I've been thinking about technology and its role in my children's' lives. My eight year old is attached to her ipod, which is my old iphone after it was dropped in a vat of bubbles and didn't work as well. While she doesn't have a phone or text plan, she has figured out a way to have access to both through apps. She can be in the same room with her friend and they will text back and forth, which drives me crazy! But like it or not, this is the way they communicate these days. My daughter has many friends and is involved in several activities outside of school, so will texting really stunt her emotional and social growth? Or is it just that this is not what I am used to, not what I grew up with, and so I am suspicious and fearful of its effects?
I wonder how our own childhoods would have been different had we had access to these tools. I know that I would have been the last of my friends to have the latest gadget, since we were the last family to have a microwave or cable TV and it was big news when we got a Commodore 64. I have a jar somewhere in my basement filled with notes that my friends wrote to me in junior high and high school, long missives about the latest boy crush, or not being able to wait until that weekend's sleepover. Will my girls have these hand-written reminders of their youth? Or will the "delete" button erase all of that?
Technology has seeped into every part of their lives. Cartoons, popular songs, even school reading assignments mention it. Can you imagine the everyday things we grew up with and how they would have changed? Imagine watching TV one night and seeing "Up next on CBS, You've Been Defriended, Charlie Brown!" Let's catch up with our beloved Peanuts gang. Poor Charlie Brown has been defriended by his one and only Facebook friend, his sister, Sally. However, he has many members in the Facebook group he started, "Little Boys Who Like Little Red Haired Girls." Meanwhile, Lucy is doing very well with her "Psychiatric Help $.5" page, though she is considering raising the price since she has not increased her fee in 30 years. Snoopy has over 1,000 friends and uses Facebook to post his blog, "An Eager Beagle", though he still types it on his old typewriter and then scans it into his computer. Peppermint Patty uses Facebook primarily to post information about the latest gay-rights issue, though she has not formally come out of the closet yet herself. And Linus, well he works at Facebook as the youngest head programmer in history and was able to afford to gold-plate his blanket, which is displayed in his spacious office.
I dunno, just doesn't seem right to me.
