Aleasa Word reflects on the high dependence we have on technology and its impact on kids
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Last night I got to thinking about the lives my children ages 24, 13 & 11 have lived. My 24 old was around when we still had cassette tapes, floppy disks and projection televisions. The two younger kids on the other hand were brought up in the era of “microwaveable life.”
One day I remember cleaning out an old box of stuff after I’d moved and found a 3.5 floppy disk. My 13 year old said “what’s that thing?” As I looked at him, it dawned on me they didn’t know anything other than cd’s and flash drives. We had a discussion about things that were pre-microwave era. As I picked my face up off the ground when they asked if I remembered when televisions were invented (way before my time) I laughed at the concept of time kids sometimes don’t have. I was also saddened realizing that they never knew life when we warmed up meals in the oven, used typewriters or made most of our toys out of left over cardboard paper towel holders.
Today’s kids idea of toys are all video or computer based. Have you ever wondered what would happen if we no longer had computers, flat screen televisions or video games? What about at fast food restaurants? How would employees react if the computer units went down and they had to ring up cash like in the old days with a traditional cash register?
Technology is great but many of us have become too dependent on technologies that often fail and have been hacked on a large scale as in the case of store databases where credit card information has been stolen. But, what about our kids? Are they behind so many screens with pc’s, iPads, smart phones and games that they have no real sense of reality? Are their social skills as in tact as they would be if they weren’t part of this microwave era? Doctors everywhere advise no more than 2 hours per day of screen time for kids. Parents walk in to the office confirming they limit viewing to 2 hours or less knowing they’re usually not telling the truth…but why are you afraid to tell the truth? Deep down do we feel like we are bad parents because we allow the video/pc world to babysit our kids because we’re just too exhausted to do things like play board games and put together puzzles like when I was a kid?
For stay at home parents, their kids usually get more creative time but what about us outside of the house worker bees fighting the long day at the office and the intense commutes that go with them? Are we terrible if we give them a few more hours while we unwind to get ready to make dinner and check homework when our brains worn out from the workday? The guilt today’s parents feel is sad because we try to balance everything but never seem to quite get it right according to society’s standards.
I take my hat off to any parent raising a child in this world full of violence and economic troubles. While we continue to move forward trying to be a better nation, I challenge you to prepare your kids for real life. Prepare them just in case the computer dies and they actually have to do something like cook, clean, talk to their friends, learn from a hard cover book or some other boring thing some of us older people still look at as normal.
Photo: Jessica Mullen/flickr
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