Eight hours a day. That’s the amount of time that today’s children spend in front of a screen every single day, according to scripps.org. Due to this, the average 8-10 year old living in the U.S. may soon experience less face-to-face interaction with others as well as the soon-to-be extinction of a great childhood.
Just like those useless ‘90s Furbies, hair crimping, and Prince songs, childhood has become a lost cause; a thing of the past. The nostalgia of childhood warms a person’s heart right up as they reminisce upon the unforgettable memories that occurred in their early years. Whether it be good or bad, the days we spent under our parents’ rooftops were ones that sparked the fire in us and influenced our future actions.
Unfortunately, due to the dramatic increase in technological use, the post-millennial generation will remember their childhood as staring at a digital screen for hours on end every day. According to an article from scripps.org, children “spend more time interacting with media than they spend sleeping or going to school.”
No wonder everyone’s so tired all the time! If we don’t stop this now, our descendants are going to transform into these emotionless zombies who take everything for granted. Our ancestors would probably be disgraced with what we’re doing, had they lived on present-day earth.
Generation Z is already doomed, as many can see, yet the expanding obsession with being tech-savvy has hit the current Generation Y like a rapidly-twisting tornado in the deep South; fast, uncontrollable, and clueless as to how it got there. Regarding the time spent in front of a screen, “teens may spend as many as 11 hours per day,” according to scripps.org. That’s a whopping three hours more than kids spend on a daily basis.
The article mentions that it “takes away from time spent interacting with their friends and family, being physically active, and reading or doing homework.” The amount of hours spent on technology proves that our social skills are diminishing as the days pass by. We are putting our children and children’s children at risk of being incompetent on how to communicate with others, both verbally and nonverbally.
I was in the DMV in early 2014 taking my permit test, and a blonde soccer mom veered up to the cubicle next to me with her young son. Lo and behold, all was quiet as the boy played Temple Run on his too large iPad 2, rather than sitting in the waiting area. I mean, really now? It’s like parents are getting their kids to shut up by giving them any sort of man-made technology. It’s almost become their new pacifier in a sense, and that’s not a good thing. You can’t expect to see your kid stopping and smelling the roses anytime soon if they have a honkin’ piece of metal in their hands.
It doesn’t help that Apple keeps making products either. A note to parents: don’t buy them for your kids. If they cry, tell them to go read a book, because I sure as heck know that most people don’t read often nowadays. Kids should be playing outside, breathing in the fresh air, and having fun the way that nature intended. I mean, if we’re constantly looking down at our cellphones and such, we’re totally teaching our kids to do the same. As the old saying goes, monkey see monkey do. But in this case, we’re literal monkeys. Let’s start being decent human beings.
