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Generation Next or Generation Text? |
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Written by Will Krisanda
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Wednesday, 16 March 2011 13:49 |
 Today’s dinner table has a few extra guests and they go by iPhone®, iPod touch® and BlackBerry®. Technological gadgets have become a necessity for many, but families are struggling to get the attention back to the family. With so many different social networking sites like Facebook®, Twitter®, Tumblr®, and Dailybooth®, today’s parents are raising children who have distraction after distraction at their fingertips.
Eileen Boginski, mother of two teenage daughters and a resident of West Scranton, understands her children’s need for cell phones and computers, but believes technology can have its drawbacks.
“My kids text and talk online a lot, but when they text they’re usually talking to friends and when they’re ‘tweeting’ online they could be talking to someone in Indiana,” she said. “When you look at them while they’re online or on their phones, they look so busy; they have to read everyone’s status updates and tweets.”
Boginski’s younger daughter, Bridget, had a cell phone at nine years old and a computer at 11. She uses her computer for school work but mainly to talk with friends through instant messages, Facebook, and Twitter.
“I like talking online more because I’m really shy in school. I’m not as shy online,” said Bridget. “I also think it’s fun to post things to friends on Facebook. I’ll talk to people on Twitter who share the same interests as me.”
Bridget’s older sister, Anna, also enjoys spending time online and texting her friends from her Blackberry Smartphone. Anna, 15, says she can spend up to eight or nine hours a day online and her cell phone is always within reach.
Anna brings her cell phone to the dinner table, which is frowned upon in the Boginski household.
“Sometimes we eat dinner with the phones vibrating right on the table,” said Eileen.
Eileen will take away internet and cell phones if her daughters are grounded. A few weeks ago, Anna came downstairs to watch a movie with Eileen because her internet and cell phone were taken away.
“The day it happened, Anna came down and wanted to hang out with me,” said Eileen. “She wrote in her journal. She asked me to rent a movie and watch it with her. We sat and watched a scary movie together and had a really, really nice time.”
When asked what Anna would do without internet or a cell phone for a day, she said she would “die inside” and end up cleaning her room, listening to music, or writing in a journal.
A sense of loss is how Jim Noldy, 17, described how he would feel if he didn’t have his cell phone––which he uses to text––for a day. Jim’s older brother, Craig, said his cell phone is “attached at his hip” he uses it so much.
Craig and Jim live at home in Jermyn with their mom, Kim, and communicate through text messages to inform each other where they are or when they’ll be home.
“I use texts to get in touch with my sons all the time,” said Kim. “It’s a quick way to get in touch with them if I need to ask them to do something while they are out. My sons will also text me when they need me to pick them up. It’s pretty useful for things like that.”
However, Kim explained their texting does interrupt and distract them from spending time together as a family.
“It puts a damper on the time we spend together when I see them texting and it’s obvious they are not paying attention to what I am saying,” said Kim.
In addition to the lack of quality time with family, Eileen believes technology can inhibit children’s face-to-face communication.
“I think many children don’t know how to resolve things face to face because of how much they rely on communication through texting, tweeting, and online chatting,” she said. “When I was younger, we would talk face to face; we didn’t have internet chat or things like Facebook. I don’t think children today know how to talk to each other in person.”
While technology advances with every generation and many adapt and learn new things, the dinner table should remain a place for family interaction. Dinner conversation cannot come as an application on an iPhone or be generated through a computer screen; it is something special and should remain untouched by technology.
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