What do the neuroscientists say?

My first book was about cognitive neuroscience, so I’m pretty hooked up in that world. The neuroscientists are of two minds. (Does that surprise you?) One group says it’s totally fine to raise children on screens; that they’ll live in a world where a palette full of acrylic paint and a big blank canvas is irrelevant — there’s an app for that, and there’s no clean-up afterwards.

But another group is worried that we’re raising children who will be familiar with only two (vision, hearing) of the five or six senses, and that they will not develop small motor skills beyond those necessary to operate a computer, or an appreciation of tactile sensation; how paint feels when it slides on to fresh canvas, how clay feels when it’s warmed and ready for sculpting, or how to make that same clay assume the shape and texture of skin or fur.

You’ve heard about the “left side and the right side” of the brain. There are indeed two hemispheres, but there’s no division of labor. The whole brain is employed in the creation of art.

What do the psychologists say?

Something happens to most kids around the time they reach puberty. They get nervous about self-expression and independent thinking. If they haven’t developed an artistic practice, they may be too worried about what others will think to chance it. They judge themselves against their peers, even when some of those peers are up to no good. Children who have established their own creative process are more likely to use their cognitive skills to think for themselves.