From the author: The article was once written for the “Crib for Parents”http://det.org.ru...do you understand that you were left without a laptop?!—But I don’t need it.— What is this? - But because it decomposes my already unformed personality... When I travel in public transport, walk down the street, I see teenagers, young people, quite adults with laptops, tablets, various phones, iPhones, iPads . They connect to the Internet, listen to music, watch movies, play games. Fortunately, now we have everything for this: Wi-Fi is available in the metro, cafes, even in the maternity hospital. Devices of all brands, sizes, capabilities, for every taste and budget. Sometimes I hear from my friends: the whole family came home, and everyone was glued to their own monitor. Alas, my family is no exception, and there are evenings when everyone goes to their laptops, players, TVs, and toys. This picture makes me sad. But now is this age, technology has made great strides forward, and we really live in a time when most information is transmitted electronically. I myself appreciate these opportunities when you can contact a colleague on the other side of the Earth, watch any movie, find music, book, article, quickly exchange information. It's really convenient. If it doesn't take up most of your life or your whole life. The main thing is without fanaticism! And children grow up in such a world. How do they grow? How do they fit into the world of modern technology? How does this affect their development? I must say, in general, children are growing up smart and developed. They sometimes understand all the technical diversity better than many adults. And I want to say something about development separately. In this article I don’t want to talk about computer addiction; they already talk a lot about it. I propose to look at the relationship between a child and all kinds of gadgets from the other side. From birth, growing up and developing, the baby masters a huge number of skills - moves, achieves, speaks, learns, reads. But most importantly, he learns to know himself. First, through the touch of a mother (or another significant adult), her reaction to his crying, a smile. Then through her words. Then he begins to explore the world, again through his mother’s ideas about this world. And a moment comes when the baby begins to form his own opinion about himself and the world, relationships with other people. The child relies on the rich baggage that his mother has already provided him with. Every day he encounters complex issues that require his decision and opinion. And often these questions come not from external reality, but from internal reality. The child learns to respect himself, change himself, value himself and at the same time remain in the situations in which he finds himself. Sometimes he turns to adults for support, sometimes he decides for himself. Staying in touch with yourself, your feelings, your own value and importance, your fears, anger, love, hate, in contact with your needs and desires, with your body is one of the most important skills that a child trains during his development and growing up. This skill is unconscious, but very important. We, parents, rarely talk to our children about their contact with themselves, but we teach them this throughout our entire life together. And at some point modern technologies come into this wonderful life of ours and our children. It doesn't matter what gadget they came in. It is important what place they take and what role they play. Pessimistic scenario At some point in his life, a child uncontrollably begins to watch TV or play on the computer. I omit comments here about the content of programs or games. This is a different story. The child's attention is completely captured by what is happening. And he gets the impression that all his problems and experiences fade into the background, cease to be bright, and these are no longer such problems. And in general, you shouldn’t worry about them. And it becomes a habit. Problem, difficulty, difficult experience - I turned on the TV/computer and they weren’t there. The skill of facing your unpleasant experiences is a “muscle” that can be trained.