From a NYTimes article on the recent American Academy of Pediatrics’ warnings against giving small children screen time:
“[R]ecent research makes it clear that young children learn a lot more efficiently from real interactions — with people and things — than from situations appearing on video screens. ‘We know that some learning can take place from media’ for school-age children, said Georgene Troseth, a psychologist at Peabody College at Vanderbilt University, ‘but it’s a lot lower, and it takes a lot longer.'”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/health/19babies.html
And people wonder why I have my concerns about online college courses . . .
Erin
I never took an online course for several of the reasons noted in the article. I don’t learn as well if I can’t interact with others. I learn so much more from classmates/co-workers when tackling a project, than going solo with a computer screen as my buddy.
The brains of future generations (or possibly your children’s generation) will have very different neuron paths for learning, because technology will be the driving force until we evolve into mere human talking heads with appendages.