Last Sunday, the New York Times ran a piece about how smart phones are destroying the next generation. I always find it interesting that it’s always the next generation that’s being destroyed, but the generation writing think pieces about that destruction have always been mercifully spared. While the article does note that parents are as addicted to technology as their children are, it swiftly moves on to discussing the myriad ways teens aren’t communicating correctly.
I could mock this piece by scrounging up anecdotes about similar changes in technology that lead to dire warnings of societal collapse. There are plenty of examples: the internet. The telephone. The novel. I’m sure that even the harnessing of fire was criticized as a civilization ender, with middle-aged cave people lamenting the good old days when everyone lived in mortal dread of being eaten by a bear in the dark. But we don’t have to reach so far back for this one; smart phones and social media are providing all of us–not just the doomed “next generation”–with a level of connectivity to our fellow humans that we’ve never experienced before, and it’s all become possible in a very short span of years. All of us, even those who are writing disparaging think pieces, remember a time we would now consider unbearable. In the movie Hot Tub Time Machine, a teenager who mysteriously finds himself trapped in 1985 is astounded when a girl reminds him that there’s no way to text or email her. If he wants to talk to her, she explains, he has to come and find her. His response? “That sounds exhausting.”
And it was exhausting. And boring. And isolating. I grew up in a rural area, in a house where I was the only child. If the school year ended and I didn’t have a friend’s phone number, I didn’t speak to them until September–an interminable wait when you’re young and time seems so much longer. If I wanted to meet with my friends and spend time, the arrangements were contingent upon whether or not our parents had the means or inclination to get us into the same place at once. With no neighbor children to play with, summers could be very lonely.
My son, however, never spends his summers alone. Though he can’t always be with his friends in person, they gather online via Skype to play Minecraft or watch “let’s play” videos together on YouTube. They talk and they giggle and socialize, and some of them are doing this with the aid of smart phones.
Those lonely summers I spent might have been less lonely if we’d had smart phones. I could have texted or emailed my friends, rather than having to work up the courage to call them. To this day, I have debilitating phone anxiety that makes a single phone call an all day project as I sit and talk myself into dialing the number. I could have had long conversations via Facebook messenger, seen pictures from their summer vacations and shared my own. And failing all that, I could have downloaded books, rather than waiting for a weekly trip to the library.
I don’t begrudge my children the technology that provides them an adolescence filled with more conveniences than I had in mine. Will they grow up differently than I did? Of course they will, but every advance changes our way of life. That’s the point of advancement. We strive for change, but fear it when it arrives. Since we don’t want to blame ourselves for causing it, we resent the next generation for using the tools we’ve created for them.
Maybe kids these days don’t communicate the way kids did twenty years ago. Maybe it’s making them different. But kids twenty years before that were different, too. Our luddite insistence that any behavioral change caused by technology will spin us into a grim dystopia foretold in 1950’s science fiction novels proves that the only true constant is the human ego. Because how can the next generation possibly thrive or surpass us unless they duplicate our experiences exactly?
My smartphone is essential while my fiancé is in the UK for a year. We BBM each other little inside jokes whenever they occur to us. Nothing gives me that feeling of constant connection more.
Honestly, I think it comes down to parenting. My fiance doesn’t get to see his daughter often because she lives with her mother a 12-hour drive (or very expensive flight) away. But we have her in the summer, and she literally never takes her face out of her phone the entire time she’s with us.
We were at freaking Disneyworld and her phone was 2 inches from her face at all times. So I told the fiance he’s her father and he has the option to tell her to put it away or take it away from her until a more appropriate time. And he did for about five minutes, during which time she pouted and made faces and he felt bad, so gave it back.
That’s where smart phones bother me. And I have a love/hate relationship with mine because while the convenience and connectivity are fantastic, I also turn to it rather than doing something more productive when I’m bored. And I always feel a little hungover after too much screen time, but I can’t always make myself stop.
Everything has pros and cons. Even fire — it could kill you! People just need to take more control. I wasn’t allowed to read a book at the dinner table, but people don’t think twice about being on their phones and ignoring those right in front of them. In my circle, at least, this seems to be more an issue with teens than adults. If I’m with a group of friends or family (doing something other than vegging on the couch), we don’t generally have our phones out unless there’s a specific purpose.
Could it be that your fiance’s daughter really doesn’t want to be there with the two of you and would much rather be with her mother, where she consider’s it to be home? I know it sounds harsh but teenagers can take a disliking to people they fell are intruding in their lives.
Nah. Her mother says she does the same at home. And she’s constantly telling us how she prefers being down here because we actually do things and go places when her mother and stepfather never do.
She actually has been begging to come live with us, but he doesn’t like the school system here, so he won’t let her.
I’ve been around for 10 years, so it isn’t like this is a new situation. She’s just 15 (well, 16 in a week!) and wants to “be with” her friends. It’s normal. But that’s why we have parents, to set limits and rules about things like that. He’s just afraid to because he can’t deal with the temporary unpleasantness. And her grandfather was also with us at the time.
I would say she’s probably feeling a little ‘too cool’ for Disneyworld and would probably rather be there with her friends. Hence being stuck to her phone, but she was probably telling them all about being there. I think we forget how much our lives revolve around other people/social circles at school once we’ve been removed from the equation for a while, especially since there is a lot of romanticism regarding ‘the high school experience’. The internet was just becoming an everyday thing when I was in middle school so there was a lot of evolution during my HS years with technology and basically as soon as we could we became even more wrapped up in each other’s lives because of technology. Which compared to the interminable waiting between summers of our elementary era, as Jenny mentioned, was amazing and of course we never looked back because why would you want to.
I do agree with the parenting part–as someone who’s just 27 (with younger siblings and cousins), some of us have to be disciplined not to keep our faces turned to our game boys and nokias because ‘it’s the polite thing to do’. I remember being 11 and when I visited my grandma in the US, and I made the mistake of binge-watching cartoons instead of making the most of the time with my grandmother (who I haven’t seen since I was 4 at that time). I didn’t even realize that I was doing it until my dad took me to one side and scolded me and saying that I was being selfish to my grandma (who I really like), and that seriously shocked me into realizing how much I was ignoring my family (proof that I wasn’t the most observant kid ever). Because I lived in a country overseas that didn’t have a lot of options for kid shows (and my fave shows were all pirated vhs copies, because in Bahrain, you can find kickass stores that sell pirated movies and tv episodes from the 1940s to present day), I accidentally got myself sucked into watching all the shows that I missed out. So since then, I still get haunted by that day (and I still get really embarrassed about it).
So maybe she just hasn’t realised how much time she’s been spending on the phone? When we went to Magical Kingdom, my sister was kind of like that (instead of being with a phone or video game, she just tried to hide or not interact with anything), but it turned out that she was half-terrified of the crowds and didn’t know how to interact with an ‘obviously’ fake park. So maybe your fiance’s daughter was a bit embarrassed and didn’t know that she could indulge her inner-kid while still ‘be her age’. (Though, she might be a kill-joy. My brother has no idea what’s the ‘point’ of liking immature things, and even without his phone, he tends to mentally close himself off from people and just act like he’s wandering around on his own. We kept scolding and grounding him off technology, but now that he’s in his early 20s we just gave up and decided to wait until he realises what he missed out. )
Oh, I’m not saying her behavior was bad or abnormal. That’s why we have parents! lol
The issue was more that her father allowed it (even though he was unhappy about it) because he was afraid to say no. There was no reason he couldn’t have held the phone while we were there and then given it to her later when we were back relaxing at the hotel. It’s all about appropriate boundaries with technology (and other things — like I said, I wasn’t allowed to read at the dinner table when I was a kid, but I sure tried!).
The funny thing is that her battery died from so much use. The charger was in my car, which was parked pretty far out in the parking lot. Fiance’s father is a retiree, so we get into the parks free and get to park for free as long as he’s with us. he’d gone home and we wanted to go back to the hotel for a bit, then come back until close. We decided to leave the car and take the Monorail so we didn’t have to deal with the crowds at closing. So, he was getting what he wanted (the phone took care of itself and he wasn’t the bad guy), but then he suggested we should walk out to the car and get the charger! Even his daughter wasn’t p to that and she ended up being phoneless the rest of the day and evening. She has a iPhone and he and I both have Droids, so she couldn’t use our chargers.
He just has this “not around enough” guilt going on and she knows how to exploit it. Again, normal behavior for her, but kind of bad parenting on his part. it’s tough to watch sometimes.
I 100% love this! I pulled my 13 year old daughter out of school last year to homeschool largely due to the negative social impact of being around cruel teenagers all day (she has Aspergers syndrome) when I did that I worried about her social life. But thanks to her smartphone and the internet she is able to surround herself with positive social interactions among her friends on a daily basis. They chat on the phone, via text or online literally every day but because she’s in control she has the ability to simply log off if someone is bothering her, something that was impossible in the classroom.
I do feel a little old and grumpy when I see young children at a restaurant completely absorbed in their devices for the entire meal. WHEN I WAS THEIR AGE my parents had no choice but to talk to and entertain us, and as a result, we learned how to behave at a restaurant and in social situations. I feel like a lot of parents do use devices as a crutch (in the same way that I’m sure people of my parents’ generation used the television as a crutch) to avoid their kids “making a scene” or to get them out of their hair lest they become an inconvenience.
I grew up with a computer, a Gameboy, and later, the internet, but there were always boundaries in place. I could only play video games for an hour. Only two episodes of a TV show. No computer at all if I was grounded (I certainly didn’t have my own: we had one family computer, and my dad would connect the ol’ dial-up for my siblings and me every time because we were not allowed to know the password). Etc. I think the pitfalls with new technology are that the people using them have to figure out what appropriate boundaries are, and they have to evolve along with the technology. Tablets can be great for children, but just like anything, children don’t have the judgement to know when enough is enough.
I used to be a nanny for a three-year-old, and he pitched an absolute fit the first time I turned off the TV and suggested we play Legos instead. It rocked his little world not to have a TV on at all times, which seemed completely normal to me.
I also used to work in a pediatric office for children with developmental delays, and in some instances, tablets worked miracles as assistive devices and teaching tools.
TL;DR I don’t think technology is “ruining” a generation. I do think a good conversation could be had about how to use it wisely and constructively. (I FEEL YOU ON THE PHONE CALL ANXIETY, THO. HOLY SHIT I HATE TALKING ON THE PHONE.)
OMG. I hate talking on the phone, too. It isn’t anxiety. I just don’t enjoy it at all. But the funny thing is, I didn’t mind it until I had the option to avoid it. Before email, texting and Facebook, I loved talking on the phone!
When we went out for dinner when I was an itty bitty, my parents would bring colouring books or even just a notebook and pen to give me something to do. I’d rather see kids on phones than running around screaming at the top of their lungs because their parents have been sitting around talking for an hour.
That’s what my parents did too. Also we always allowed reading during meals (provided you were responsible and didn’t mess up the book with food), so staying quiet in public and at home were pretty simple.
@ Stormy: I too had limits on my time with technology. One movie per day on a Friday or weekend and an hour or so of computer games (which were educational and I loved learning). The rest of the time I had books, toys, drawing materials, outdoor playset if the weather was nice, etc. Boredom was not something I permitted myself as a child, so if I exhausted my computer and TV time I went with my other options. Heck, some days I’d be so caught up in drawing or playing that I’d forget I was allowed a movie that day! I’m actually really glad for it. Some of the adventures I had with my toys would put Andy from Toy Story to shame, and I still draw to this day as a means of creative release.
I concur that limits are what needs to be sussed out, in accordance to individual users. If a child is using the computer or device as their primary social or educational tool, then I believe greater time allowances should be made. Even then, they ought to be encouraged to unplug regularly. If for nothing else to avoid the screen eye strain!
I think there’s a certain amount of unrealistic expectations going on, really. Adults take more then, say, 10 minutes to eat meals, generally. Kids have much smaller stomachs, which means they’re done much faster. Add in wait time, and you have a LOT of time that you’re expecting a kid to sit still with nothing to do.
And, frankly, a lot of adults just aren’t that interesting! XD Most kids aren’t going to be entertained by a parent eating for an hour, you know? Yes, you need to teach your kids to behave properly in restaurants, but they’re not magically gonna have ridiculously long attention spans. Adults, even when not on phones, read what’s available, doodle, play with salt/sugar packets. And part of restaurant manners is being considerate of others, isn’t it? Others don’t want to hear your bored-to-literal-tears child while you’re ignoring them talking to your friend.
And that rant probably made no sense.
Your rant made perfect sense to me. My mom never let me bring a book or anything with when we went to visit family (most of whom, even my cousins, were adults) or a restaurant. I also was an only child and so had no one to socialize with at all while the grownups sat and talked (and, up until I was 10, the grownups also would sit and puff on a cigarette and drink a cup of coffee for about an hour after every meal). So I sat and lapsed into some kind of catatonic state while waiting to leave every time.
Once I was an adult I asked what was up with that. She said “I thought it was important that you know how to entertain yourself.”
I pointed out that, for most adults, reading a book quietly is entertaining themselves. The alternative to “entertaining yourself” is “having another person entertain you,” not “reading a book quietly.”
@Pepper — One of the things I’m so grateful for in my extended family is the adults didn’t treat children as lesser. There was no need for those things, for the most part, because they included children in their conversations in circumstances like that.
I was also an only child. Sometimes there were cousins or my parents’ friends’ kids around. But if there weren’t, I just hung with the grown-ups.
I was allowed to have a book or some other activity (WAY before smart phones!) except at the dinner table, though, if I wanted it. When I was smaller, I just colored with whatever the restaurant provided. As a pre-teen and teen, though, it was a different story.
With my daughter, until she was 6 or 7, I just had to give up on going out to dinner. She wouldn’t sit still no matter what she had in front of her!
@Stormy, I grew up with time limits on technology use too. I feel like that’s what’s lacking now: boundaries and limits. The devices themselves aren’t a problem, but the way people use them is. My mom’s friend has a five-year-old daughter who is either in front of a TV or in front of her mother’s smart phone playing games on it. Kids don’t need that much screen time. She’s only five! She doesn’t need that much screen time and it can’t be good for her. I’m 28 and it’s not good for me either. If I don’t take adequate breaks from my laptop, my eyes feel sore and dry. I even have to set limits and work on my novels sometimes the old fashion way (pen and paper) and then type that up later. It’s just that it’s important to take care of your eyes and that’s why limiting screen time should be taken seriously, especially at a young age.
I’m inclined to think that the problem isn’t smart phones per se, but that we haven’t developed any strong social etiquette around mobile devices yet, with the result that nobody has any manners at all relative to the things. Or our manners are reversed from “normal,” i.e., that you pay attention to the people you’re with. Instead, the current belief seems to be that the people on your phone are more important than the people you’re actually facing.
At the risk of sounding like a geezerly curmudgeon, when I was a kid, we did not answer the house telephone during dinner — never, ever, no no no. And this was back before answering machines, even, so you knew nothing about who had called or what they wanted. “If it’s important, they’ll call back,” my mother said, and it generally seemed to be true. Now, if I go to dinner with friends, everyone is checking their phones all the time — grandparents, parents, kids; age makes no difference. (So as you say, Jen, I don’t think it’s just the next generation being ruined!)
I’ve been struck by the kids in this NYT article and other similar pieces who complain that their parents never put their phones down, and who assert they’ll have better control themselves when they have kids.
A few common social expectations would go a long way with mobile phones. We just don’t seem to have gotten there yet.
Exactly this! I have nothing against smart phones I use mine a lot and with traveling for work, it’s been amazing and prevented me from getting lost in unfamiliar cities. However, some people haven’t developed control over their usage. I’ve seen even friends of mine, in the middle of dinner, grab it to answer a text. Why is that necessary? It’s dinner. If I can’t bury my face in a book, then the same rule should apply to phones. The first time one of my friends got an iPhone, she spent half of our get together (we only see each other 2-3 times a year) on it just playing with her game apps. That’s just rude and people need to work on their smart phone etiquette. So many people need to learn that just because technology makes communication easier and instantaneous, it doesn’t mean that some of us live on our phones. When I’m working on a novel, I turn it off and plug it into a charger, but then I get so many messages asking why I didn’t respond and what happened to me. I don’t get why instant response is expected nowadays.
I have taken to telling people when I give them my phone number that they shouldn’t expect me to text them back immediately as I regularly just don’t have my phone with me (I’ve been known to leave it upstairs while I’m downstairs, forget to turn the sound back on, put it in the charger and forget about it completely, etc. etc.) Plus, I don’t take it with me when I go for a walk or go to see my family. I’m not picking it up or checking a message when I’m in the middle of something. 99.9 percent of it can wait.
I just don’t like the feeling of constantly having to be ‘available.’
I just don’t like the feeling of constantly having to be ‘available.’
This. I feel no compunction about not answering a message right away unless someone I know if having a crisis or I’m expecting a call. Luckily I have a bunch of introverts for friends (I am not one of them) and we’re all very used to each others’ required “introverting” days or simple disinterest in being on a computer/phone.
Me too! Even when I tell someone that the best way of contacting me is my cell, I always have to throw in that I don’t have it with me at all times (I keep mine in my purse so if I don’t have my purse with me…). The urge to pick up the phone and look at texts, emails, etc, is so Pavlovian – I have to turn off alerts or remove the device from my person/immediate vicinity to avoid being distracted.
I feel old. I didn’t live in a rural area but didn’t have a lot of opportunity to necessarily hang out with my best friend and I hate the phone. We wrote letters back and forth for years.
This technology is giving our children so many advantages that the negatives are far outweighed. I’m a recruiter in the tech industry, and almost all of my recruiting is done online and via electronic methods. Kids know all about what needs to be done to apply to jobs online, and it’s the current generation and older who need to take classes at the library (I’ve taught them myself) of how to search and apply for jobs online. The days of typing a resume and walking it around town are long gone and that’s a good thing.
I didn’t bother finishing the article in that link because it annoyed me so much. All this stuff about how to behave in social situations and the “rule of three” really irked me. Good rule on the surface, but if you are autistic like me or otherwise find social interaction difficult and exhausting, it’s impossible to implement such rules. In any social gathering of more than three people, I invariably end up sitting in silence as other people converse apparently effortlessly, my attempts to add to them going completely unheard. If I don’t have my phone to pick up and play with, I feel like everyone in the room can see how freaking awkward I feel.
Oh yeah, and this: “To this day, I have debilitating phone anxiety that makes a single phone call an all day project as I sit and talk myself into dialing the number.” I totally have this, exactly this. I’m about the same age as Jenny give or take a year or two, and had similar experiences with having to stay in touch with people the hard way when I was a kid. Interesting. I even used to fantasise about a magical way of getting messages to people, which we now call texting 🙂
I was reading an article the other day about how they are finding that children these days have fewer friends. This isn’t a bad thing though because they have stronger more genuine friendships with the ones they do have. They are no longer limited to being friends with whoever is closest to them. They can now reach out and find friends who are more like them and understand them better.
I think it’s possible to acknowledge the harm smart phones and over-connectivity can cause while still acknowledging the vast good. We all know smart phones, social media, and the Internet in general are incredibly addictive. That addiction changes our brain in measurable ways, and some of those ways are not so great. There are a thousand articles and studies out there about it that i won’t attempt to reiterate here (although this NYT piece is one of my favorites), but I have seen the enormous effects that connectivity has had on my own mental health. I for sure have experienced the “third-day syndrome” that the article I provided describes when I can manage to unplug for three or more days, especially if I spend a lot more time in nature. I have ADHD and fairly serious anxiety, both social and generalized, and all those symptoms disappear almost *entirely,* even without medication, if I can manage to take several days away from the Internet. It kind of blows my mind. The less connected I am, the healthier my brain is. Unfortunately modern life makes unplugging entirely an impractical thing to do too often. I tried to give up facebook for a while and found myself utterly out of the loop socially. Furthermore, there is a fundamental, qualitative difference between the interactions I have with people in person and the interactions I have online. Not only are people just generally more polite in person (or on the phone), but I often feel unmoored by not being able to read people’s expressions and subtle body language, and I don’t feel nearly as soothed or energized by talking to loved ones through a screen vs in person. None of this is to say the Internet and smart phones aren’t worth it, although for my own health i proudly stick by my dumb phone, complete with texting keyboard! It’s also not to say that the obvious world-changing benefits aren’t exactly as profound as they seem. But just because it provides great things doesn’t mean it can’t also hurt us, and I think the more honest we are about that, the better equipped we’ll be to find effective ways of mitigating those negative effects.
That said, I have a moderately serious talking-on-the-phone phobia and I think texting is the very best invention. The very best. My voice mail box has been full for about… 3 years now? Haha. If it’s important, they will text or email!
Before I was born my parents had a computer (Commodore 64), so I grew up playing that and others, and when I was 14 my mother bought me our first desktop PC. Now we have several computers and tablets, and I have a smartphone. I do anything I can do avoid using phones, so computers etc. are brilliant for me.
Arguably, I’d say the problem isn’t with kids using smartphones and computers (though I’d also say there’s a time and a place, and in the classroom probably isn’t one, if only because of the high likelihood of bullying for having the ‘wrong’ one/not having one at all), but the problem is their parents. Working from home, I see a lot of parents pass by with their kids, and the kids are always on scooters or running around or with friends (and mysteriously enough not using phones), and their parents are, invariably, glued to their phones.
When going to the shop, I’ve had to be particularly careful* with not running over very small (2-4 year old) children who’ve run almost a whole street away from their parents and have no concept of things like cars reversing from drives (and why would they?), because their parents are so absorbed in their phones they could not care less about their child. They meander down the street with their screens inches from their face, completely ignoring their child. But you can guarantee that when their kids are older and are similarly glued to their phones, these parents will complain their kids are ignoring them–when they’ve been ignoring their kids since they were toddlers.
Phones and computers are brilliant, they enable children to make friends and discover hobbies and talents they’d never even consider normally, and I love that. These so-called-adults complaining never seem to think about it. But then, the most vocal of them never seem to consider leading by example either.
*Disclaimer: I’m careful anyway, I’d sooner not run someone over, but very small children manage to cover every blind spot a car has.
I have a love/hate relationship with technology. I’m a Gen X’er and I’m glad to remember a time before answering machines. I had an Odyssey (not an Atari) and learned typing on those early DOS machines.
Now, I use computers all the time, I play video games daily, I have an eReader, a tablet and a smart phone. Technology aplenty. But I also know what it’s like to let the hours drift away on one of these many faces of technology instead of doing something away from a screen. I don’t indulge so much in my art or my drawing or crafting hobbies or even reading a paperback.
It makes me panic a little to think of how much of my life is spent online or on a computer. The genie is out of the bottle, there’s no going back. My husband is a computer programmer and technophile so we’re on opposite ends. He looks forward to future enmeshing with technology while I’m wary of losing humanity.
I think when people get these ideas about ‘tech ruining the world’ I think it’s because they’ve had bad experiences like parents who aren’t watching their kids like they should (seriously I have seen on more than three occasions a young child nearly taking a head dive out of a cart because they are free range in the basket and their parent is on the phone, and there was that one time I told this dad not to let his kids play on the shelves while he was on his phone and then he came after me and bitched about not telling him how to raise his children so fuck those people, but that’s another gripe entirely I guess). However, arguably they could probably commit the same mistake when they run into their friends at the store or are looking at their grocery list or something (I mean just because you are on your phone doesn’t mean you are checking FB/Twitter, thank god for iPhone reminders or I would never remember anything). So like trust me I understand that.
Honestly, I think the worst thing is when people are talking on their phone or texting and they are in the checkout line and not paying attention. Right after those freaking coupon people that is. Get off your damn phone, get your shit, and get out of my way. Also anyone that stands in line and is like, “Just one minute I’m texting Shelly and Mike and they don’t know what they want yet -lol-,” is getting up there on the list of people I would wish get hit by buses. If you want to talk about that kind of etiquette/frustration then yes let’s do it because it’s rude to the people in line behind you, it’s rude to the worker that may not necessarily have a whole team of people available to make your order (I work at a Starbucks inside a regular, very not-super Target and I am by myself A LOT and this stuff kills me and makes my line a mile long), and in general it’s just a shitty thing to do. That is honestly my only gripe.
Otherwise I am a huge fan of technology and connectivity. Also anything that keeps children quiet. While I understand there are concerns around exposing children to too much stuff on the other hand I can’t judge when I don’t have children and there is nothing openly wrong with letting them play learning games on the iPad. Not to mention there is a lot of hot air regarding “parenting the right way” and dissing parents who don’t which is generally tied up in classism if not more ‘isms’ so that’s a barrel of fish best left for a different, more pertinent blog post. Limits are good but that only goes so far especially once they are into their teens. I feel pretty okay about not being active on facebook/twitter/whatever because I was already over eighteen when it really took off so I think the important take away there might be to reinforce to people that you don’t have to live a life entirely online or you can choose a community that best fits you and stick to that one. I think that is a way better approach than trying to tell them social interaction rots their brain at least.
Anyway I wanted to write more, but I gotta go. So if any thoughts are left unfinished I was in a rush, sorry, haha.
I’m a speech therapist and it is a huge pet peeve of mine when people complain to me about how “those teens don’t know how to talk anymore because of texting/facebook/internet” or whatever technology the speaker is fearing that day. Lexicon, syntax, and communication in general is constantly evolving and it has yet to fatally erode the fabric of the universe. Aziz Ansari’s new book, Modern Romance, actually has excellent research-based information on how texting and online interactions have changed the quality and quantity of our interactions… and it’s alllllll okaaaaaaay.
Generally, I’m with you, Jenny. (And I have a phone phobia, too–it used to be a whole-day thing for me, too, but fortunately a little better now. ) But…in one of the studies* linked in the disparaging article, I found this:
“[O]ptimizing a software interface to better support vigilant usage requires an opposing set of considerations when compared to traditional consumer product design.”
And now I’m having nihilistic dread, because what I *think* this is saying is that the whole point of the study is to help design apps that encourage vigilant checking, rather than make life easier. Sure, I’m aware this is already part of the point of app design. But what really creeps me out is how disguised this motive is in the study’s abstract, and how that covertness allowed the NYT writer to misinterpret the study as trying to find ways to “release us” from technology.
I’m on-board with technology. I’m not as into subtly-worded but deliberate attempts to make people waste their time. (Full disclosure: I can’t say for sure this is the entire point of the study. I only read the abstract–someone who’s in a university and already has access to these kinds of databases can go look at it in depth if desired, because I’m not spending $15 on this. 🙂 )
*Not sure I can put links here–in the NYT article, go to (or ctrl + F) “release us” hyperlinked words.
Not demonizing new technology, plus teaching our kids healthy boundaries?
Now THAT’S exhausting! (but it does make sense)
I think some of the hate also has to deal with the sanctimommy culture. I love my kids, but I do not like playing with them or teaching them to color or whatever. Its why I teach 6th grade and not kindergarten. Now that my son is older we play video games together which bonds us. For me, it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t have a smart phone, I would be reading either with a book or my phone and “ignoring” my children.
I feel like people think we should be constantly interacting with others. I am socially awkward so I hate small talk and talking to other adults (another reason I teach kids). Not everyone wants to talk to other people face to face. I also have a similar experience to you Jenny. I was an only child and lonely a lot of the time.
I think it has really good and bad sides, but I really worry about the bad. I’ve seen plenty of kids AND adults glued to their phone. I had a friend who kept playing bubble witch while we were all hanging out, and when I said something about it she put it away. Within five minutes she was playing again and when I mentioned it she was surprised, she hadn’t even really noticed she did that. She wasn’t engaged with her surroundings either. I know I can easily grab my phone and stare at it all day, so I don’t have internet on it.
The things they can access are very often not ok, the laws are primitive compared to whats released on the market and used by children as well. I worry about technology a lot. It can be great, but it’s very addictive. I absolutely hate how often I am in a room with about 10 people, where most of them are involved with their phones most of the time. My sister in law has two kids, every time I see them they’re playing with phones, Ipads or watching tv. They are obese, have had health warnings from the school, and don’t really do ‘old school playing’. I have noticed hardly any children playing outside anymore the last few years, and I live in a big city. And when I do see kids they are very often holding a device of some sort. A lot of this comes down to parenting, and choices made by people. But I can’t believe more people aren’t worried.
I hate that banks and governments and schools are making it almost impossible for me to choose not to participate in all these technological achievements. I see my stepfather struggle so much with having to use computers and phones for everything. When I went to volunteer a couple years ago in a place that had no internet and tv, and where I didn’t really need a phone, I thought I would go crazy. But I didn’t miss it at all, I actually felt better than ever. I worked outside a lot, and when I worked inside it was in fun workshops. I had struggled with depression for 10 years and that pretty much disappeared, my overall health improved and I looked a lot better. I love FB and whatsapp because I can stay in touch with people who live far away a lot easier, but I only check those about once a day. Games can be fun and relaxing, but staring at a screen for hours fries my brain and my body. I can actually feel my eyes hurt. I guess I’m just really worried it’s going to be even more harmful than people think.
“I have noticed hardly any children playing outside anymore the last few years, and I live in a big city.”
This is less of a technology issue than a 24-hour news cycle issue. The actual incidents of stranger abductions of children has remained steady for decades. But now it almost always makes the news because they have to fill time, so people think the world is far more dangerous for children and no longer let them just go outside and play and enjoy themselves and be independent. It’s been going on a long time. My daughter turns 21 today and it was like that when she was little. Thankfully, we had a few neighbors who weren’t so paranoid so she was able to have that experience, but most parents were overly cautious.
I actually had a woman tell me she wouldn’t even allow her child to play in her bedroom upstairs unless Mom was right there supervising the entire time. And I see a bit of narcissism in that because parents often can’t see their children as individuals, but only as extensions of themselves. But that’s a whole other conversation. 🙂
One thing I do really love about technology, though, is that it’s allowed me to find people I’d lost touch with over the years, but always missed. One person in particular has a super common name so there was no way I’d ever have found her, but she found me on Facebook. My daughter has maintained a friendship with the girls she’s considered her best friend since they were toddlers, even though they have lived on opposite sides of the country most of their teenage years. And I use social media to enhance real life friendships. We plan parties on Facebook (easy to invite everyone at once and give out important information). A group of local friends and I have a group on there to plan a walk/jog/whatever thing at least once every week. We can go on and say what time and where we’re meeting since we like to change it up. So it helps me with the real-life stuff, too.
I think balance is the key. And I realize people with social anxiety or autism/Asperger’s, etc., have different needs and issues and it doesn’t apply across the board. But barring those specific barriers, it is sad to me when people get together in person and spend all their time staring at their phones. I’ve been lucky that my social group doesn’t really do that, though that makes me wonder if it really is such a widespread problem.
Agreed on all counts. A primary reason no kids play outside is b/c parents are more aware of dangers posed by the world, even though these dangers are less than they were even a couple decades ago (crime rates continue to drop everywhere in the US for the most part). When I was a kid in the 90s, we would play outside in our cul-de-sac all day every day each summer and only come home for meals. Now, kids in that same neighborhood never venture outside – and it’s just as safe, if not safer, than it ever was – because their parents don’t want them playing outside “unsupervised” (this is what they tell their parents). Like, you can’t blame kids for staring at screens when you won’t let them outside by themselves after the age of 8!
Compounding the fact that parents (myself included, as I have a 10 year old and an 8 year old) don’t let kids outside to play on their own due to perceived societal dangers is the very real possibility of being reported to CPS for letting your kid be unsupervised.
We have recently started allowing my eldest to remain by himself at home when we go on grocery trips because he has finally shown that he has the maturity to do so. I don’t let him out in the front yard alone because I have to constantly get onto him about looking for traffic and situational awareness, but he gets kicked out to the back yard all the time.
I don’t think it is necessarily a bad thing that kids have more screen time these days, so long as they are getting some exercise in as well. Interacting with technology at a young age will only help them as they mature, because our society is no longer one that can ignore technology.
But why are people being reported to CPS for allowing their (age-appropriate, of course, not toddlers) children to go outside and play without adult supervision? It’s a chicken/egg thing. But people weren’t being reported to CPS for that when my daughter was young and this was an issue then.
And of course, individual children may not have the maturity or sense to be able to be left alone, but I don’t think most are in that category. We played in the street as kids. I lived on a one-way, not very busy street. But we also knew to watch for cars and get out of their way. Obviously, a child who hasn’t learned that yet is another story.
And that CPS pays any heed to someone calling because a couple 10-year-olds walked two block to play at a park without their parents is ridiculous. There are actual cases of abuse and neglect that put children in real danger and considering how overworked and understaffed social services is, that just isn’t worth their time.
Hear, hear! Social media allows me to keep in touch with and reconnect with so many friends and family members across the country and the world. Friendships that would have fallen by the wayside without internet connectivity and smartphones are still going strong. We are all isolated at one point or another in our lives, but using technology appropriately makes our lives SO much better. The fact that I can talk to my mother 3,000 miles away on gChat and Hangouts makes my life 10x better. People be crazy hating on smartphones and shit.
I LOVE this post. I was a teenager in the 00s and I basically feel like I grew up on the Internet. I was super socially awkward and most people I knew in the real world just confused and frustrated me, but I was good at expressing myself in forum posts or fanfiction or whatever. If I hadn’t had ready access to the internet I wouldn’t have spent more time hanging out with people face-to-face, I just would have spent less time communicating at all.
I love my phone, as fidgeting with it when I’m out and about helps A LOT with calming my social anxiety. I cracked my screen to the point of un-usability last week, and it was kind of awful waiting to get it fixed.
Reading this article 100% makes me wish I’d had access to this sort of technology as a kid. My childhood best friend spent all summer, every summer with her mom’s relatives out of state and I always missed her terribly. It would have been so nice to just be able to shoot her a text every now and then.
Also, some of these comments are making me wish I had access to family vacation photos from my tween and early teen years. Partly because those photos are hilarious. I never wanted to be traveling with my parents then, and I expressed that largely through dressing as goth-ily as I was able and having my Walkman (and later Discman) on as much as possible and my face in a book. Like…the big difference is that now kids can listen to angsty music and read on the same device while hating every second of their vacation with their parents. I wish I’d been able to do that then. That stupid Discman was bulky.
I think people who didn’t grow up in small towns don’t really appreciate just how little there is to do in those places. I watched a lot of DVDs in high school because my options outside of school activities were movies, loitering at the mall, or hanging out at the sand pits with the kids who drank. That was pretty much it.
My small town doesn’t have a mall or movie theatre. You have to drive 50 miles to get anywhere.
Wonder why so many teens get their licences the moment they can? NOTHING ELSE TO DO.
And if your kid was driving around in places where there is absolute NOTHING for miles on end, and it gets down to -40*C or colder… you’d be a bad parent to not want them to have some way to call for help.
I relate to this so much. As a child and young teenager, I didn’t have many friends. I didn’t know about Facebook and other such things until I was almost an adult, and if I’d had a smartphone, I would have been more able to keep in contact with my buddies in early college.
I think mine’s great. I receive notifications about Troutnation posts, can take lots of random pictures and upload them to my travel blog, etc. I only have a problem when someone else has their nose in their phone the whole time they’re with me, but that’s the same with books and other such things, you know? Smartphones in and of themselves are not an evil device.
To this day, I have debilitating phone anxiety that makes a single phone call an all day project as I sit and talk myself into dialing the number.
This is so me. I hate talking on the phone for some dumb reason.
I completely agree with you, Jenny. My husband grew up in a remote rural area, and he often talks about how very lonely it could be. I was lucky to grow up in a neighborhood where all of my friends were pretty close by, and I had great friends, but there is a whole world out there that I barely knew existed as a teen! As an adult, the internet has allowed me to connect with so many more people with the same interests as me. The internet really is an amazing place to build communities.