I just read this... article: The Touch Screen Generation
And I want to fly of to two tangents of thought.
The first is more obvious, being the article itself. It is a worry, how much people spend time online, in front of the screens as opposed to outside, exploring cooking, moving, and just doing things physically, with hands and feet. Learning to move, learning to live. It's bad enough amongst the youth, and we are all old enough to control ourselves (to a certain extent), make conscious decisions on our actions. Like when you spend too much time on Facebook and not enough time studying, your probability of understanding the subject is lower, etc. But when you're a baby... your mind is still being formed, you act on your desires and your perceptions and habits are still being built. I do not know what kind of immediate thoughts and reflexes they would have. I don't know what kind of perceptions that they have toward people and the world. I mean, I find what I have already an oddity amongst the people of my everyday. But that maybe because I know how weird things are going on in my head but not how weird things go on in other heads. So when thinking about kids and technology and how it affects their little minds makes people queasy at best. We don't know until they grow up and generate their own content. I have had conversations lamenting missing childhoods of the children of the future. It's generally understood if kids have hard, abusive backgrounds, they could grow up being abusive themselves. Children of criminals grow up doing crimes. So what do children of the ipad turn out to be? The internet is largely a lawless prairie, and where would kids learn about humanity and right and wrong in there? Would they turn out to be plastic folks who only care about their YouTube counts? Woud they feel like real life isn't worth making the effort? But these are only the extreme scenarios. The point is though, I think this article addresses that there is an uneasiness despite how many educational apps are made.
But I also believe in the last idea, where technology is treated as another tool, not something to be paranoid about. When it ceases to be special and placed on a pedestal of taboos, it ceases to be a focus. Then it won't craved as much. Living without it would be a challenge though. The world is becoming increasingly connected, so when you have to go on without your phone it sends little bells of alarm out in your mind. It is almost unheard of to not have a phone now. It is a necessity. So you don't need to be in a bubble and detach yourself from the world like the childhoods past.
But on the other hand, there is no backup plan for when there is no internet, when there is no electricity, when there is no technology. To be able to know if you can live without it is somewhat reassuring. But sometimes, when you leave the house without the phone, it's good to know that you will be fine.
The other observation is a more... personal one. I keep saying "I read about..." This makes me think how my life and thoughts kind of revolved around reading. I'd be even more socially awkward otherwise. If I didn't have that and lived the way I do, what on earth would I talk about? Daily life is so mundane in comparison. Nobody else wants to know the details anyway.
