This week’s issue of Time magazine has a feature article on The Multitasking Generation. The article discusses the technology-integrated lifestyle of today’s teenagers — and it covers some research that has been done on the effectiveness of multitasking.
While it presents both positive and negative aspects of how plugged-in this generation is, the strongest points made in this article are in one of the side-bars called “Tips for Parents.” The sidebar, by Dr. Edward Hallowell, a psychiatrist and author of the new book: CrazyBusy : Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap! Strategies for Coping in a World Gone ADD,
1) Do see for yourself what it’s all about. Get on IM. Download an MP3 file. Play a video game. Create a MySpace account. Let your kids be your guide, but talk to them about how to use these technologies safely and wisely.2) Don’t be a disapproving elder. Every older generation believes the younger generation is on the road to perdition. Your kids need your curiosity and involvement, not pious, uninformed pronouncements.
3) Do set limits, monitor content and teach “techno-manners” for everyone: No cell phones at the dinner table. No playing video games while someone is trying to talk to you. No ignoring Mom and Dad when they come home because you are glued to a screen.
4) Don’t be a screen-sucker. Monitor your own online behavior and television viewing. A major reason for the disappearance of the human moment in families is the parents’ — not just the kids’ — addiction to screens.
5) Do look for the good. Search for what’s positive and innovative in the ways in which your children are using and adapting to technology. Try to imagine how it could be used to enhance relationships and learning.
6) Don’t let technology steal your kids from you. Enjoy your children. Cherish the face-to-face conversations, the shared laughter, the dinner with all the family, the bedtime story, the car ride without the iPod, cideo game or fold-down DVD.
7) Do take time to hang out with your kids. Do mundane, nontechnological things: wash the car together, play Ping-Pong, debate politics, take them out for ice cream (no cell phones or iPods allowed.) Spend time together with ears and eyes available for them.
Excellent advice — I don’t think I could have stated it any better!
Change Agency by Stephanie Sandifer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. You may copy, distribute, transmit and/or remix this content for noncommercial uses as long as you attribute the work to Stephanie Sandifer (with link back to the original post) and agree to license the work under the same or similar license.
