Social Media Article Assignment

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2048363,00.html

The article is stating that parents worry about what our children are seeing and doing with various forms of social media on-line.We spend endless hours/days/weeks contemplating what limits we should set on the data that our children can view, who their interacting with, etc. The article tends to think that the actual content might not be the problem, but the amount of usage of  media that is causing our children to be distracted(The average time spent on media usage is 7h38 a day and if you include multitasking can go up to 11h/day). It goes into a few paragraphs of scientific data that supports this view. They goes as far as implying that the more often you are involved with multitasking ( watching T.V and texting at the same time ) the more difficult it becomes to retain the information compared to someone who is less involved in multitasking. Society plays are role in this as well,  we tend to have such busy lives after school/work that the kids are unable to get together in person so they turn to alternative ways to keep in touch with friends( Facebook, texting,etc.).
   I relate with this article because I have kids that have a very busy schedule after school (rep sports) throughout the year, and they have turned to media usage to keep them in the loop with their friends.
Before reading this article I had the view that they didn't need to spend the amount of time they do texting their friends when they where going to lacrosse/hockey.This view was based on not having any past experiences in my life with a busy after school schedule.I was able to go and meet my friends in person instead of having other commitments. We perceive that the world outside of our own bubble is going to have a negative effect on our children( it is dangerous to ride your bike to your friends), leaving them no choice but to adapt or multitask, also causing a negative for our children. I  was one of  the parent who tried to impose limits on media usage. After reading the article it gave some incite into how kids interact today and I will now be more understanding or patient within reason when it comes to the  media usage of my kids.
   Many people are unaware of the negative impact on our kids brains of media usage over a prolonged period of time. If we can learn about the positive and negative affects of media usage we can alter our children's behaviour to make media usage a positive in their lives well into the future.In understanding the changes in behaviour of children today versus the children in the past maybe we can take the good of both time periods and strike a happy medium to help our children prosper in the future.Like having the best of both worlds.If we can collaborate with our kids to create a fair plan of attack, we can limit the negative affects of media usage moving forward and create a positive outcome for all.