madteaparty Posted February 5, 2016 Author Share Posted February 5, 2016 Since you're feeling all philosophically... To what end would you worry? What would be the function of this worry? What information should be accepted into this conglomeration of behaviors, worrisome or not? I worry about my kid being friends with other kids who think texting him repeatedly at 11pm while he is out of state skiing will solve their 12 year old self problems, and how he might deal with that. It is a philosophical and not an actual question owing to the fact that my DS has no phone and no one that texts him at present. The rest of your questions I do not understand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albeto. Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 I worry about my kid being friends with other kids who think texting him repeatedly at 11pm while he is out of state skiing will solve their 12 year old self problems, and how he might deal with that. It is a philosophical and not an actual question owing to the fact that my DS has no phone and no one that texts him at present. The rest of your questions I do not understand. To simplify: Why worry? What will you do with this worry? Texting at night or other inappropriate times is an easy enough problem to solve. So why are you worried about other kids? Do you worry they will inspire your kids to override your advice and do foolish things? Dangerous things? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susan in TX Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 What I find so weird about teens today is that they're constantly on their phones WHEN THEY'RE SOCIALIZING IN-PERSON. Sure, I used to chat on the phone with my friends (what girl didn't?) but when I was hanging out with my friends at the mall/roller skating rink/movies/etc. (can you tell I was an '80's kid, LOL?) we actually PAID ATTENTION TO EACH OTHER. What a concept! Here, it is not my teenagers that do this, it is my adult children who are in their mid twenties. And my husband who is pushing fifty. Susan in TX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom-ninja. Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Same here. I didn't think how we were raising our kids was that different, until I crawled out from under my rock and realized that most kids have smartphones, unlimited internet access, and unlimited social media access. It results in a different kind of kid, with a different focus and different demeanor, and I'm thankful I have the kids I have when I see what social media and their screens done to some other kids. Our pastor's child was over for dinner one night and I had to tell her to put her phone away at the dinner table, because she wasn't able to look up from her screen and engage. I wondered the whole time how someone of 13 can not know that looking at your phone while at a dinner table with companions was rude. Well, I meet plenty of adults who don't seem to know this is rude. How will children learn it's rude when such behavior is modeled by adults? To simplify: Why worry? What will you do with this worry? Texting at night or other inappropriate times is an easy enough problem to solve. So why are you worried about other kids? Do you worry they will inspire your kids to override your advice and do foolish things? Dangerous things? Well, I can confidently say that 99% of the things I worry about never happen so obviously my worrying helps. :lol: I worry about other kids because I worry about society. I wonder/worry about the society in the future. I think that's normal for every single generation. There are good things and bad things that come with change and technology. One bad thing that I heard about on NPR was how young people are not developing the ability to read other people's faces. They are not attuned into reading expressions. i find that worrisome for the human species. Even dogs have evolved to read human expression, but we ourselves are losing that ability due to not enough face time with other members of our species. Facebook =/= face time. The psychologists doing the interview were saying that full emotional development can be inhibited by not being able to read human emotions through facial expressions. I didn't hear the whole interview nor have I read anything further so I couldn't tell you anything more. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Meh. I bet when telephones became popular people had the same worries. The Amish still do, for that matter. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Well, I meet plenty of adults who don't seem to know this is rude. How will children learn it's rude when such behavior is modeled by adults? Well, I can confidently say that 99% of the things I worry about never happen so obviously my worrying helps. :lol: I worry about other kids because I worry about society. I wonder/worry about the society in the future. I think that's normal for every single generation. There are good things and bad things that come with change and technology. One bad thing that I heard about on NPR was how young people are not developing the ability to read other people's faces. They are not attuned into reading expressions. i find that worrisome for the human species. Even dogs have evolved to read human expression, but we ourselves are losing that ability due to not enough face time with other members of our species. Facebook =/= face time. The psychologists doing the interview were saying that full emotional development can be inhibited by not being able to read human emotions through facial expressions. I didn't hear the whole interview nor have I read anything further so I couldn't tell you anything more. On the other hand, things like Facebook or online communication or texting level the playing field for kids like my oldest, who has Aspergers and is bad at reading emotions in others. He does very well with online communication because it puts everyone in that position, not just him. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Sometimes in the car when I'm driving her and a friend to/fro somewhere, the smartphone-owning friend will open facebook, or her photos, and they'll look at something together - for ex, old camp photos or something. They are still engaged but also with the phone. I'm not talking about a group crowding around one girl's phone to look at whatever, but rather 5 girls each fiddling with her own individual phone and not interacting with the others. It just seems so rude IMHO for them to be ignoring each other like that. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starr Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 I can't even begin to tell you how much time my interesting, artistic, outside playing, low amount of technology children spend with technology as young adults. :D We gradually increased computer time, added in phones, Facebook etc as they were in teens and off to college. Boy can that girl binge watch, text, play games on her phone, check all her sites, snap chat ... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marbel Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 I'm not talking about a group crowding around one girl's phone to look at whatever, but rather 5 girls each fiddling with her own individual phone and not interacting with the others. It just seems so rude IMHO for them to be ignoring each other like that. Yes, I wasn't disagreeing with you, just sort of reporting what I see, which is different. And yes, totally rude! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom-ninja. Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 On the other hand, things like Facebook or online communication or texting level the playing field for kids like my oldest, who has Aspergers and is bad at reading emotions in others. He does very well with online communication because it puts everyone in that position, not just him. True. Like I said every change comes with good and bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TammyS Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Today's kids are more tech savvy for sure, which includes with it a remarkable, and probably unforeseen consequence of social justice, both local and global. I find that enormously rewarding, and feel like that's a good "price" to pay to say goodbye to the good old days (which always look better through nostalgia lenses). Those days existed on the backbone of some unacceptable oppression, and if not shutting up is the first, knee-jerk alternative to coerced silence and self-censorship, I cannot understand what you are talking about AT ALL. It's like everyone was talking about football and you started reading from the Betty Crocker Cookbook. In other words, Huh? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 I can't even begin to tell you how much time my interesting, artistic, outside playing, low amount of technology children spend with technology as young adults. :D We gradually increased computer time, added in phones, Facebook etc as they were in teens and off to college. Boy can that girl binge watch, text, play games on her phone, check all her sites, snap chat ... I didn't even have a television growing up! Nor did I have a phone when we lived overseas. I wrote letters by hand, liked to sew, played outside all the time, and was involved in all sorts of things. Now I love technology! I still prefer face to face and so do my kids, but we also embrace technology! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 My daughter is almost 15 and she is glued to her phone. She's not supposed to have it at family meal times but I actually had to tell her to put it away while she was texting under the table at dinner at her grandmother's house this last weekend! Rude! But it did clue me in that she was texting a boy again. She never gets that obsessed unless there's someone she's interested in. But yeah, everything is digital. She draws something and if she likes it, she takes a picture and shares it with friends. She hears a funny joke, and texts someone about it. She isn't totally engaged in the here and now, because she's also busy being connected to people who aren't here. She reads a book and rants about how bad it was in a chat room with her friends. These are people she sees every day at school not just random internet people. The phone stays out in the living room when she goes to bed. She sneaks it into her room at night every so often and then gets grounded. I've found that my other daughter, who is homeschooled, isn't able to nurture friendships with other homeschooled kids because the homeschooled kids in this area don't have phones at her age (8th grade). So they aren't in frequent contact with each other. She sees them once a week, sitting in a class at co-op for an hour where they're busy listening to the teacher and not having actual conversations with each other. They get a 20 minute snack time. That's not enough. When I was a kid, we had land lines and I'd sit around for hours chatting with friends. This isn't that different. To the bolded - part of why this doesn't bother me is because, clearly, I do this too! I am doing it right this minute, and with random internet strangers! (Okay, so many people here are internet "friends," but I assume some version of knowledge about the many of you which could be completely false. I have only met a tiny percent of WTM people IRL.) And to your last point - this is why I allowed DD to get FB when she was twelve-I-mean-thirteen. ;) it is a great way for kids to get to know each other better, especially if they do not have the social structure of regular school to fall back on. I do have some rules about excessive phone/device use, especially when we are in a setting where face-to-face communication is the point. I do think it is sad when I see what I assume to be a mom and her kid sitting in a restaurant, both on their own devices, not interacting. I definitely don't do that. But as far as the fact that this is how kids communicate now and their texting is usually very different from my texting - this does not bother me. It is also true that I hung on a corded phone with certain friends for hours, and we were saying *nothing* useful or intelligent. One of my best friends used to play songs to me on the phone and comment about them! It was like a music analysis webinar for 1985! :D I still remember him playing "Shook Me All Night Long" and then analyzing how the grammar makes no sense, "because in the first lines, he is talking to a third person: 'She was a fast machine, she kept the motor clean, she was the best damn woman that I ever seen...' But then at the chorus, he switches to second person: 'You shook me all night long...'" 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TianXiaXueXiao Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 I just keep wondering how my kids will find like minded peers when they're grown. I guess they will probably gravitate toward other people who *get* having a head full of poetic verse, Plutarch, the Desert Fathers, Greek, Latin, Mandarin, Russian, and sentence diagramming! Lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Meh. I bet when telephones became popular people had the same worries. The Amish still do, for that matter. I know. I always think if my Dad, who has declared that he willl Never use that "impersonal e-mail", had been living when land-line telephones were invented, he would probably have said the same thing then. "So impersonal, this telephone calling! Nobody ever drops by anymore!" 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 I just keep wondering how my kids will find like minded peers when they're grown. I guess they will probably gravitate toward other people who *get* having a head full of poetic verse, Plutarch, the Desert Fathers, Greek, Latin, Mandarin, Russian, and sentence diagramming! Lol. They may even find them on a classical homeschooling web chat board... 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albeto. Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 I cannot understand what you are talking about AT ALL. It's like everyone was talking about football and you started reading from the Betty Crocker Cookbook. In other words, Huh? Let me try another way. I asked the OP some questions. I then answered them myself. Maybe I didn't want her to think I was putting her on the spot. Maybe I was feeling a bit philosophical as well. I didn't put that much thought into it. My answers do not include worry for our kids on the basis of smart phones and increased screen time. In fact, I think smart phones and increased screen times provide some wonderful opportunities to unite humanity, reduce tribalism bias, and consolidate the human experience in ways my generation could never have foreseen as kids. To give a simple and hopefully recognizable example, my mother-in-law would certainly feel any time spent on an online forum would be wasted time, and reasons the world is in such a mess. From my point of view, spending time on online forums isn't bad or scary, it's normal. It's informative. I learn a lot. I learn not only about education at home, not only about raising and nurturing children, but about things I would have no access to myself simply because I am not surrounded by the many experiences that are shared online, here and elsewhere. Some of it is interesting, some of it is eye opening, some of it is heart-breaking, some of it inspires me to be courageous and bold and help out where I otherwise would never have imagined myself go. I appreciate having access to this knowledge, and I'm sure younger generations do, too. I don't think today's kids are any worse off because technology isn't the same as when I grew up, any more than my generation was worse off than my parents because we had technology they never did. I don't think there's any more reason to blame smart phones than there is to blame portable radios. Human behavior, and society, is far more complex than the this latest version of "kids these days" would have us believe. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 I'm not particularly trying to raise my kids that differently from people around us. Most of the people around us are fairly socially adept, nice, intelligent people. Technology is a tool. We have chosen to use some technology and chosen to not spent our money on other technology. I bet most people around us have chosen to do that as well, since I doubt that most have unlimited funds. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reefgazer Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 Absolutely, to everything you posted. I think adults who do this are rude, as well, and are not modeling polite behavior. But I also have to say I have never had an adult do this to me, and the child I mentioned has parents that do not do this, so I will say the girl likely picked it up from her peers. Well, I meet plenty of adults who don't seem to know this is rude. How will children learn it's rude when such behavior is modeled by adults? Well, I can confidently say that 99% of the things I worry about never happen so obviously my worrying helps. :lol: I worry about other kids because I worry about society. I wonder/worry about the society in the future. I think that's normal for every single generation. There are good things and bad things that come with change and technology. One bad thing that I heard about on NPR was how young people are not developing the ability to read other people's faces. They are not attuned into reading expressions. i find that worrisome for the human species. Even dogs have evolved to read human expression, but we ourselves are losing that ability due to not enough face time with other members of our species. Facebook =/= face time. The psychologists doing the interview were saying that full emotional development can be inhibited by not being able to read human emotions through facial expressions. I didn't hear the whole interview nor have I read anything further so I couldn't tell you anything more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 I just keep wondering how my kids will find like minded peers when they're grown. I guess they will probably gravitate toward other people who *get* having a head full of poetic verse, Plutarch, the Desert Fathers, Greek, Latin, Mandarin, Russian, and sentence diagramming! Lol. I was the weirdo who decided on her own to read through her dad's collection of the Harvard Classics series in high school (you can see why TWTM appealed to me!) I found my "tribe" in college and even our friends whom we met later on tend to be graduates of similar caliber universities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heartlikealion Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 My concerns are more about eye sight and radiation with technology of today. Yet, ever since I got the smart phone I have trouble staying away. I actually deleted my messenger app the other day figuring it would be good for me. I have checked facebook the manual way on the phone, but I hope this cuts down on my habit. I didn't even really want a smart phone because I was afraid of things like this, but I use it a lot when I'm out. It can do some things better than the Garmin. One of our homeschool groups has a game day which includes use of screens. The problem is you end up with a group of kids all glued to their screen and I'm going, "wait, this is social interaction?" You can bring board games, but I don't think they are as appealing to the kids. We don't have the cell phone issue with ds yet. I don't want to get him a phone anytime soon, but kids are getting phones earlier and earlier. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foxbridgeacademy Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 My kids aren't really into texting a lot, DD does some to a few friends but it's not all consuming. Here's the thing though, if it was I'd talk to her about moderation and getting to involved in a device but I wouldn't stop her or put limits on it. I'm not raising children I'm raising future adults and what she learns now about controlling herself will serve her much better than me trying to control her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnMyOwn Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 I can't relate to comparing the telephone to cell phone use today. I did spend some time on the phone as a teen, but it didn't follow me to school, the mall, the library. It didn't create a constant distraction throughout every aspect of my life. That's how I see the cell phones. Some people seem to be better at regulating their behavior with them than others, but many do seem truly addicted. And I'm not judging because while I don't have a fancy cellphone, I do have a computer and I find myself practicing the same addictive behavior with that device. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Florida. Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 I'm not particularly trying to raise my kids that differently from people around us. Most of the people around us are fairly socially adept, nice, intelligent people. Technology is a tool. We have chosen to use some technology and chosen to not spent our money on other technology. I bet most people around us have chosen to do that as well, since I doubt that most have unlimited funds. Yes, this. I tried to say it my post but I got too wordy I think. This was short and on point and describes exactly how I feel. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.