As we have gotten older the need for digital/electronic media has become greater. Kids nowadays find themselves spending countless hours in front of the computer or on their phone. As time goes on we see that adults are also turning to digital/electronic media in their everyday lives. From just walking down a New York City street you can see how much people are using their blackberrys or iphones. Or even their ipods. It never fails to amaze me that these people are all different ages, sizes, ethnicities, and basically just different people. This to me brings up topics such as the dependency that we have on digital/electronics, if these instruments we use in our daily lives are truly addicting, future trends that will come from this, etc. I like to think about all these things and I wonder if other people do to.
The dependency of kids for their AIM or their myspace is unbelievable. Children as young as 7 are on these websites saying that they are older and racing to grow up. I think some people use these programs in order to be "cool" and keep in touch with what their friends are doing even when they aren't with them. Some people really need to have at least a daily dosage of whatever their digital/electronic media may be or if not they feel like their world is crumbling to an end. Like people who are constantly "tweeting" whatever it is they may be doing at that time. Those people to me seem like they have nothing better to do than just to be on a computer waiting to see what people are doing or for others to comment on what they are doing.
These electronics can also be truly addicting for a person. For example, my 10 year old sister spend all afternoon on her AIM and so do all her friends. They talk at all times of the day and night. When she cannot go on AIM she walks around moppy looking lost. This withdrawal from AIM is the same kind of withdrawal that can come from doing drugs and then stopping. It's scary how this really affects someone as old as 10. I'll admit they I am addicted to texting and when I stop for a long time I feel weird. Which makes it even scarier for me to realize that I have a problem just like other people and still can't help it.
My little brother is 5 months. I am 16 years older than him and until the other day it had not really hit me. We were sitting around the kitchen table and my grandparents were telling me about how they had to use typewriters and I felt so bad for them having to do so much extra work when all I have to do is type and send. Then it dawned on me that 16 years from now when my little brother is in high school and I'm telling him about how I use to type all my homework, he will probably be looking at me with pity in his eyes because I am positive that by then there will be something way more advanced than a computer. It's alarming how fast we are moving through phones, computers, and ipods and yet we still can't focus on the smaller things that affect our lives such as children starving, homeless people, no healthcare. It just makes you think about how sad our lives really are.
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Hello Yazzzyybearrr
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you take notice to a lot of things in your blog such as how young kids as young as 10 are using social networking and the scary feeling you get. I like that you were personable. I ponder a lot about how technology will advance in the future and our effect to it as well. I really liked that you talked about your family such as your little brother :)
And i definetly agree with the fact that everyone (not just kids) are addicted to technology. And most of the time this starts from a really young age. Kids are basically taught be addicted to technology from an early age, it kind of relates to the food unit of how kids are taught to eat certain foods at an early age.
I have seen many cases of kids as young as 10 to have myspaces and facebooks. For example my friends 12 year old sister has a myspace and puts up pictures of herself and making it seem she is 16 instead of 12. I feel like these sort of things are defeintly so dangerous. This is why there are so many cases illegal child activities. To catch a preditor and such. There are many cases of when kids are punisher they are taken away of their privilages to use technology. This is bad because it makes kids feel the need to want technology more. When I read Conor's small blog post he stated that his parents took away his privilage of going out and doing sports and was stuck with his technology. The fact that his parents show that doing sports and doing physical activities is a privilage it makes his need to want to do physical activities and go outside more.
In your last paragraph you state a lot about your little brother. Do you think that you would maybe raise your brother to think differently about technology and not take the same route as most children are with their addiciton to technology? Maybe you can expand on your thoughts of the idea that your brother's generation will be full of more advanced technology and he will most likely be in the focus of it. Also in the second paragraph you mention a little bit about why teenagers our age are so obsessed with social networking (to be "cool"), maybe you can expand on why this may be so important to our generation? And why we need our technology in our hands at all time and yet we don't we feel un easy.
After reading your post it made me think more about the effect technology has on children younger then me and the effect of technology on them. It makes me think of child development. Is it good to raise all these children around all this technology, should we encourage it, take it away, or just leave it alone? I also started to think about my childhood and how technology effected my way of growth. I wonder if I would have been my defintion of "Smart" without so much digital stimulation. I know for sure technology defeintly ruined my brother's life. My brother grew up playing video games, mainly Warcrafts (hate that game with a passion). My brother was socially challenge (and i am not saying it in a funny manner), he was really addicted to the game to the point where he had no friends and no social skills. Computer games ruined me and my brother's relationship since we never talk. He got so addicted that he got bad grades, just slipped by high school and dropped out of college. So I feel that if technology is expose to kids at a young age it would really effect the way we are in the future.
Anyways, thanks for actually doing the blog post and writing a significant amount for me to comment on. Love you!! <3 lol
Hola again Chloeeeeee,
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking the time out of your day to read and comment on my blog post. Your comment helped me think about things deeper and it overall was helpful. I'm glad that you enjoyed me talking about my life personally. I do that so people can find it more relatable.
You state that I should expand on writing more about how my little brother will grow up with the technology growing at such an alarming rate. I definitely will look into that and continue to grow from this idea because if will show future trends. You also told me to expand on how teenagers nowadays depend on technology too much and why this is so important.
I see that we both agreed on how all these digital instruments affects a child's development. Whether it's good for them, how it affects them, and how addicted they become to it. Just by looking around you can see how even younger kids love the idea of ipods or cellphones. What can we do to stop this?? Or should we even try to stop this.
It seems like you are wondering the same things as me and by continuing to read our blogs, comment on each other's posts, and think deeper about this we can figure out why kids depend so much on technology or what the future trends may be.
What are some of the aspects of human dependency on digital/electronic stimulations? What are the future trends that will come from this? Can we stop our children from using these instruments?