Technology Pit

I have caught myself doing the same thing I yell at my kids for doing. I am sitting in my room chatting and posting on my kids face book, all the while they are just above me in the living room, kitchen or a bedroom.  I say to them this is crazy you’re all in the same house how come you can’t interact face to face.  They tell me they are learning how to spell better this way.  Are you kidding me? LOL, u2, bff and any other acronyms you can come up with is not a word. They will argue that times have changed and texting is the new way of life and computers and the internet is the way of the future. Now I can remember life before people expected us to be available 24/7.  When we referred to the bathroom as the library because it was when most used this time as a great way to read while nature took its course.  Now with 10 dogs this will never happen at my house they all think they need to be in there with you.  If you lock them out they just scratch till you go crazy. So I leave the door ajar and they run in and out till I am crazy the whole time jumping in my lap, for the love of GAWD one of these days one of them are going right in. This behavior does cause one to make things quick, so no time to read or relax, fending off jumping dogs does not allow for anything other than hurry.

I look back two years ago when the 5^th grade teacher told me that my daughter will not learn to cursive write because it is assumed they learned it much earlier in their education, and the fact be known schools were thinking of dropping cursive writing from the curriculum that is taught in schools because no one will need it.  Everyone Texted or typed so they won’t ever need to. Now I was in shock to say the least.  But most of all this statement made me take a look at what my kids are really learning.  Now they cannot read a clock unless it is digital.  They complain that they need to use my cell phone because if they need to call me there are no pay phones, I cannot confirm this but the fact they said it took me by surprise. Wow 25 years ago the first cell phones where coming out. How did we live through those times of no cell phones.  I bought them watches in hopes that they could learn to tell time on a regular clock. The older ones say why do they need to, the cell phones have the time on them.  The younger ones only care what time it is when they need to leave the house at a certain time.  So they just use the remote for the TV, push select on the remote and it will display the time on the screen.  Now that little action happens at least 5 times in the morning alone. Wow as I type this I just done the math and no wonder I have to buy new batteries every month.

 The constant stimulation the kids today live with or can’t live without amazes me.  I find that I look for times of quite with the only sounds being made. are from nature.  The kids sit in front of the TV with MP3 player plugged into one ear and working on the computer. The cell phone at ready or the iPod in one hand texting someone and the other hand posting someone on face book.  I cannot stand in the checkout lane at the market in peace without listening to some stranger’s phone conversation. We get in the car and the kids go right for the radio before I can start it.  If we are traveling they all have the DVD players MP3’s and iPods and less we forget the cell phone.  I can drive for hundreds of mile literally hours without anything but my thoughts to entertain me.  The kids have a hard time getting through a 10 minute ride to the market.

Last week one of the kids told me they could not figure out percentages without the calculator.  Heaven forbid if we have a cataclysmic disaster and there was a brown/black out these kids won’t be able to survive.  I think this all started out so subtle that we didn’t even know how dependent we had become on all this technology. I have totally fallen in the technology pit as it has now become apparent that I am getting as bad as them, when I am sitting here texting the kids sitting just above my head.