New York plans to build one the largest municipal Wi-Fi networks in the world, delivering Internet access to poorer areas and, Mayor de Blasio boasts, "bridging the digital divide."
Setting aside how serious that gap really is — every fifth-grader I see, no matter what neighborhood they live in, has a smartphone — is this really the divide we should be worried about?
One of the most frequently passed around articles in the mommy blogosphere these days reveals Steve Jobs didn't let his kids use the iPad. Writing in The New York Times earlier this fall, reporter Nick Bilton recalled asking Jobs when the device first came out: "So, your kids must love the iPad?"
"They haven't used it," he told me. "We limit how much technology our kids use at home."
Jobs' reply left the reporter in "dumbfounded silence."
Bilton, who went on to interview other tech gurus and received similar answers, should not have been surprised at all. It's not merely people in Silicon Valley, who as former editor of Wired magazine put it, have "seen the dangers of technology firsthand." It's every middle- and upper-class parent walking around with an iPhone.
We are all well aware of the effects of too much screen time on our own ability to concentrate and our social interactions. And we don't want that for our kids.
A few years ago a friend who was a new parent told me that he never bought his kids anything that required a battery. He told the children's grandparents to do the same thing. Having your kid press a button over and over again was not his idea of educational play.
Go into any upscale toy store, and you'll find it littered with wooden blocks, Melissa & Doug pretend food and some simple costumes. The toys intended to teach science or math are not LeapPads, but microscopes and abacuses.
Or check out the "Toys that help kids become global leaders," as compiled by the website Quartz. The ones included have kids building structures with wooden pieces or playing board games that are focused on strategy. The only toys that involve electronics are ones that allow kids to build their own robots.
Whether these devices will make your kids global leaders is not clear, but they will teach them to entertain and think for themselves.
Meanwhile the amount of screen time that poor and minority kids rack up each day has reached astonishing levels. According to a 2011 study by researchers at Northwestern University, minority kids watch 50% more television
than their white peers.
They use computers for up to 1¹/₂ hours longer per day and play video games for 30 to 40 minutes longer than their white peers. Giving them more access to screens is clearly not the answer to the education gap in this country.
But our political leaders's misguided priorities continue.
The recent renovations to the White Plains Library included, according to the White Plains Daily Voice, "a social area with a big-screen television for gaming and movies; a mixing area with computer workstations and study areas; and a media lab for teens to learn how to use digital media equipment and work on projects."
The library's director Brian Kenney explained, "As a library we should be sure we're creating experiences that will attract our users. And teens, we know, are interested in digital content."
No doubt Kenney will pat himself on the back when he finds that the people making use of these digital experiences are from lower-income backgrounds.
Their wealthier peers, meanwhile, will likely be skipping screen time at the library. Their parents will be keeping them at home — reading books.
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