In my last post, I described how new media is causing the externalization of children’s self-identity. The result of this externalization may be your children developing a false self, in which they internalize the messages of popular culture and media, such as valuing themselves based on their wealth, appearance, or popularity, and those messages become [...]
“To all of Chris' friends: This is his father. My son carelessly left his account logged in so I decided to snoop around. Upon reading my son's personal information, I would like to clear a few things up. My son is not a ‘gangsta,’ he will not ‘beat a ho’s ass’ and he will most [...]
I want to provide you with a “big picture” sense of the kind of life that I believe your children should lead during their formative years. This life should result in their developing into children who have both the “old-school” values, attitudes, and tools and the “new-school” skills (i.e., technology capabilities) that will enable them to thrive in the 21st century. Unmediated Life At the heart of this life that I advocate for is that your children should live a largely unmediated life in which they can have direct access to their experiences. When I talk about unmediated, I intend it in two ways. First, so many children these days are forced to view their world through the “lens” of popular culture, whether the things they eat, wear, or play with that have merchandising tie-ins or simply the presence of popular culture in everything they see, watch, read, and listen to. It doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to see how these popular culture filters would have a significant impact on how your children come to view themselves and their world. You want your children to see themselves and their lives unencumbered by these lenses, in which they can experience life in a pure and unbiased way, allowing them to decide for themselves on its meaning and how it might affect them. Second, as the research on the astonishing amount of time that children spend in front of screens suggests, so much of their day is spent viewing the world through a screen, whether television, computer, video game console, or smartphone. As I will describe shortly, this mediated experience—a screen is always between them and life—has significant limitations with real implications on their development. You want your children to experience most of their life directly without what are really virtual representations of life as rendered through a screen.
How involved in technology your children are is only half of the equation in its impact on them. The other half, of course, is the degree to which you are savvy in both your understanding and use of technology. The research indicating that children spend, on average, more than 7.5 hours a day in front [...]
The Internet is a truly remarkable advancement in our ability to access information. Just about anything we could possibly want to know is now just a few keystrokes away. But , as with most technological innovations, for every benefit to our lives, there is a potential cost as well. With the universe of information now [...]
Even the Lords of Tech are realizing that too much technology can be unhealthy. I've been writing about this for years. Nice to see that they're finally getting it. "Stuart Crabb, a director in the executive offices of Facebook, naturally likes to extol the extraordinary benefits of computers and smartphones. But like a growing number [...]
A commenter on one of my blogs sent me this "funny if it wasn't so sad" illustration of the role that technology plays in the lives of many people these days: 10 Awesome Ways to Have a Really Great Time with Your Friends. If you're anything like me, you see these scenes play out every [...]
Yes, you heard me right. I asked whether you are capable of disconnecting…from your smartphone, PC, laptop, tablet, or mp3 player! I realize that is a shocking and perhaps heretical suggestion in a time when most people are connected 24/7. I’m not saying that you have to be thoroughly disconnected; that’s not realistic in today’s [...]
Karl Marx famously called religion the “opiate of the masses.” Well, to paraphrase Reggie Hammond, Eddie Murphy’s character in the film 48 Hours, “There’s a new opiate in town and its name is technology.” Yes, folks, everywhere you look these days, you see people “shooting up” their technological “drug” of choice, whether emails, text messages, [...]
Our self-identities, that is, how we define and see ourselves as unique individuals, play a vital role in who we are and the direction that our lives take. The self-identity encompasses the totality of knowledge and understanding that we gain about ourselves as we develop including our personalities, aptitudes and capabilities, intellectual and physical attributes, [...]