As we embark into the future, and our lives become relatively easier I have begun to wonder if technology has become more of a hindrance to the parenting process. While you’re pecking away at your BlackBerry or Iphone, while juggling your Venti Soy Chai from Starbucks, and trying to update your Facebook status, while taking a picture, and playing words with friends, while taking breaks because you are simultaneously texting, and trying to tweet about your experiences some of the intimacy of parenting is lost. Instead of being 100% cognizant of our child, we are now too busy trying to share the “cute” moments with the outside world. I often find myself barking the words, “Smile” at my son and daughter, and critiquing their smiling abilities, while trying to capture the best picture possible so that I can Instagram it. What has life come to? We are now trying to stage spontaneous moments instead of capture them so that our little “mini-me(s)” will garner all of the oohs and ahhs of our social network followers. Do you ever witness and awesome moment with your child, and instead of reveling in the beauty of the moment shout out, “Ok, do that again, I want to take a picture of it, and post it on Facebook.” Has your child ever yelled out, mommy or daddy while you were scrolling through the bazillion duck face, pictures on Facebook trying to see what everyone else is up to, only to reply, “hold on!!” Like you really care that your friend and her third baby daddy, are now fighting again, and she is about to head out to the club in her “freak him girl dress,” because he cheated on her again. We are so glued into this fake world of social media that our real world is deteriorating. People now sit their kids in front of tv, not so they can accomplish housework or meaningful tasks, but so they can type away at their mobile devices, update their status, read about “friends” who really aren’t friends, then talk about them to their real friends, while calling people who they never call anymore friends, because they both belong to a website, but don’t talk anymore. Confusing? I’d say so.
What happened to board games, going to the park, playing with your child, arts and crafts, and teaching your child to read, write etc? Oh there’s an app for that. We are now teaching our children at an early age to disconnect from society, and to disengage from conversation. Ipads, LeapPads (my son has one), Iphones, Ipods, have all replaced the time that used to be filled with meaningful and conventional conversation. On my Facebook page recently, I suggested that I might get rid of my smart device, and begin using a traditional cell phone instead. The reactions to this suggestion were mixed, as some people congratulated me, and others suggested that I merely erase some of the apps from my phone. We have begun to become dependent on these devices that were built with the intention of bringing us closer together. The telephone was made so that you could hear the voice of someone who was far away, but now we text. Now we Facebook, and then refer to that as talking to someone. We say, “Yeah, I talked to him the other day on Facebook.” Talking has now become a loosely defined action that may in fact happen without any speech, or person to person contact. Dinners are now filled with tables full of people ignoring each other to “talk to” people who aren’t even there. Our new tasks becomes how do we utilize this technology without becoming zombies?
How do you incorporate Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and all of these other sites into our daily lives without ignoring the people that are in reality standing by us. What if this moment was meant to be share by just us, and now it’s plastered all over the internet? Where are the boundaries? Does EVERY moment have to be captured in order to enjoy it? It’s almost as if it never happens unless you Facebook it. People are constantly saying, “If you went there, how come you didn’t post it on your Facebook page?’ or “If he really saw (insert name of celebrity) don’t you think he would have Facebooked it?” The more that we incorporate technology into our lives, the more we are actually disconnecting ourselves from our lives. As I sit here writing this blog, as my son plays a game on my Iphone, and my daughter does her homework on my laptop, and I pound away at my PC, I have begun to realize how disturbing this phenomenon has become……..what do you think?