The Big Read: Once upon a time on an iPad

Facebook postings are seldom the source of profound insights into the human condition.

Facebook is, I discovered, the place you go to post trivia from your own life ("I am feeling tired now," is one of my favourites) or to rally strangers behind your chosen cause (how about shelters for homeless mice?) or to insult and abuse anyone with an idea different from your own (try saying what you think about Pallo Jordan or Joshua Broomberg or the striking Generations actors).

But every now and again someone posts something so profound that you stop dead in your tracks to appreciate once again the promise and the perils of new technologies; such as an exceptional posting by a friend, Carole Bloch, who has devoted her life to bringing the gift of reading to children in poor communities. Bloch is the director of the Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa and drives the highly acclaimed Nal'ibali (isiXhosa for ''here's the story") Reading-for-Enjoyment Campaign.

With her permission, I publish her story because it is so wonderfully observed and so clearly written, but also to point to the real dangers posed by technologies to human(e) interaction, lived community, physical activity, healthy nutrition and of course that broader education that cannot be read off a touchscreen.

This is not a case against technology but for balance and wisdom in how we use these devices to enhance rather than inhibit human relations.

At a restaurant this evening, at the table next to us I watched a two-year-old boy, in his pushchair, busy on an iPad when we arrived at 6.15. I found it fascinating, and was not the best of company myself as I zoned into what he was doing, having a good full-on view. Three adults were with him, two women and one man. Not once, in the about 80 minutes we were there, did he look up from the screen, nor did anyone talk to him. NOT ONCE.

When their food came, at intervals (quite long), a forkful of food zoomed into his orbit, or the spout of a drinking cup was placed between his lips. He resisted each time, and then took the offerings, but not taking his eye from iPad land. He first watched a cartoon, and then a series of alphabet or shape recognition and matching "games", and a counting game.

I noticed how masterfully he handled the screen, just the right pressure, using both forefingers, intentionally swiping sideways when he was choosing between images and dabbing at or dragging images... and he knew which tabs to press to get the most effect quickly, so used the HELP tab, and the return to main screen button (what is that circular indented thing called?).

He was learning skills, he was totally riveted, by the movement, colour, the "magic" of it all... but I felt alarmed by the way it controlled him. He responded to iPad cues and selected from a restricted set of choices each time, and he was mesmerised... even when he visibly started growing tired, he never made contact with or demanded anything of the adults. Though every now and then he squealed when something satisfied him, only at one point did one of the women look up and at him, and smiled. I think they made eye contact then. I wondered about three things:

• Pretty low-level skills practice was keeping him glued, no story-type activities. It disturbed me that I couldn't work out what he could be imagining, pretending, playing - he didn't seem to be, there was no murmuring to self one sees when a child gets caught up in play, with a story or toy;
• How will the parents stop him from becoming addicted as he gets older? ("Heaven help them," was my thought); and
• How abnormal is it for a two-year-old not to want to engage with the adults, make demands, cuddle up, request, show... something!

And yet, I thought, for the adults, it was allowing them an evening to talk to one another. Maybe this was something that only happens once in a while, and most evenings he cuddles up with a somebody and a book, and falls asleep to the sound of a rhyme or a story... somehow I doubt it.