4.18.2009

We've Come Along Way or have we?

I was picking up my girls from school Thursday and was blasted with the cold hard truth! I'm getting old! I'm a measly 27 years old and I don't feel old. I definitely don't look old. But how come the world around me is telling me I'm old! So here is how it went down.

I am walking out of the elementary school with my preschooler and 4th grader. I hear girls laughing outside and then one yells "I'll email you later." WHAT!?! What happened to the good old TELEphone. You know the contraption invented by Alexander Graham Bell. The one invention that as a 4th grader, I DREAMED about having in my own room! Now here these 4th-6th graders are emailing outside of school?

What happened to the good old days when if you wanted to play, you'd ride your bike over? No, instead now we are relying on this new contraption that works as a vacuum. It keeps sucking you in, deeper and deeper. There is just something wrong with this picture! Shouldn't we make them wait til they are at least 15 before they start emailing? Shouldn't we try to push them to have real contact with other people?

Now I'm sure you think this is just crazy talk from a woman that is sitting at a computer AS WE READ! But I still use a phone regularly, I interact with REAL live people regularly, and I do push my girls to do the same. I try to keep them involved in extracurricular activities as well. Now I'm curious, do you think we should be pushing our kids to socially interact outside of the computer as well? Do your own children prefer to email a friend rather than pick up the phone?


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

B has an email account (yes at 5 yrs old she has email) BUT it was for my mom and my sisters to send her cards and little notes when we were out of town all the time and NOW we use it for her daddy to send her little notes and cards while overseas and for to play some little games on nickjr and noggin. We use the phone more with my family since it's not long distance now that we are home most of the time (before we could only chat once or twice a week on the phone because of the cost of long distance calls)and we visit them on weekends. I keep her in extra curricular activities too. She goes to Awana at church, and is in dance at Little Gym, as well as Girl Scouts. She is about to be in swimmming lessons for summer and possibly in karate this fall.

As for your question... I definitely feel that we, as parents, should push for more direct communication with the children because sitting in front of the computer is just as bad as sitting in front of the TV, IMHO.

jess said...

Man, I didn't even have internet at my school till the last year... and it was limited pretty severely. Didn't have it at home till '98-ish. I am okay with email- it's little kids having cell phones I'm not so sure about. Parents say it's for safety... I didn't have one. I think we're slowly seeing a return to what was... more and more moms are staying @ home with the kiddies... and I have to say, the internet does help kids to be more social than they would have been otherwise. They can sort of practice what to say and what to do... they can think through their thoughts. Believe me, nothing replaces face to face communication.
I guess to sum up, it's a great tool that should be used with care.