It's rather interesting that that is a phrase that is increasingly becoming more and more popular within adults in America, but rather more prominently-young adults. Nothing pisses off a 20-something year old than a kid with an iphone. Over the weekend I babysat at a very wealthy family's home, where I witnessed something that I was a bit shocked with, and this was the fact that the 2, 5, and 13 year olds all had working iphones. I decided to blog.
The article "iPhones and Children: A Psych Problem Waiting To Happen?" sheds some light on this growing societal trend of children, increasingly younger and younger getting there hands on technology that is mainly used by adults for business purposes, as well as some pleasures such as phone calls, texting, internet, and music. Though it is understandable that society is "moving forward" and newer parents want to play the role of givers as well as "the cool parents" from very early on, is it really necessary for a child who cannot even read yet to be given an iphone? The author of the article, Stephen Shankland, states of his 3 year old, "He loves to type nonsense words on the notepad application using the virtual keyboard, deleting them once they've been read." That statement alone proves my point. Though it may seem innocent at first, it is a little bit scary to see how technology in general is speeding up a child's process of learning and developing, maybe a little too quickly. Not only that, but a child is essentially stripped of a childhood as they are being granted more and more of what they want from way too early on. This can can cause problems later on life with snooping, children becoming spoiled, and children becoming unecessarly corrupted. I blame the parents.
Maybe I am old fashioned, but this leaves little time for a kid to go outside and play as his or her own playtime is in the palm of their hands. I still remember my first cell phone, which was the nokia "brick phone" in 7th or 8th grade. Even that may seem too early for someone who is significantly older than me.
article link: http://www.ismashphone.com/2010/10/iphones-and-children-a-psych-problem-waiting-to-happen.html
You know in sci-fi there is this idea of a cyborg? This is a human being who augments their body with machinery and computer parts. Arguably, we already have this though maybe not in a literal sense. As human beings, we see our computers and phones as extensions of our self, and our control over them is much like the control of our own body. Just something to consider.
ReplyDelete