At 11 my daughter had to access MyMaths, Doddle, and another website for homework. Two of those sites did not work on the mobile devices we owned at the time. A PC and an internet connection were required if she was to do the work and avoid detentions.
Now not all schools have similar systems, but they are becoming more popular. I suppose she could have taken the bus to the local library to use those websites if necessary, though the library computers are notoriously slow, unreliable, and prone to refusing to work well if things such as flash are required. Also, at the age of 11 it would have had to be a family outing three times a week because the area where the library is situated is shocking and I wouldn’t have had her going alone.
But yeah, tell me my then eleven year old was screen obsessed.
She’s nearly fifteen now and spends hours a day using our internet connection. She streams music from Spotify while she completes assignments for her art GCSE course, or she’ll be getting pronunciation help while she’s memorising vocab for French, she’ll sometimes look up a technique for graphics, or even order stuff for her projects on amazon too.
My autistic ten year old uses google docs to transmit work to his teacher instead of having to handwrite it, sometimes while streaming classical music or film soundtracks to his wireless headphones. That way he manages to keep up with classwork when he’s finding it hard at school and hasn’t managed to finish during the day.
My five year old lives for watching other people play games. He also lives for lego, train sets, reading, numbers, dinosaurs, cheesy pasta bake, trampolines, and a little cushion from IKEA with random arty splodges on it.
The internet isn’t the problem here. The problem is people who think the internet is in charge. It’s not. It’s a tool, and a useful one at that. I have no problem saying no to my children where needed. I also have no problem with my children utilising every resource at their disposal in order to live well.