Technology Play and Brain Development

Infancy to Adolescence and Future Implications

Doris Bergen, Darrel R. Davis, Jason T. Abbitt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317400141
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Developmental Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Technology Play and Brain Development brings together current research on play development, learning technology, and brain development. The authors first navigate the play technology and brain development interface, highlighting the interactive qualities that make up each component. Next, they survey the changes in play materials and the variations in time periods for play that have occurred over the past 15-20 years, and then explain how these changes have had the potential to affect this play/brain developmental interaction. The authors also cover various types of technology-augmented play materials used by children at age levels from infancy to adolescence, and describe the particular qualities that may enhance or change brain development. In so doing, they present information on previous and current studies of the play and technology interface, in addition to providing behavioral data collected from parents and children of varied ages related to their play with different types of play materials. Significantly, they discuss how such play may affect social, emotional, moral, and cognitive development, and review futurist predictions about the potential qualities of human behavior needed by generations to come. The authors conclude with advice to toy and game designers, parents, educators, and the wider community on ways to enhance the quality of technology-augmented play experiences so that play will continue to promote the development of human characteristics needed in the future.

IntroductionThe Importance of Understanding the Brain/Play/Technology Interface

The authors of this book have approached the topic of effects of technology on brain maturation and social, emotional, moral, and cognitive development from varied perspectives, but they are in agreement that stakeholders, including parents, educators, psychologists, technology designers and implementers, as well as the greater community, should be collaborating to ensure that the technology-augmented play experiences of today's children and adolescents are well designed in order to facilitate growth and development that will give them the versatility and the resilience that they will need to meet future events. Presently, opinions on effects of intensive technology-rich environments on child and adolescent development and learning are varied and not always supported by research evidence.

The first author, Bergen, has discussed issues related to the potential effects of technology-augmented toys on young children's play for over a decade and conducted research on young children's play with such toys. With colleagues, she also has initiated a study of brain wave responses to video game play and written theoretical pieces speculating on effects of varied types of technology play on brain development. With co-author Davis, she also has explored the role child and adolescent play with real and virtual playthings may have on moral development. Davis has further explored the types of video and online play that college students report. Abbitt has studied effects of technology-enhanced learning materials in various educational contexts and, with Davis, has presented work on the effects of instructor texting to improve student learning. Thus, the impetus for this book has come from the authors’ belief that it is important to address the interface between technology-augmented play and brain maturation, as well as other developmental areas, and to examine factors that might influence this interface both positively and negatively.

Research into the effects of technology-augmented play is controversial, with a number of writers pointing with alarm to the possibilities of harm from early and consistent exposure to technology-augmented toys and media, while other writers have described how these media can enhance human learning if designed and used appropriately. There has been scholarly work that has addressed both particular concerns and possibilities, but there has been no book that has comprehensively discussed the play/brain/technology interface issues addressed in this book. It is likely that technology-augmented play will have both positive and negative effects on brain maturation processes, especially if children and adolescents have extensive and long-term exposure to such play materials. Perhaps such exposure may differentially affect not only brain development but also the social, emotional, moral, and cognitive aspects of many other human behaviors. These changes may be useful and relevant at a future time and assist humans to adapt to future conditions or they may cause humans to lose abilities and skills that continue to remain relevant and essential for human life. Thus, the authors believe that a book that brings together current research knowledge on such developmental factors and explains how they may interface with the representation modes and affordances of various technology-based play materials has been needed to provide scholars and students with a perspective for further systematic research.

Scope and Sequence

Chapter 1 discusses how both play and brain development have nonlinear dynamic systems qualities, and describes the processes by which play development occurs and interfaces with brain maturation. It presents the theoretical view that cognitive understanding proceeds through enactive (motoric action with objects), iconic (linking perceptual images of objects), and symbolic (using language and other symbols to represent objects) levels (Bruner, 1964); discusses potential social, emotional, moral, and cognitive issues that play supports; defines technology; describes the nonlinear dynamic qualities of technology; and suggests how such qualities may interface with play and brain development. Chapter 2 describes the historical role of technology in the design of play materials and the changes in play environments that have occurred with the advent of technology-augmented play materials. It also reviews both a number of writers’ perspectives on the potential positive and negative effects of this change in the play environment and evidence of such changes in play experiences drawn from research on adults’ memories of their own play. The authors also describe the theoretical lens of “affordance” theory (Gibson, 1969, Carr, 2000) and “modes of representation” (Bruner, 1964). Further, the concepts of physical and virtual “contexts” (Milgram & Kishino, 1994) are used to analyze potential effects. Chapter 3 describes the various types of technology-augmented play materials presently being used by young persons from infancy to adolescence. It describes these affordances and contexts and suggests ways that physical and virtual technology contexts may have different affordances and contexts, which may result in varied effects on child and adolescent development. Chapter 4 describes the authors’ research on young children's initial interactions with technology-augmented toys and video game play. It also presents the opinions of a group of parents, children, and adolescents about past play experiences and present day technology-augmented play. Their views of advantages and disadvantages of such play and its possible effect on various developmental areas are shared. Chapter 5 addresses speculations from futurists regarding the types of skills that humans will need in future life periods and examines those possibilities in relation to the skills that may be promoted by various types of technology-augmented play. The potential changes in human brain development and behavior that may occur due to the changes in play behaviors are described and evaluated. In Chapter 6 the authors provide suggestions for parents, educators and psychologists, technology toy manufacturers, digital game makers, online play designers, and community stakeholders that may promote healthy and future-enhancing brain development as children and adolescents engage in play with technology-augmented as well as traditional play materials.

The authors believe, as Emily Dickinson reminds us, that the brain is an amazing organ that defines us and our world. Thus, its fate in the future must be considered in a technology-augmented world.

The Brain—is wider than the Sky— For—put them side by side— The one the other will contain With ease—and You—beside—

The Brain is deeper than the sea— For—hold them—Blue to Blue— The one the other will absorb— As Sponges—Buckets—do—

The Brain is just the weight of God— For—Heft them—Pound for Pound— And they will differ—if they do— As Syllable from Sound—

Reprinted by permission from Johnson, T. H. The complete poems of Emily Dickinson (1955), New York: Little Brown & Co.

References

• Bruner, J. S. (1964). The course of cognitive growth. American Psychologist, 19(1), 1–15.
• Carr, M. (2000). Technological affordances, social practice and learning narratives in an early childhood setting. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 10, 61–79.
• Gibson, E. J. (1969). Principles of perceptual learning and development. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
• Milgram, P., & Kishino, F. (1994). A taxonomy of mixed reality visual displays. IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information and Systems, 77(12), 1321–1329.

1 Brain Maturation and Typical Play Development from Infancy through AdolescenceComplimentary Dynamic Processes with Technology

DOI: 10.4324/9781315681436-1

The plane from San Francisco to Atlanta was crowded, with every seat filled. Tina (age 3½) was seated in the middle of a three-seat row, with her dad in the window seat and an older adult in the aisle seat. While the plane was boarding and taxiing for takeoff, Tina was talkative and wiggly and it seemed like this long flight would be very tedious for her. While her dad was getting her settled, she kept pointing to his iPad™, which he had put in the seat pocket and he reminded Tina a number of times that she would have to wait to get that until after the plane was in the air. Once the plane was on the way, he pulled out two little pink ear buds and put them in Tina's ears and then put the iPad on a Disney movie. Tina sat quietly in her seat absorbed in the movie for most of the rest of the trip. She did eat a snack and, during the last half hour of the trip, she dozed off. However, the iPad movie engaged her attention for over 2 hours! Her dad had very little talk with his daughter after the iPad took over.

Studies of the dynamic relationship among brain developmental processes, child and adolescent play experiences, and the influences of technology-augmented play materials are only in initial stages. However, it is likely that play development and brain development may be differentially affected by play with technology-augmented materials. What brain development effects will occur due to humans’ pervasive interactions with technologically advanced materials is not a new question, however, as various theorists and researchers have speculated on it in the past.

For example, in pondering the course of cognitive growth and the reasons for the human evolution of large brains, Bruner (1964) drew attention to a paper written on the one hundredth anniversary of Darwin's (1859) publication of The Origin of the Species in which the authors asserted that the brain's development has occurred because of the “result of a technical-social life” (Washburn & Howell, 1960, p. 49).

Bruner proposed that intellectual functioning has always been driven by “a series of technological advances in the use of mind” (p. 1), which enabled humans to manage in increasingly complex environments and “construct models of their world” (ibid.). He hypothesized that over the long evolutionary period, humans have increased their intellectual power by learning to use and understand three types of technological artifacts: amplifiers of human motor capabilities (e.g., wheels, bicycles), amplifiers of sensory capacities (e.g., radios, magnets), and amplifiers of human ratiocinative capacities (e.g., language and other symbol systems)—all of which are transmitted by the culture in which humans live. Each of these has a “mode of representation” (p. 2). Enactive representation occurs through motor responses, which are the earliest mode of understanding. For example, young children's tricycle riding or block building involves motoric interactions with the environment and encodes knowledge in the muscles, and this knowledge can then be applied to other actions in the environment. Iconic representations involve the organization of images or models and the understanding that such pictures or images of perceptual events can “stand for” the actual environmental features. This is evident when a young child can point to a picture of “shoe” or “kitten” or find the “truck” or the “car” in a storybook. Symbolic representation begins when children can use an arbitrary symbol system such as language or numbers to encode meaning. This occurs when a child knows the symbol “Bill” stands for his name or can point to the symbol “3” to show how old he is. Once these modes of representation are learned, humans can produce combinations of images or actions that go beyond “real-world” experiences. In Bruner's view, this ability to “become specialized by the use of technological implements” (p. 2) has made the evolution of human abilities possible. If new technological artifacts give humans different interactive experiences, then future evolution of the human species through interaction with present day and future technologies is a definite possibility.

Views of the Play/Brain Relationship

The role playfulness may serve in fostering human brain and cognitive development has been of interest to various theorists such as Plato, who in his book of Laws (360 bc) suggested that children's play (paidia) had significance as a venue for learning and developing basic habits of character (paideia) (see Morris, 1998). At later time periods, the view that children's playful activity has educational and developmental meaning was emphasized by many theorists, including Comenius (1632, 1657), Rousseau (1792/1911), Froebel (1887), Dewey (1910, 1916), and Hall, (1920, 1924). In the mid-20th century, Huizinga (1950) wrote that playfulness is an integral behavior of the human species and thus he called humans Homo Ludens (“man, the player”). Huizinga's view of the evolutionary importance of play was also discussed by Ellis (1998), who asserted that playful behaviors positively influence the ability of biological systems to exhibit rapid adaptation when unpredictable events that threaten survival are encountered. Human existence has always been precarious and he suggests it is likely that humans who had the greatest range of adaptive behaviors to meet changing environmental or social conditions (i.e., the most playful humans) were the ones who were most likely to survive. In his view, that is why and how present humans have inherited their intensely playful qualities.

Researchers who have studied play in animals also have lent insights into possible play-brain connections. For example, Lorenz (1971) indicated that, for many animal species, the curiosity young animals exhibit in their play is a characteristic needed for expressing new behaviors in varied settings. He compared the play of children to the research of adult scientists. Fagen (1981), who wrote extensively about animal play, agreed, stating that such play is essentially “a biological adaptation for producing novel behaviors” (p. 36). Recently, researchers using brain imaging techniques with animals have studied how the “playful brain”...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• front-other Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table Of Contents
• Acknowledgment
• Introduction: The Importance of Understanding the Brain/Play/Technology Interface
• Epilogue: Wisdom of the Velveteen Rabbit
• Glossary of Brain and Nervous System Terms
• Brain Diagrams
• Index