Lenore Skenazy writes about how the kids of today….:
Is it just my kid, or is every child over the age of 8 carrying around a smartphone that’s making him dumb?
…
“The iPhone/smartphone is the new tween-teen killer app,” says Rodney Mason, CMO of the digital-branding agency Moosylvania. “It’s the remote control for the next generation, because in one single device they play games and text, do Facebook and MySpace, tweet on Twitter, surf the web, watch movies and TV shows like ‘The Office,’ and, oh yeah, occasionally listen to music and actually talk on it, which is now at the bottom of their list.”
…
We think of phones as a communication tool, but the truth is they may be just the opposite. “A year ago, 40% of 9- to 11-year-olds had their own cells,” says George Carey, president of the consulting company Just Kid Inc. “It’s got to be 50% by now. They roll out of bed and you can’t talk to them, or get them to focus when they come home. The kids are bleary.”
This doesn’t hinge at all on the positive benefits of having an instant-on, always connected communications device.
Are we not at the end of the noughties? Next year is 2010, right? And we have parents complaining about the kids of today.
Bribery and corruption abound.
Children no longer obey their parents,
every man wants to write a book, and
it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching.”
–Source, Assyrian Tablet (also attibuted to Socrates) c 2800 BC
This session of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt was brought to you by the Red Scare, the House Unamerican Activities Committee, and the Salem Witch Trials.
Next? How rock music will rot your brain.