by Jenna Wroblewski

Created on: February 21, 2009

I believe that online play dolls are not appropriate for learning and developing minds. After all, whatever happened to the word, "imagination"? All these millions of years, our developing species have gotten along just fine without the use of the Internet. Don't get my wrong, I think the Internet is a great step forward in the making of a more advanced, smart environment but little girls playing with their Pollys' or their Barbie dolls online for hours on end can be mind softening.-And body softening for that matter.-

I remember getting Barbie dolls when I was little, and babies that I could hold and mother. I could run around with them. They could be whoever i wanted them to be. They could do whatever I wanted them to do. I was using my imagination; building character if you will.

Did you know that you aren't supposed to exposed your child to a television for at least the first two years of its life? The reason being that very important growing and drastic changing and organizing of the cells goes on at that time, and infants are already exposed to much stimuli during the day, whether it be a swirling fan, lots of pretty colors, or new noises. Small kids that are set if front of a screen for hours on end get irritated eyes and brain activity in the prefrontal cortex (part of the brain located behind the forehead that is responsible for a lot of critical activities) goes down.

Picture this; Your 7 year old daughter wakes up in the morning, and after you make her breakfast, she goes on the computer. With a few taps of the keys and a click here and there, Presto! Your daughter is playing with her very own online doll. You go off and mingle around the house doing various house duties, and you look at the clock and realize it's been two hours since your daughter got onto that bloody thing. You tell her to get off and you see her eyes look a bit glazed. Not how you want your daughter looking the rest of the day right?

Accessing an account to an online doll can be done in several different ways. You can buy a doll at the store that has an access code on it that can be used to open an account on the companies website. Other websites do no require a doll, but may still have a fee. Or the website can be "scam free" if you will. But however your daughter gets her hands on a cyber doll, you will always be paying for it one way or another.

My advice to you would be to wait on letting your daughter access the Internet for all of the above reasons, or limit her time. Same to your little boys who have discovered the wonderful magic of the almighty computer. Too much of anything is a bad thing.

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