Last week, more than 200 experts signed a letter to a national newspaper calling for action to protect children from 'the erosion of childhood' through commercialisation and technology, and calling for a play-based curriculum for children under six in nurseries and schools.
Two of the letter's signatories have given their views to Nursery World.
Baroness Susan Greenfield, CBE, FRCP (HON)
Senior Research Fellow, Department of Pharmacology, University of Oxford (pictured)
As a neuroscientist, I'm aware of the highly sensitive adaptability of the human brain to the environment. If the brain adapts to the environment, and the environment is changing in unprecedented ways, then it is a given that the brain will change accordingly. Therefore, what concerns me is the dominance of screen technologies. It is a sadness to me that very young children are attracted to something with sound and vision that lacks smell and touch, and that there is a lack of threedimensional interaction.
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