Do you remember congregating with friends at the green electrical boxes in neighborhoods as a child? How far would you ride your bike? To the park? To school? To a friends house? How were you able to tell when your parents wanted you home? You probably were supposed to be home by the time the streetlights came on.
When I visit home from college, I drive through my neighborhood, a familiar place to me and my childhood friends where we would find the biggest hills to go sledding, or the best yard to make a water slide in. I take a look around my neighborhood and see a desolate area of houses, people walking their dogs here and there. But, there is something missing… children.
Children laughing, and playing outside. Children having a catch with a ball, playing hopscotch, playing manhunt. That leaves me wondering: where did all the children go?
The children that used to laugh and play outside with one another are now grown up, maybe they’re going to have children of their own within the near future. All of a sudden it's kind of like a glossy haze has been set over neighborhoods, holding children hostage inside of their homes. We can turn and point our finger at technology, a powerful advance that has captured the innocence, growth, and communication that children once had with one another.
Parents of children younger than 12 years old let me ask you something: when is the last time your child physically colored using crayons and paper? For most of you, this is a question you’re unable to answer. Why? This is because you provide your children with electronic machines that do all of the coloring and crafts for them. Your child is being robbed of their ability to form and create ideas; they’re losing the physicality of childhood. Who’s the robber? Technology. Who’s the assistant? You are.
Aren’t you sick of looking at your child and seeing them crouched down with their neck bent over, their eyes strained from looking at a screen for hours upon hours?
As these children get older, their ability to verbally communicate will be nonexistent. If technology keeps progressing, and parents keep enabling their children to these advances, communication will only be done through a screen…more so than it already is. Scared yet?
Do children really know what it’s like to ride a bike? Do they understand the freedom and physicality of being active? Or, do they only participate in activities so they have the latest pictures to post on their newsfeed?
When I go out to dinner, I base my meal around the company of my family and friends, not the iPhone in my purse that seems to corrupt the attention of those around me. I look around the restaurant. To my left, there’s a child tapping at their iPad. To my right, there’s a father checking his email account and bluntly ignoring his family. I hear a baby crying. I’m nosy so I take a peek at what’s going on; I expect the mother or father to hold the baby and coddle it so that it quiets down. Instead, what do I see? I see an aggravated parent turn on a T.V. show and pass off their iPhone to the baby so that it stops crying.
Children need attention and care from their loved ones, not a phone in their face. Parents: this isn’t an attack on you and your relationship with your child, it’s a wake-up call. If technology is something you believe your children can’t live without, please do them a favor and set boundaries. There is no reason that a child should have their devices with them at the dinner table. Parents, this goes for you too. By constantly fidgeting with your phones, you’re not giving your children the attention that they deserve or the quality time that they need from you as a parent. And most of all, you’re setting a bad example; your children will look for comfort in their devices since you’re not giving it to them.
I’m an adult now, and looking back, I don’t see it necessary to have a cellphone at the age of 10…Keep your children innocent as long as you can, there is no pressure in growing up, it will happen in time anyway.
Technology is spiraling out of control and it’s only going to get exponentially worse. If parents don’t get a better grasp on this situation who will?
