Thursday, 16 May 2013
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.
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My mom always tries to control time I spent online because it will hurt my eyes. I think if I can control myself to enter into appropriate web site, I will be fine keep surfing online. "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." Yeah, that is true. I ignored the fact the social media can distract me when I spend too much time on it. I had such kind of experience. When I feel nervous or bored, there is a period of blank in my mind. During the period, I cannot stop to remember some social media I saw yesterday, last month, even years ago. The images become clearer and more detail. When I find I am distracted, time flies away. This is especially bad when I am taking final exams. I cannot focus at all. Yeah, I need to pay more attention on it. However, it is also true. For me, social media has already become part of my life and I believe it is not only me. It has become a tendency. The more we contact with the society, the more we need to contact with the social media. Maybe all I can do is to try to train myself to become more focus and have more power of control and determination. I think when I am distracted because in my substitute, I am trying to escape something and the way to escape is to remember something makes me happy. And the time when I am online with social media makes me happy. According some scientific researches, our body automatically choices to forget bored, nervous, sad things instead by the happy things for us, as a way of self-protection. So I think the real way to overcome the distraction is to make us build up determination, courage, and optimistic attitude to face what we want to escape and feel fun about it.
ReplyDeleteMultitasking is prevalent in my everyday life for sure, sometimes your on your computer doing homework while watching the game , texting , whatever it may be. This is just how the world works now, life is so busy, school 8 -3 3-4 do your homework 5- 6 dinner - 6-7 soccer ...etc etc that there isn't as much free time to just hop on your bike and call on friends. However ,I also feel that's why people your age have more "life long" friends than many of us younger generations. The people we text change on a year to year basis , friends people you meet hang out with etc. where as your generation also called on the same people etc. Today I think its so easy to communicate with new people that no one really builds the same relationships now as apposed to back then . That will be our generations downfall, backstabbing , and no trust.
ReplyDeleteGlad to know that some parents out there still have an open mind when it comes to parenting however !
good stuff
D
As a parent of three grown kids I can appreciate your concern about the invasion of social media into the lives of our children. My kids were early adopters of Facebook and looking back I would classify them as heavy users through their high school years, not unlike the majority of teens I suspect.
ReplyDeleteThe only limits their Mother and I put on them was to "not post anything that you would not say in person to the people involved" and of course no computer until the home work was done.
Through those teenage years I learned a lot about myself and the young adults that emptied the fridge on a daily basis. I will share what I think is relevant to your blog.
Kids need boundaries, and having limits on line is no different than setting limits when the training wheels come off their first bike. Children also need to know that you are monitoring what is happening on line. This doesn't mean spying on everything they view or share. However being aware of the technologies and taking an interest in how they are being used will keep parents in the loop and make it much easier for us to recognize potential problems as they arise. Then biggest insight I have to offer on the subject of social media is that not all media is created equally. Many aspects of social media such as Facebook, Twitter etc. are far better for our children then sitting in front of the boob tube watching TV or movies. Liking something on Facebook is never going to replace a game of road hockey, however social skills can be learned, communication skills reinforced, and even good old fashioned typing skills can me mastered. Don't laugh, my three boys can all type, not because they learned at school, because they were sitting at a keyboard chatting to their friends, sharing, communicating and having fun.
well said, there's good and bad, but lets focus on the good and how we can make sure our kids are getting the full benefits of social media.
ReplyDeleteDale Nickerson
I have to agree with a lot of the finer points in this article. It's already hard enough to stay focused in class, but with today's technology it's easy to become distracted so my advice will be treat digital devices as tools only.
ReplyDeleteI can relate with your article. I tend to spend countless hours on my phone checking up on my feeds on my social network. Whether I'm in class, church, on the bus, anywhere. My I tend to multitask through my day with my social networks and sometimes I lose out valuable information due to its distraction. I'm now too old for my parents to worry about me, but parents should worry about their kids use of these powerful tools
ReplyDeleteThe article I did was very similar. We had a lot of the same ideas. keep up the good work and I look forward to reading more
ReplyDelete