Your Parenting Info

Last Thursday, in my Civics class, we watched the Frontline documentary Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier. The movie had a shocking effect, as almost every one in the class was scared by the statistics stated in it.  I found the facts it exposed to be a bit harsh, but there are at  least two sides to everything.

The movie talks about how far technology has advanced and what it has achieved, and what it has also caused.  It is by Rachel Dretzin and Micheal Rushkoff, who previously were pro-technology and some of the first advocates.  The movie travels around the world showing the downsides of technology in many places.  It starts at MIT, where it goes in depth on multitasking and goes as far as South Korea to look into the technology addicts there.

The portion on technology addicts was the most important part to me, because video game addictions are becoming more and more common to teenagers these days.  It may not appear as a straight up addiction, but rather as a constant want to be gaming.  Some kids will spend every ounce of their time on the game system rather than playing sports, doing school work, and interacting in person.  I think that sports has actually helped keep me out of the that hellish nightmare.  I am too busy to play games the majority of the time.  Also, sports are more exhilarating and fun to me than games, so games have limited appeal to me.  But for kids who are already involved, it may seem too late.  South Korea has schools where addicts are rehabilitated and taught to reconnect, but we lack them here in America.  Rather, for now we will just have to have each family handle it on its own.

The movie also talks about how schools are starting to use technology more and more.  This is good, but bad, too.  In South Korea, kids are taught to use computer when they learn to read, which to me is far too young.  That age sets up the child for a life of technology abuse.

This documentary brought a new understanding of technology to me, but it only cast the bad.  Remember, this may all sound bad, but where would we be without computers?  You wouldn’t be reading this, and I wouldn’t be receiving a paycheck.