Mobile phones and the Internet constrain us as a whole, they don’t allow for interpersonal relationships among individuals. This allows for more awkwardness among our youth who sit and play video games or are online talking to people rather than playing with their friends like I used to and my parents used to. This has a snowball affect, where it now affects children’s health and academics. All their friends are doing it as well so there is no one to blame here but technological advances and kids who are unwilling to get a little enjoyment out of getting out of the house and playing in the neighborhood.
According to cnn.com 7.5 million kids under the age of 13 have opened a Facebook account and by the time children are 2 years old 90% of at least American kids have online experience. This increase in Internet usage has been linked in “some kids to limited attention span, lower comprehension, poor focus, greater risk for depression and diminished long-term memory” (cnn.com). These are our future CEO’s and leaders of our country.
These social medias and technologies are forcing or “enabling” our kids to forfeit their privacy where they understand how important it is for them to keep and to have in full control because things they post on the internet are permanent and may not be erased.
An interesting view is that now college athletes, who are looking to go pro in their respective sport are not only being looked from an athletic standpoint but are being scrutinized through how they use their social medias and are being looked at more in depth through this where teams are looking at how they are socially and how they mentally interact within their social capacities. Major athletes who are the future of their respective sports are being closely examined to see if they are a good fit for their respective team and are in turn being turned down where they would be high draft picks for the sole fact that they are not what the teams is looking for in their locker room and so on. These players have grown up in this technological boom and are suffering the consequences of their behavior that cannot be erased for their Internet “doings.” Their anomie is catching up to them and these kids have lacked “social norms,” and are bearing the brunt of this.
http://www.sunzu.com/articles/how-many-people-own-a-cell-phone-181256/
http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/21/opinion/clinton-steyer-internet-kids