Techno-Teens. A review of: Teens and Technology - A Good Match?

Teens and Technology – A Good Match. This article reviews the benefits and drawbacks to the connection of today’s teenagers to the technological world unfolding around them. This analysis of the time spent by the new generation of hooked of kids is an invaluable tool into what makes them tick and how they view and interact in their home and social settings as access to new electronic tools becomes increasingly more and more available. Some of the highlights to this article are:

• According to the Kaiser report, “about half of heavy media users (more than 16 hours a day) get fair to poor grades in school, compared with the 23 percent of light users (less than three hours) who earn similar grades.”
• “But the report reveals that when parents do set limits, their teens spend nearly three hours less per day using electronic media than those without restrictions.”
• “The emerging technology has forced the school to address these new challenges.”
• “The study found that 8- to 18-year-olds devote an average of about seven and a half hours a day (around 53 hours a week) to using entertainment media, including television, MP3 players, online time and video games. That's an increase of more than an hour per day from five years ago.”
• “In comparison, teens spend about 25 minutes a day reading books and three minutes reading newspapers.”
• “Use of mobile media may become addictive and as a result become hard to control in a disciplined way,"

I really appreciated this article as it looks at the amount of time today’s teens devote to technology. In some cases as was discussed in the article technology can be used to the benefit of these techno-kids but in too many of the cases it is just used as entertainment that will not further their ability to be citizens of our society with long-term benefits. I think that to exclude technology from today’s education would be a huge mistake and I try to use technology to promote education in the classroom as often as I can. It is hard to find that line where it is educational and not just for entertainment purposes however and I believe that parents must take an active role in educating kids as to what is an appropriate amount of time and what are appropriate technology outlets. Socializing is an important part of our culture and I think that the actual physical contact of socializing is extremely important and is lacking in many of our youths and we should make an effort to limit techno-socializing and promote healthy activities that get kids into the community and into activities in our communities. Promote technology but not at the cost of being a contributor to society.