OMGosh! How Technology Can Be Good for Kids (Hint: It’s a Balancing Act)
Posted By: Annita Woz
Category: Technology and Teens, Teens, Texting
Comments: 6
I’ve been giving all my friends pop quizzes on technology issues since EP editor Elisabeth Wilkins wrote about the texting habits of teens and how it might have a long term affect on a teen’s ability to communicate and socialize.
I stuck a recent cover of The New Yorker magazine under their noses and asked what they could decipher in the cartoon that depicted a child teaching a roomful of gray haired grannies and middle-aged parents the commonly used abbreviations of texting and online communication.
My friends flunked and my husband fared no better. What I did find out is the parents of tweens I know are already afraid of technology because they don’t understand it or see a practical application for it.
One friend with a ninth grader suggested that instead of banning social networking sites and text messaging, parents should be signing on instead of sheltering their teens from using it. She believes ignorant dismissal of technology also takes away another point of connection — ironically, a very personal connection — to her teenager.
OMGosh, I may not know all the texting abbreviations and I may not be as handy with my thumbs as teens are, but it doesn’t take much of a leap for me to see that ILY is pretty much the same as XOXO no matter how my kid gets that message.
Though I’ve been told email is obsolete for older teens who rely on social networking sites to communicate, tweens find email to be an exciting first step with technology. Our school introduces email accounts and safety in fourth grade. Email gives me another place to connect with my daughter by doing something with her that she enjoys.
I also signed up for Facebook and I am getting an eyeful! Kids post everything on Facebook without reservation and with the very normal but immature assumption that these will not come back to haunt them. Yet, one college niece, soon to be a full-fledged teacher, had warnings from her professors to not open an account and to work hard to keep her online reputation stellar so that no students or parents could find anything on the web that would detract from her command of a classroom.
And she listened. Despite the peer pressure to be on social networking sites, she knew that the bigger responsibility of starting her career and being a good role model to students was worth foregoing this technology. She did not isolate herself from all technology, but embraced texting and computer skills to allow her to stay one step ahead of the students she will influence.
The benchmark for how much technology is too much is established in the traditional way. An article on building moral intelligence discusses how character development gets its start at home, and concludes that our children use technology with the same moral code instilled in them by their parents and family.
Elisabeth’s concern about social skills doesn’t worry me. From what I can see, my technology-using nieces and nephews are incredible conversationalists. In person and online, they are fun and funny socially capable young adults. Somehow they manage to balance a large amount of athletic and computer activity and stay healthy emotionally and physically. They are more outgoing and active than I ever was as a teen and unlike me, instead of sitting on a phone indoors — connected to the wall by a spaghetti cord — the teens in my extended family are out there going, doing, being. They volunteer, they get involved, they invite friends, they are a large crowd and they take a lot of pictures, giving me a glimpse into what they are up to!
I credit the balancing act to the examples they have in their lives.
Grandma never turns down a reason to throw a party. Aunt Jane works, volunteers in school and makes time to man the booth at the community fair. Big brothers willingly scoop up the younger cousins and take them on fishing trips. None would miss a family birthday celebration. And every one of them will proclaim how much fun they are having and how much they love family right there, out loud, online.
Annita Woz is a mother of three and parent blogger for EP. Read the complete bios of all our contributors and parent bloggers here.
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October 27th, 2009 at 11:34 am
I have to agree that balance is key as it seems to be with everything in our lives. From a parent’s perspective, losing the fear and diving in to their technology world was empowering and my adult son hasn’t said, “Mom squeeks into the century” in a couple of years now. I am also proud of the fact that my parents in their eighties are online.
October 27th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Thanks for the timely article, Annita! I agree with you in that technology isn’t always a BAD thing when it comes to our kids. And, as with most things in life, I completely agree that balance is KEY. While my sons still have not acquired their own cell phones or email accounts YET(they are 6 and 9 years-old), they have been enveloped in technology since they were born. Both of my kids play game applications on my iPhone, and my 9 year-old can navigate around the ‘net alarmingly well. I am just waiting for my older son to begin hounding me about having his own cell phone … should be any day now. (sigh) And even as I try to stay up-to-date on the latest electronic gadget or computer application, I’m sure that a whole new area of parental worry will open up once they have their own phones, Twitter, Facebook, and email accounts. At least I can say that I am familiar with all of the above and am getting pretty darn good at text messaging, too! =) Heck, if my almost-76 year-old mother can run cirlces around me with all of the latest electronic gadgetry, then I’ve GOT to stay technologically savvy if I’m to try and stay one step ahead of my kids (yeah … RIGHT). Then we all have a better chance of staying connected as a family (that’s my hope, anyway!).
October 28th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Annita, I love your positive perspective here. You’re right — it is all a balancing act. Let’s face it, technology is here to stay, so we might as well get used to it. I think what alarms me is when kids text or spend time on social networking sites but aren’t able to hold face-to-face conversations very well. I think as long as we really teach our kids the importance of empathy and verbal communication, they’ll be fine in this brave new world!
October 28th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Susan and Elisabeth,
My adult brain is no longer hardwired to be able to take advantage of the most creative ways to use technology (i.e. my 5 y.o. can us the camera and the video function!) so staying one step ahead of them in gadgetry will be a long term goal!
However, the adult brain has the advantage of perspective and consequences and character development that comes only from age and learning things the hard way… I’m hoping that melding their enthusiasm for technology with a parental wisdom of real life will open another avenue of connection and teach the big lessons of honesty, conversation, friendship, and empathy as you mentioned, Elisabeth.
One additional challenge that I see is when to be alarmed? That is, teens don’t talk much — at least not to grown ups — and to determine if is this a natural part of the growing up process or if this is an inability caused by the overindulgence in on-line/texting/social media style “short” conversations…and then what action to take…
November 8th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Addiction to the stimuli of our technology is a cultural problem… and all the more personal when my adolescent children spent much of my two-hour birthday party exchanging texts with their friends.
November 9th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Scott, that doesn’t sound like it was the bday party you had in mind…most would agree that kids eating too much cake could wreck a party but now overtexting and undercelebrating is the new worry! There is an interesting book related to this topic that lends itself well to the discussion called Too Much of a Good Thing: Raising Children of Character in an Indulgent Age (Hardcover)~ Dan Kindlon (Author). I’m thinking that the cultural addiction to technology is just one of the challenges our kids are going to face in this affluent society. HOw can it be bad to have too much? I guess only those who have too much worry about that kind of thing…and so we worry.