In an age in which many, many adults have smartphone and tablets and spend a lot of time using them, the same is true of many children. Even very young children are being given tablets as presents; the market for tablet apps for children has skyrocketed in recent years. Many of those apps are designed to help children, and many educators tout the educational benefits of using such technology and its software in order to augment children's learning.

But touching a screen is not gripping a pencil or a pen. That skill, once thought to be second-nature, has been found lacking in a new generation of early schoolchildren. Doctors in the U.K. are encouraging parents to help their children develop hand strength and dexterity by engaging in muscle-buildling play, such as by using building blocks and by playing more outdoors.