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How has Technology Impacted Parenting? (1) The fast pace of technological progress in recent years had a great affect on parenting, despite the fact that the process of childrens upbringing is traditionally associated with conservative values. We can even say that the concept of parenting is now being transformed to have an entirely new meaning. Children are becoming increasingly independent of their parents, because the realities of post-modern living result in situation when the notion of parental authority is being undermined to a significant degree. This is because nowadays, parents have ceased to represent the most dependable source of empirical information, upon which children need to rely, during the course of growing up. For example, whereas as recent as twenty years ago, children needed to apply a great amount of effort to obtain reliable information, in regards to sexual activities, today they can get such information with the click of their computers mouse. We can say that the scientific progress has brought about situation when todays kids are being bombarded with different kinds of information on daily basis, while lacking the ability to utilize their sense of logic, when it comes to making use of such information.
In her article Selling Parents on Technology, Linda Freeman raises concerns over the fact that todays parents often find themselves in position of being unable to have much of an influence on the process of their childrens upbringing, because of technology: Parents have fears about children and technology that are sincerely felt and often legitimate. Will there be safeguards to keep students from accessing inappropriate material? Will technology make school-work too easy? Will the ability to download materials from encyclopedias and other resources tempt students to plagiarize? Will students become dependent on technology to the point where they " ll never be able to add and subtract without a calculator, or spell without a spell checker?
Will technology make kids into passive, glassy-eyed nerds who never read a book and are dependent on virtual rather than real experiences? (Freeman, p. 45). It appears that parents worst fears, in regards to the effect of technology on their children are now being slowly realized. For example, it is not a secret that 50 % of elementary school students are grossly overweight. Can it be simply a coincidence that majority of these children are also addicted to computer games? For those parents whose sense of logic has not been completely atrophied, the link between the development of technology and the worsening of their childrens health appears to be self-evident. In this paper, we will analyze technology's impact on parenting and will come with suggestion as to how parents can reduce its negative effects and how to benefit on positive ones. (2) The traditional concept of parenting implies parents staying in constant touch with their children.
Before the end of WWII, it was a common practice for children to live with their parents, up until they would reach adulthood. Parents were required to keep a close eye on childrens progress at school and to even use a physical force, as the ultimate mean of preventing children from choosing in favor of anti-social type of behavior. Nowadays, the situation has changed drastically. By the time they reach 13 - 15 years old, children consider themselves of being fully capable of leading a lifestyle, which they think suits them the best. This can be explained by the fact that the validity of parents opinions, in childrens eyes, has been greatly undermined, since now they have an easy access to the variety of different sources of information, related to different aspects of their lives.
As a rule, such information contradicts the notions of conventional morality, which parents strive to instill in their kids. Therefore, it is only natural for children to grow skeptical of their parents advices. For many children, their computers, TVs and video games have practically replaced their moms and dads. In his article Turn It Off, Kids! , Dan Costa suggests that parents can no longer ignore the fact that they gradually lose the means to control their childrens upbringing: In most households, the TV is on for 7 hours a day. By the time the average kid graduates the 12 th grade, he has spent 11, 000 hours in school -- and more than 15, 000 hours watching TV. Kids under six already spend more time watching TV and playing video games then they do reading (Costa, p. 55).
The problem is that childrens dependency on technological gadgets is now being institutionalized. For example, the prestige of public and private schools directly corresponds to whether these schools are being equipped with computers and electronic whiteboards to the best possible extent. The electronic gadgetry is being increasingly relied upon, during the course of educational process, because it allows students to memorize factual data in the most effective manner. At the same time, the fact that children are not provided with guidance on how to analyze the memorized data, is being commonly overlooked.
As result, it becomes increasingly harder for children to relate received knowledge to the surrounding reality. We can say that todays children know more then they can possibly understand. In its turn, it often serves as a main motivational factor for children to indulge in social absenteeism, when it is only the matter of time, before such absenteeism triggers depression. Children that are addicted to computer games have a hard time coping with reality and they do understand this on subconscious level. This is the reason why it will not be an exaggeration to suggest that all the children who cannot imagine their lives without playing computer games, are being affected by depression, when the severity of such depression is only the variable factor.
Psychologists are aware that indulgence in overeating, on the part of a patient, serves as the most clear indication that person is depressed. Thus, we can establish a strong connection between modern informational technologies and the increased number of children affected by depression and obesity. The report 11 th Annual Media Wise Video Game Report Card, which is available on the web site of National Institute on Media and the Family, confirms the validity of earlier statement: Our research finds that children who spend more time playing video games are heavier, and are more likely to be classified as overweight or obese. Furthermore, playing video games in the bedroom is also related to children's increased weight (NIMF).
The majority of parents understand perfectly well that their childrens dependency on technological gadgets can hardly be referred to as beneficial. At the same time, they often find themselves incapable to address this issue effectively, since active parenting is now being discussed within a context of cultural badness, racism and even sexism. In his article Self-Discipline and Moral Health, William Pierce is making a very good point when he suggests that: The raising of children in America has been feminized, softened. Disobedience no longer merits a whipping or the withdrawal of an allowance. Disrespect to a parent no longer earns a hard slap across the face and being confined to one's room for a few days.
Self-indulgence in children actually is encouraged today (Pierce). The fast pace of cultural and scientific progress, with which we closely associate Western civilization, has always been beneficial to humankind. Therefore, we cannot refer to parenting being increasingly affected by modern technologies as such that represents the very core of the problem. However, in contemporary America, the ever-increased rate of childrens technological awareness cannot be referred to as something that benefits children, in the first place, because it is being exploited by self-proclaimed guardians of public morality to undermine the biological quality of American nation.
It is very ironic that the main threat that technology poses to children is often being discussed in terms of political correctness. Left-wingers could not care less that children lose their existential vitality because of their obsession with computers or cell phones, but they raise a lot of stink when cell phones are being used for bullying, for example, even though that many fat kids could only win from being chased around by bullies, because it would help them to lose weight. In their article Cyberbullying: What School Administrators (and Parents) Can Do, Andrew Beale and Kimberly Hall are being absolutely serious when they suggest that cyberbullying represents the greatest challenge for the parents of four-eyed nerds: Cyberbullying is emerging as one of the most challenging issues facing parents and school personnel as students embrace the Internet and other mobile communication technologies. Believing they are free from attribution, cyberbullies engage in cruel and harmful practices that demean, embarrass, and hurt fellow students without the fear of facing the consequences for their actions (Beale, Kimberly, p. 12). However, as we have mentioned earlier, the real problem with kids becoming overly technological, is that they are unaware of the whole spectrum of practical applications of their knowledge. Our government simply does not have a comprehensive vision of how technology can be utilized to help children to grow into productive members of society.
Within a context of parenting, technology is often being perceived as such that has value in itself. This, of course, is far from truth. It appears that there is only one positive aspect of technology becoming the essential component of parenting the communicational one. Because of a wide spread of cell phones, parents are now staying in constant touch with their children, regardless of where they might be at certain point of time.
Technology also comes in handy when toddlers are concerned. It became a common practice for many parents to have toddlers cribs equipped with walkie-talkie radios, so that they can always hear when baby begins to cry. However, cell phone technology is also capable of causing harm, within context of parenting and education. The mobile phones are now being increasingly used by students to cheat at school, as they use them to send each other short messages (SMS), during the course of examinations, when students are supposed to be completely cut off from the outside sources of information. In their article Cheating in Middle School and High School, Paris and Robert Strom's describe childrens tendency to cheat with the help of their cell phones as the matter of national concern, because less and less students now posses a factual knowledge, by the time their graduate from high school: Emergence of technological devices has spawned new and more sophisticated approaches to deceptive conduct.
Students with handhelds or cell phones can "beam" or call data silently from across a classroom or, with a cell phone, from anywhere off campus. During a test, such tools frequently are hidden under the table or in baggy pockets (Strom, Strom, p. 110). Thus, we can say that, even though that implementation of modern informational technology in classroom was meant to increase students academic success fulness, it often produces a completely opposite results. More and more parents find themselves unable to effectively confront this tendency, because they rightly consider forcing their children to associate technology with metaphysical wrongness as an inappropriate practice. (3) To conclude this paper, we need to emphasize once again that objective reality shows that technology's impact on modern parenting has been largely negative. However, this is not because technology has anti-social properties, but because in Western countries, governments do not consider making provisions for childrens proper upbringing as its foremost priority. The racial marginalization of American society results in creating a situation when increasingly larger number of adolescents views technology as the tool of entertainment alone.
They are quite capable of turning their computers on and off and browsing through sleazy web sites, but this is about it. Despite the fact that most of American high schools are equipped with the latest technological gadgets, the software designing companies in this country have a hard time, while looking for professionally adequate employees. For example, 60 % of Microsoft's software designers are naturalized American citizens who were born in Russia. At the time when they were attending high school, only few of them had access to computers. Nevertheless, this did not prevent them from attaining professional excellence in their later years.
This comes in striking contrast with high school students in contemporary America, who often find themselves unable to solve the easiest math formulas, without having to resort to electronic calculators. Thus, we can conclude that scientific progress will continue to undermine the effectiveness of parenting in American families, for as long as socio-political and educational policies in this country utilize the notion of multicultural insanity, as foundation upon which they are built. Bibliography: Annual Media Wise Video Game Report Card. November 28, 2006. National Institute on Media and the Family.
Retrieved May 5, 2008 from web Costa, D. (2007). Turn It Off, Kids! , PC Magazine V. 26 No. 9, p. 55 Freeman, L. (1999). Selling Parents on Technology. Principal (Reston, Va. ), V. 78, No. 3. Pp. 45 - 6 Honawar, V. (2008) Cell Phones in Classrooms Land Teachers on Online Video Sites. The Education Digest, V. 73, No. 6, Pp. 29 - 33 Pierce, W. (2001) Self-Discipline and Moral Health.
National Alliance. Retrieved May 5, 2008 from web Kimberly, H. and Beale, A. (2007) Cyberbullying: What School Administrators (and Parents) Can Do. The Clearing House. V. 81, No. 1, Pp. 8 - 12 Strom, R. and Strom, P. (2007) Cheating in Middle School and High School.
The Educational Forum. V. 71, No. 2, Pp. 104 - 16 Abstract: This paper discusses different aspects of technology's impact on parenting. Outline: Introduction Main part Conclusion
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