From the author: For a very long time I wanted to raise the topic of the harm and benefits of modern technologies for children. Write your vision of the situation. Finally matured. However, I realize that this article may cause a lot of disagreement. I am ready for a constructive dialogue. Thank you for your attention! Oh, these lamentations of psychologists, teachers, parents and grandmothers about the harm of computers, cartoons, tablet games and other things…. Honestly, I’m already sick of all this... Here and there you can hear or read something like the following: “Tablets have filled everything around. We don't mind children playing on the tablet, but only for 20 minutes a day. But it would be better to paint in a paper album with a squirrel brush and honey watercolors. You need to make people out of acorns. Let them put together puzzles, but only wooden ones, and not on a tablet. Wooden ones are cool, cool, but on a tablet it’s a complete disaster.” And who writes and says all this? People who grew up playing rubber bands, hopscotch, Cossack robbers. People who are still mostly afraid of the computer and do not know how to use its capabilities. They often say: “We had a childhood, but now what?” But why they are sure that children’s childhood has disappeared somewhere is a mystery to me. But what kind of reality are we preparing our children for with such advice? To a reality that no longer exists. And when our children grow up, in 10-15 years, reality will be something we cannot even imagine. But our task is to prepare them for the future, for the future in which they will live. All arguments in favor of paper books, wooden toys, clay tablets or dice are nothing more than an understandable reality for modern adults, and nostalgia for a bygone childhood. For example, mine Grandmother believed that children should be taught to work. Agree. But what kind of work? She prepared me for the realities of adult life, taught me to rinse clothes in a pond (we lived in a village, and this is a normal practice there). But how could she know that I wouldn’t need these skills for nothing, since the automatic machine would become my faithful assistant? She was right in her own way, she looked into the past, she was guided by her life experience and the reality in which she lived. But as it turned out, by and large she was wrong. Or here’s another sketch. Fine art is a good activity. But, for example, today there is a demand for those who can draw in Illustrator, Photoshop, Gimp, and other computer programs. And to learn this, you need time, those notorious 10,000 hours. And the sooner a child masters these programs, the more in demand and competitive he will be in the labor market in the future. I very much doubt that in 10 years there will suddenly be a sharp demand for illustrators who can draw tricks with watercolors on paper. But from all sides you can hear: “Let him learn to draw on paper, but on the computer everything is not the same, and everything is not the same”... But where can you get the skills and those same 10,000 hours if you don’t start practicing in childhood? What’s the point? am I leading everything? Moreover, there is no reliable data about the dangers of computers or cartoons, or about the benefits of wooden toys and Soviet cinema. For the simple reason that research on this topic is very difficult. To do this, you need to take 100 boys and 100 girls, of the same age, living in the same socio-economic conditions, and equal in many other parameters (we must exclude the influence of other variables). Divide these children into two groups from an early age. Allow one group to use computers and tablets to the fullest extent. And offer the other group paints, brushes, plasticine, crayons and paper books, and don’t even talk about the existence of modern technologies. And trace the life path of those and other years up to 50-80. And only then can we draw any clear conclusions. But this is impossible, you understand. And if suddenly such a study could be carried out, then the conclusions obtained 50 years later would no longer be interesting to anyone and would not be relevant. Because reality in 50 years will be new again. And!