In the first couple of years, infants and toddlers mainly interact with humans and their interactions with objects such as toys are always in the framework of people’s interaction.

Toddlers are very curious, they feel the need to explore, test and control everything around them. In this age and time, this includes the exploration of technology tools and interactive media.

Children of this age are drawn to push-button switches and controls. Technology tools that infants and toddlers might use must be safe, sturdy, and not easily damaged. If technology is used, it must be in the context of conversation and interactions with an adult.

According to pediatrician Dr. Sultan Al-Juhani, technology could be seen as a good and a bad weapon all at once. “Smart parents use technology as learning tools for their children, such as for teaching them how to speak a certain language, learning the numbers and alphabets,” he said. “Lazy parents would use this tool to distract their children from their daily life. Or to keep them quite while the parents would enjoy a lovely morning,” he added.

In a commentary for the journal Pediatrics, researchers at Boston University School of Medicine reviewed available types of interactive media and raised “important questions regarding their use as educational tools.”

The researchers said that though the adverse effects of television and video on very small children was well understood, society’s understanding of the impact of mobile devices on the pre-school brain has been outpaced by how much children are already using them.

The researchers warned that using a tablet or smartphone to divert a child’s attention could be detrimental to their social-emotional development. “The question is, if these tools became an important method to calm and distract toddlers and infants, how are they ever going to develop their own internal mechanisms of self-regulation?” asked Dr. Al-Juhani. “It was mentioned in the study that the use of interactive technology time for toddlers and infants could weaken the progress of the skills needed for mathematics and science, although they also said some studies suggested benefits to toddlers’ use of mobile devices including in early literacy skills, or better academic engagement in students with autism,” he added.

Nothing tops the direct interaction between young children and other humans, said the pediatrician. “As hard as it might sound, children need to spend time with their family without any of them touching their phones, tablets or computers. This is called quality time to show their toddler the real meaning of communication,” said Dr. Al-Juhani. “Those toddlers need to know their parents very well and study their facial expressions, their voice tones and their personality. With technology interfering, parents and children will never be able to communicate the way it was done back then,” he added.

The researchers pointed out that while there is plenty of expert evidence that toddlers and infants cannot get enough education from television and videos as they can from human interaction, there has been insufficient investigation into whether interactive applications on mobile devices produce a similar result.

“This study has an interesting twist, while many studies focus on how technologies might damage the child’s brain cells and the cornea, this study focuses on how smartphones and tablets could interfere with the toddler’s ability to develop empathy and problem-solving skills and elements of social interaction that are typically learned during unstructured play and communication with peers,” said Dr. Al-Juhani. “Being occupied with gadgets away from the outside world, might be a replacement to hand-on-activities that are essential for the development of sensorimotor and visual-motor skills, which are important for the learning and application of mathematics and science,” he added.

The study also shows evidence that well-researched early-learning television programs, such as Sesame Street, and electronic books and learn-to-read applications on mobile devices can help vocabulary and reading comprehension, but only once children are much closer to school age.

“I am not totally against children not playing around with technologies, I am strongly with parents monitoring the time and the quality of the app used by the toddler,” said Dr. Al-Juhani. “Parents should interact with the child using those gadgets as only education tools and not distractions,” he added.

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