In busy and fast pace Singapore, parents often encounter problems where their children are not willing to practise piano or practise poorly where they are not able to remember the location of notes for example.
From my years of experience, the real reason is due to the busy school activities and the excessive usage of electronic devices such as mobile phones, computers or even display kiosks. In a well connected country like Singapore where the local mobile penetration rate is above 100%, children will be inadvertently exposed to electronic devices.
The Straits Times has published an article detailing the study of the use of electronic devices by young children. This study done by NIE shows that most parents are not aware of the risks of excessive electronic devices usage.
My experience with teaching kids who use electronic devices excessively is line with the study NIE. The excessive use of electronic devices leads to the following symptoms:
1) Memory loss: Cannot remember the position of piano keys despite repeated and teaching the same tunes for many months, even after changing different types of music book and teaching materials. This is due to the side effects of prolonged exposure to the monitor screen. According to the latest medical research, fast moving images and lights on the screen will wear out and damage the brain cells and cause memory loss in children.
2) Lack of patience: Compared with practising piano, these activities are more fun and give instantiations results which unlike practising piano, requires them to sit in front of piano and practise the same phrases repeatedly. Such repeated and monotonous practice causes them run out of patience very soon and what follows are complains of a boring practise by the child.
3) Lack of concentration: The fast changing images on the screen especially in action games results in poor attention to detail. During a practise this results in inaccuracy of notes.
4) Poor seating postures: The child adopts a hunched back position which limits his playing fluency especially on fast passages.
I hope that parents will take note of my observations and limit screen time to children. Also parents should limit their screen time too!
