{"id":405,"date":"2019-05-23T15:28:51","date_gmt":"2019-05-23T22:28:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/?p=405"},"modified":"2019-05-23T15:29:15","modified_gmt":"2019-05-23T22:29:15","slug":"is-appropriate-content-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/is-appropriate-content-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Appropriate Content Enough?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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pixabay CCO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I remember a few courses back I chose to look into the history of technology through the lens of early criticisms. In my blog post, I pointed out that \u201c<\/span>Wartella and Jennings (2000) propose, concerns about the introduction of media in years past, mirror concerns resurfacing today. <\/span>\u201c (Fahrenbruch, 2018, para. 1). In light of my new research into Virtual Reality (VR) use with young children, I went back to read over the article again. What I found was very interesting. Today\u2019s concerns about the impact of technology on child development date back as far as the 1920\u201ds when radio was introduced into families\u2019 living rooms (Wartella & Jennings, 2000). Radio, movies, television and computers all elicited similar reactions and concerns. \u00a0Appropriate content being a thread that wove through all of them, closely followed by each technology\u2019s effect on socialization. What was of greater interest to me though, was the mention that each \u201c<\/span>new media might be used to substitute for real life in learning ethical principles\u201d <\/span>(Wartella & Jennings, p. 32, 2000). Wartella and Jennings don\u2019t go into a further explanation as to what ethical principles they are referring to. However, let\u2019s take a leap and assume they are talking about ethical life principles that each new media would be able to corrupt. I came across a similar concern when looking into the use of VR with young children. Today we are concerned about VR experiences being too real for comfort, creating a make belief life that will be difficult to keep apart from the real life lived by its young users (Segovia & Bailenson, 2009). Not only does this raise an ethical question for parents and educators who may use VR as a teaching tool, it also deconstructs the understanding of appropriate content. Choosing appropriate content suddenly is not enough anymore when we need to consider if it is ethical to impart virtual memories on children that will be undiscernable from real life experiences. Is it still okay to have children interact with fun, educational and harmless content when these children later recall their virtual experiences as real? Children do acts in VR they would or could never do in the real world, but still believe it actually happened. A child’s sense of self, therefore, is changed (Bailey & Bailenson, 2017). Should we change a person\u2019s sense of self, even if it is positive? Do we have the right to impact a person\u2019s life in such a way that their perceived lived life will become a lie?<\/span><\/p>\n

References<\/p>\n

Bailey, J. O., & Bailenson, J. N. (2017). Immersive Virtual Reality and the Developing Child. Cognitive Development in Digital Contexts. Elsevier Inc. <\/span>https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/B978-0-12-809481-5.00009-2<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Fahrenbruch, A. (October 19, 2018). Early Criticisms on Technology Use with Pre School Age Children [blog post]. Retrieved from <\/span>https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/early-criticisms-of-technology-use-for-pre-school-age-children\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Wartella, E. A., & Jennings, N. (2000). Children and computers: New technology – Old concerns. <\/span>Future of Children<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>10<\/span><\/i>(2), 31\u201343. Retrieved from <\/span>https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2307\/1602688<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Segovia, K. Y., & Bailenson, J. N. (2009). Virtually True\u202f: Children \u2019 s Acquisition of False Memories in Virtual Reality, 371\u2013393. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/15213260903287267<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember a few courses back I chose to look into the history of technology through the lens of early criticisms. In my blog post, I pointed out that \u201cWartella and Jennings (2000) propose, concerns about the introduction of media in years past, mirror concerns resurfacing today. \u201c (Fahrenbruch, 2018, para. 1). In light of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt526"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":408,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions\/408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0053\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}