Kids and Technology

First of all, welcome back! My hope is that everyone had a great Thanksgiving as well as Black Friday if you are one of those with the courage to get up early and brave the crowd. For those who prefer sleep and lack-of-injury, I hope you individuals are ready for the joy of Black Friday from the comfort of home (or work): Black Friday.

Now to the topic at hand, and for the purpose of argument, I am going to use my (future) brother-in-law as they are the perfect age for this topic. Kids today (at least those under the age of 10) have been born and raised entirely in the age of connected devices and handheld technology. On most occasions, I have witnessed that the two I mentioned earlier cannot be seen inside without a device in their hands. Whether they are using the restroom, eating dinner, et cetera, these kids have a phone/tablet/iPod in their hand playing some game or watching some video. For these reasons, and I am just assuming many kids are like this, we tend to generalize this behavior and simply claim they are "addicted" to these devices.

Taking this a step further, I have even seen multiple times where, as an adult society, we label this as the reason for rising childhood obesity rates, and we make claims like, "Kids would rather sit in front of a screen than play outside". I will admit that I have often thought the same thing, but, after observing the two children I mentioned earlier, I can gladly make a counter argument.

I will not generalize all kids here because I am sure there are some out there that would prefer a screen to a baseball, but I can assure you that this is not the case for all. While I have found my niece and brother-in-law will sit in front of a screen all day if they are stuck inside, this would certainly not be their preferred method of entertainment. I have witnessed time-and-time again that unless they are forbidden from going outside because of the weather, they would spend an entire day outside playing without a screen in sight.

So what is the point? As I am not a parent yet, I would not even begin to tell someone how to raise their children. However, I think we need to start looking at children from a new perspective. I will be the first to get aggravated by the constant sound of ridiculous videos when I am watching TV or trying to have a conversation, but, at the same time, I have begun thinking more of their perspective than of just my own. Not remembering much of my own childhood mindset, I can't say if this is new or not, but I think kids' minds are constantly running at an astronomical level. Personally, I don't believe that most kids are addicted to devices; I think they have a nonstop need to be active and entertained. When these kids can't be outside, they use devices for entertainment.

I get that constant use of devices indoors can be frustrating, annoying, et cetera. However, I encourage everyone to take a second-look at their kids device usage and determine for yourself if it is really a device addiction or an entertainment addiction. Again, this is just my opinion, and I am sure there are many other opinions that I would love to hear about.

P.S. While we may disagree with their constant device usage, we cannot deny that children are so adept at using these devices that they have often surpassed even our own ability to navigate them successfully.