Kids Live To Be Online

Posted by Barb on January 25, 2010

The New York Times article, If Your Kids Are Awake, They’re Probably Online, reported that today’s young people spend almost every waking moment connect to some kind of electrical device such as cell phones, computers, and television.  The bigger question is, “Why are they spending seven and a half hours a day using such devices?”

People born after the 1970s are considered digital natives (a person for whom digital technologies already existed when they were born, and hence has grown up with digital technology such as computers, the Internet, mobile phones and MP3s.).  This is how those between the ages of 8 and 18 stay in touch and socialize with their peers.    They text their friends, listen to music, share photos, post on Twitter and Facebook, and when they have to, search the Internet to complete their research papers.  You may agree or disagree with the way these digital natives spend their time, but we need to accept it because it isn’t going way.

Some of us have adapted to the technology.  Many of us learned to text, just so we could get in touch with our children.  We’ve joined Facebook at first to spy on what our children were posting, but have found that it is a great way to find old friends.  If you think about it, our generation is probably using these forms of technology more and more each year, just like the young people.

So now I ask you two questions… how many hours of your day are you connect to these electronic devices, and can we incorporate this fact into our instructional methods?

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