Why Every Child in America Needs an iPad

Why Every Child in America Needs an iPad:

Mike Elgan:

Everybody's asking: Are iPads healthy for children? I'm here to tell you: That's the wrong question.

The right question is this: Is the iPad a healthy replacement for TV? And I believe the answer is a resounding yes.

While the utility of any device — TV, iPad, or other — lies in the content choices made by the viewer, I like Mike's thinking. For example, all four of my sons absolutely love the BrainPOP app for iPad/iPhone. Every day features something new about music, history, culture, and so on. They'll recite facts to us that they learned in a BrainPOP episode weeks earlier.

iPad, in some ways, has become an educational replacement for time that may have been spent watching TV. That isn't to say that the other educational stuff they watch on TV (e.g. Martha Speaks and Dinosaur Train) is mind-numbing and useless. It just means iPad can be a nice alternative — or complement — to TV time.