Learning Outcome(s) covered:

Knowledge

- Initiate and construct a self-proposed project (independent research topic).

- Demonstrate a thorough understanding of appropriate processes in relation to their projects.

Thinking skills

- Critically evaluate their projects and reference cultural and historical influences relevant to their subject.

- Display cogent research methodologies that underpin their ideas.

- Subject based practical skills.

- Present a coherent body of work that indicates a creative synthesis of ideas and practice.

- Show economy in their practice and display a comprehensive awareness of all health and safety issues.

Skills for life and work (general skills)

- Present their work both orally and practically.

- Collaborate fully and effectively with others.

- Construct and implement a realistic timetable of research.

Programme Learning Outcome(s) and Programme Objective(s) covered:

- To enable you to develop an independent project and line of enquiry.

- To show the application of knowledge acquired through learning.

- To indicate knowledge of the historical and cultural influences that underpins your practice/subject.

- To facilitate a coherent body of work for final presentation.

- To help you establish an efficient and effective time-management regime within a studio/workshop context.

Proposal

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Background of Study

People are so dependent on our smartphones now that people are often joking about being addicted on their smartphones among friends and family. What they do not realize is that the smartphone addiction phenomenon is actually real and it is a major problem that affects thousands of people in the world. Peoples are admitting that they uses their smartphones in the shower and also while driving which is dangerous and life threatening. This addiction has already be a major problem and now it is more likely to grow more and more due to the rising demands and also the rapid advances in technology which allows the users to carry out their duties at an even faster speed and in an even easier way. (Priddy, 2016)

The background study for this thesis is focused on the effect of addiction on handheld devices to children in between the age 4-6years old. This issue is not only effecting the children but other individual as well but, this thesis report is only focusing in the group of children and not the others. This is because children still does not understand why they are not allowed to be on their handheld device often. They always make fuss and have behavior problems whenever their parents or guardians took away their devices and not really understand why. This thesis report is to help study and research on the children and their behavior and come out with a final project to help children understand the effects of being on the handheld for too long.

1.2 Overview of Study

The study will show the general studies of the “Addiction” with handheld devices. 21^st century babies to school –aged children are now mostly digital consumers. They always uses the TVs, computers, gaming systems and smartphones or tablets. They started playing with their parent’s smartphone since right after they know how to grasp an object in their hands. A research study about children’s media use in America from a 2011 Common Sense Media Research says that a 40% of children aged 2 to 4 years old uses handheld devices such as smartphones, iPods, iPads or other similar devices. In another survey conducted with parents, it says that a 90% of their children under the age of 2 years old watches some other form of electronic media. (Kim, 2013)

2.0 Research Question

What is the effect unhealthily by handheld devices addiction on children aged 4 to 6 years old?

3.0 Research Purpose, Aims and Objectives

Aim: To identify the effects of handheld devices addiction on children aged 4 to 6 years old and to find a way to create an awareness to those who are addicted with the help of a third party audience such as the parents of the children using the themed based objective.

Objectives:

1. To research on the effects of handheld devices on children aged between 4 to 6 years old.

2. To analyze the effects of handheld devices on children aged 4 to 6 years old.

3. To create an awareness campaign to the children between aged 4 to 6 years old using digital media and installation.

4. To educate the children age 4 to 6 years old about the effects of handheld devices addiction on them.

4.0 Statement of Problem

According to The American Academy of Pediatrics and The Canadian Society of Pediatrics states that infants that are aged 0 to 2 years old is advices to not have any exposure to the technology while the children of aged 3 to 5 years old are to be restricted to 1hour per day and children aged 6 to 18 years old are restricted to 2hours per day. Nowadays, the children and youth are using 4 to 5 times or more than the suggested amount of technology making it a problem that is growing stronger and stronger as it may affect the health and sometimes end up with serious and death threatening consequences. This handheld devices addiction is increasing in a very fast pace with the accessibility and usage of technology, especially with the young children. (Rowan, 10 Reasons Why Handheld Devices Should be Banned for Children under the age of 12, 2015)

5.0 Literature Review

5.1 Definition

5.1.1 What is a handheld device?

The definition of handheld devices is it is any portable devices that can be carried around and held in one’s palm. The handheld devices can be any computing devices that is compact or portable enough to be held and uses either with one or both hands. The handheld devices may also contain cellular communications but also at the same time be include other computing devices. (Anonymous, Handheld, 2016)

5.1.2 What is addiction?

Addiction is people that do not have control over what they are doing, taking or using and their addiction rate may increase and reach to appoint where it is harmful to the individual itself. Addiction does not only includes physical thing that we consume but also includes virtually anything, such as abstract thing like gambling and other seemingly harmless products like chocolates. In another word, addiction may be a substance dependence, or behavioral addiction and when an individual is addicted to something, they cannot control how they use it and become dependent on it to cope with daily life. (Nordqvist, 2016)

Figure 1: Addiction, courtesy of Google Image,http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1028498/images/o-STRESS-ADDICTION-facebook.jpg

5.2 History of the Issue

5.2.1 Children smart phone obsessed

Children nowadays will sleep with their handheld devices tightly tucked into their bed rather than big squashy teddy bears with them. A recent story about an addiction with children and smartphones in USA Today had been a great concern to parents. Common Sense Media’s Parenting Editor, Caroline Knorr stated – “Parents need to remember they’re always kid’s role models in this digital age.” The children are always seeing their parents as role models and checks on what they do and behavior often. For this case now, their parents are all busy checking on their handheld devices very often causing them to learn from the parents and do the same. If the parents notices their child behavior changes dramatically when they have and does not have their handheld devices, it is the early signs of the child is being addicted to the devices and the parents are to be aware and to find solutions. (Freeman, 2012)

5.2.2 Children addiction in South Korea

The National Information Society Agency, also known as NIA in South Korea had estimated a number of 160,000 South Korean children between the ages 5 to 9 are addicted to the internet either through handheld devices or personal computers. The children all appears animated when using their gadgets but is distracted, nervous and frustrated when they are cut off from the devices. To be on the devices for as long as they want to, the children will forgo eating and going to the toilet just to have more time to play with their devices. South Korea’s government had estimated an amount of 2.55million people across the entire population are addicted to smartphones and is using them 8 hours or more per day in its first survey of smart phone addiction released earlier in the year. The addicts will find it difficult to live without their handheld devices and constantly use disrupts work and social life, according to the NIA. (S.Young, 2013)

5.3 Cause and Effect

5.3.1 The early exposure to media violence

“What you watch is what you become.” A phrase we all heard since young. In this century, peoples do not goes by a day without hearing of violence behavior. Cyberbullying, rape, domestic violence, mass murders and many more are the examples of the violence behavior. A recent media report shows that during the past years, physical and sexual violent acts have been increasing for as much as 50% in most major cities in the US and European Countries (St.Louis, Baltimore, New York, London.) The rate of violence statistics had decreased over the past decades of years and why is it increasing at such fast rate now? It is because of the Tvs, movies, videos, music, news, sitcom, and other electrical related form of devices have shown physical and sexual violence graphic acts delivered in a very fast pace and rapid sequencing. Peoples are now living, working and raising our children in a culture that is surrounded by these physical and sexual violence rather than the exception and increasingly become normal in our lives. (Rowan, Early Exposure to Media Violence, 2015)

5.3.2 Infants unable to use toy building blocks due to iPad addiction

According to teachers, a number of rising infants are lacking in their skills needed to play with building blocks due to the “addiction” to tablet and handheld devices. Many children aged 3 to 4 can “swipe a screen” but have little or no dexterity in their fingers after spending hours glued to their iPads and some children, according to the members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, the children were unable to complete traditional pen and paper exams due to the dependent of their overexposure to the screen-based technology and experts have been seriously warning that this problem are effecting the children’s growth socially and physically. Stated by a doctor, saying that there are a riding number of young people including age 4 had been to have a therapy for being compulsive after being exposed to the internet and digital devices from birth. Mark Montgomery, a teacher from Northern Ireland said that overexposure to technology had been linked to weight gain, aggressive behavior, tiredness and repetitive strain injury. (Daton, 2014)

5.3.3 Two and a half years old children have short sighted after a year playing iPad

In the video, it’s a news about a child that got short sighted after a year of playing iPad. The parent were being interviewed why do they give the handheld devices to their children and they answer it because of they does not want their children to stick to them and want to play with them making them unable to do anything. The news is to advice and warn the parents about the smart phone addiction issue on children because a child of age 2 and a half years old had short sightedness due to facing the iPad continuously for a year time.

Figure 2: 2 and half years old child having short sighted after facing the iPad for 1 year: https://www.facebook.com/337457076280416/videos/113472995519253/?fref=nf

5.3.4 Addiction leads to “less intelligent” children

Warned by scientist, the amount of time spent on handheld devices are damaging the children’s attention spans by their parents according to a new research and leading the children being less intelligent than the children who grows up in families that are led addicted to the modern technology. A study showed that infant’s concentrations suffer when their parent’s eye wanders away during their playtime. (King, 2016) “The ability of children to sustain attention is known as a strong indicator for later success in areas such as language acquisition, problem solving and other key cognitive development milestones.” – Professor Chen Yu, University of Indiana.

5.4 Solution

5.4.1 Best advice to parents?

The author of the book “Make Your Brain Smarter” and founder and chief director of the Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas at Dallas, Sandra Bond Chapman said that parents who are concerning about their children’s dependence on the handheld devices should embrace the technology first and not to punish them with it. Sandra suggested to the parents to challenge their children to do “interval training” that is to ask their children to do spend 30minutes doing their homework without any form of disruption from technology and after they are finished they are allowed to check on their handheld devices with the same amount of time that they spend doing their homework. (Wallace, Best advice to parents?, 2014)

5.4.2 All phones on the table—or else!

Amanda Humphreys, 19, stated that she and her friends had just realized at a diner 3months ago how addicted that peoples are to their phones. Everyone was busy posting on Facebook and playing with their phones without conversing and suddenly a friend came up with an idea to pile up all their phones and whoever touches them will have to buy them the meal for the day. She too said that the new phone policy means real conversation about real things. (Wallace, All phones on the table -- or else!, 2014)In the children’s case, the parents can pile up their devices and whoever touches them first will get punish by decreasing their time spent with their devices.

5.4.3 South Korean, prevention

The South Korea’s government is widening their effort to prevent the children in school age and preschooler using web and digital addiction. The children form age 3 to 5 will be taught to protect themselves from overusing digital gadgets and the internet. Almost a 90% of children from the age group will learn at kindergartens how they will control their exposure to digital devices and the danger for staying online for too long hours. The Ministry of Public Administration and Security is revising laws so that the teaching of the dangers of internet addiction becomes mandatory from preschool institutions to high schools. (S.Young, 2013)

5.4.4 Homotabletis

Nobody’s Children Foundation had created an awareness campaign by creating an animation about the dangers of smartphone addiction. In the animation, it explains about the problem that is the smartphone addiction happening nowadays, and then they also explain about when and how are the children addicted to the smartphone devices. The animation then explain to the parents how to lessen or benefit their children with smartphone usage, not completely cut off their usage but control. Lastly, they will tell the parents what to do to control their children’s usage of smartphone and not let them be addicted. (Anonymous, Homotabletis, 2016)

6.0 Methodology

6.1 Research

The researcher had done research on the children’s behaviour and attitude when they had and not have their handheld devices with them. Observation is also done on the children for the researcher to know more about the addiction.

6.2 Survey

The researcher had went to the kindergarten and when the permission is given for he/she to get the drawings, the researcher asked the children there to draw 3 most common things that is, human, phone, and a house.

Through the drawings later, the researcher then analyzes the drawings and from there, he/she will then find the similarity of the drawings to be created in a drawing styles to be implement into the animation and character design development.

Figure 3: Data Collection in Tadika Seni & Kreatif

Figure 4: Data Collection in 3Q MRC Sungai Chua

Figure 5: Data Collection in Tabika Perpaduan Sungai Chua (A)

6.3 Analysis

7.0 Conclusion

As a conclusion, the researcher had researched the styles of children aged 4 to 6 years old to get the drawing styles of them and then to be implement into animation at the end of the project. To get to the kindergartens, there are a few implications as it is not easy finding kindergartens which allows the researcher to go into the school during school hours. Another complication is that the children are hard to control during the drawing period as they are some children who does not listen to people and do things as they like.

References

Anonymous. (2013). The four main approaches. Retrieved from http://www.alzheimer-europe.org/Research/Understanding-dementia-research/Types-of-research/The-four-main-approaches

Anonymous. (2013). What is a case study? Retrieved from https://student.unsw.edu.au/what-case-study

Anonymous. (2016). Handheld. Retrieved from www.technopedia.com/definition/16322/handheld

Anonymous. (2016). Homotabletis. Retrieved from http://homotabletis.org/en/campaign/

Daton, G. (2014). Infants "unable to use toy building blocks" due to iPad addiction. Retrieved from Education Editor: www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10767878/Infants-unable-to-use-toy-building-blocks-due-to-iPad-addiction.html

Freeman, K. (2012). Is Your Kid Smartphone- obsessed? . Retrieved from Mashable Asia: mashable.com/2012/12/03/kids-addicted-to-tech/#FALsxx03TaqG

Kim, Y. B. (2013). Young Children in Digital Age. Retrieved from www.unce.unr.edu/publications/files/cy/2013/fs1322.pdf

King, D. (2016). Parent's smartphone addiction leads to "less intelligent" children. Retrieved from Johnson Publishing Ltd: http://www.wigantoday.net/news/local/parents-smartphone-addiction-leads-to-less-intelligent-children-1-7884222

Nordqvist, C. (2016). Addiction: Causes, Symptoms and Treatments. Retrieved from MediLexicon International. Ltd: www.medicalnewstoday.com/info/addiction

Priddy, B. (2016). The Growing Problem of Smartphone Addiction. Retrieved from www.techaddiction.ca/smartphone-addiction-problem.html

Rowan, C. (2015). 10 Reasons Why Handheld Devices Should be Banned for Children under the age of 12. Retrieved from www.huffingtonpost.com/cris-rowan/10-reasons-why-handheld-devices-should-be-banned_b_4899218.html

Rowan, C. (2015). Early Exposure to Media Violence. Retrieved from movingtolearn.ca/2015/early-exposure-to-media-violence-2

S.Young, D. K. (2013). Parenting in the Digital Age: Strategies and Prevention. Retrieved from Netaddiction.com: http://netaddiction.com/childrenonline/

Sampath, P. (2014). How Dangerous is your child's internet and smart phone addicton? Retrieved from www.thehealthsite.com/news/how-dangerous-is-your-childs-internet-and-smart-phone-addiction/

Wallace, K. (2014). All phones on the table -- or else! Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/23/living/parents-kids-addicted-cell-phones/

Wallace, K. (2014). Best advice to parents? Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/23/living/parents-kids-addicted-cell-phones/

Animation Research

Homotabletis (Animation)

Story: The explanation of homotabletis, a disease of children now faces that is the addiction of tablets given by the parents and the effects that may harm them.

Theme: children drawing with pencil strokes and colorful colors.

Movement: limited animation movement.

Q-it: safe video viewing for kids on mobile devices.

Story: The explanation of the impossibility of prevention for children to excess the internet using tablets and smartphone. In the video, they introduces the Q-it application which allows the parents to personalize the applications according to preferences and children safety.

Theme: Children drawing with limited colors using plain and striking colors.

Movement: limited animation (slide show/motion graphic)

This semester, the part 1 students of year 3 is also taking part in the Expo5e exhibition graduation showcase. For the exhibition, I had displayed the drawing from the 3 different kindergartens using perspex and only a few selected drawings are being displayed there.