IPhone applications engage preschoolers

We know teens are crazy about their cell phone apps.

But toddlers?

Yes, they are the latest market for iPhone applications, such as the recently released Shape Builder and ABC Memory Match. The former allows toddlers to make shapes of everything from musical instruments to animals by dragging and dropping digital puzzle pieces on the iPhone’s touch screen; the latter asks tots to match letters.

Online reviews of the games are generally very positive.

Toy market analyst Len Simonian echoes the upbeat sentiment: “I think they can be a great way to engage your child whether you’re in the grocery store line or in the car.

“They also eliminate the need to bring yet another gadget, like a portable DVD player,” says Mr. Simonian, who’s also president of doll-maker the Only Hearts Club.

In other words, parents have one less thing to think about, one less thing to pack.

What’s not to love?

Plenty, says Dr. Michael Rich, an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center on Media and Child Health.

“These things don’t make your kids smarter,” Dr. Rich says, adding that, if anything, they can stifle creativity and socialization because they feed words and images rather than encourage imagination.

“Just because kids can mimic something doesn’t mean they understand it or have learned it,” he says.

For a toddler, learning shapes and letters comes in a distant second place after socialization, which is the number-one developmental goal for that age group.

How to learn socialization? By interacting with other humans, not by burying your face in a console.

“What about conversation? What about standing in the grocery store line and talking about the colors of the chewing gum packets? What about giving them a little notebook and letting them draw and write what they see instead of making them psychologically dependent on digital media?” Dr. Rich says, adding there is a link between screen time and anxiety in young children.

Sure, but give parents a break, says David Kleeman, president of the American Center for Children and Media, a group that helps guide the children’s media industry.

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