  find  articles  from  reliable  journalistic  sources  to  contribute  ideas  

and  information  from  specialized  scholars.    I  am  going  to  have  to  be  careful  not  to  

use  the  opinions  of  others  on  a  topic  like  this.    The  data  must  be  unbiased,  credible  

and  related.    

So  far,  I  think  that  I  have  a  strong  topic  to  look  into  and  discover  how  it  is  

affecting  the  identity  of  our  society  today  and  how  it  will  affect  the  future  

generations.      

 

 

Overall  the  paper  was  well  put  together  and  the  topic  does  not  seem  to  narrow  or  broad.    I  believe  maybe  add  a  little  more  detail  in  the  paper  just  some  specifics  on  how  the  research  was  done  maybe.  The  comments  I  left  were  suggestions  to  what  I  think  may  make  the  paper  flow  better.    Besides  that  I  feel  that  the  paper  flows  well  and  with  a  little  more  work  will  be  a  good  paper.