EVERYTHING
FOR YOUR FAMILY
Editor's Note
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Tech toys and today’s youth Far removed from being a youth, I remain in sync with who they are. I’m still miffed about an incident from the dark ages: As a mid-20s reporter for a suburban newspaper, I was appalled when an editor referred to my age group as “mostly vacuous.” There was nearly a revolt in the newsroom, filled as it was then with twentysomethings. We were angry, misunderstood. But something is amiss in this age of technology. A recent Los Angeles Times series based on a poll about how youth entertain themselves was both riveting and revolting. With cell phones in lap and MP3s, TiVo, IM messaging, video games and iTunes downloading into iPods, youth and young adults reported that they are bored. It is because they are isolated. We’ve run the risk at this magazine of becoming old-fashioned by calling for a ban of cell phones for preteens and warning of the dangers of unbridled computer use – a topic that comprises this issue’s Cover Story. We haven’t yet touched on the psychic challenge of tech toys that keep humans apart. Without direct human contact – phone calls count because there is a live voice; emails don’t because they are just a jumble of distracted letters – with whom do you share? If disconnected social clubs such as MySpace.com, where you befriend people you will never meet, is not a call for help, then maybe I am the one in need of an education. Technology, by definition, is a helpful way to complete both personal and professional tasks. But it is, in many ways, the anti-reality. A disconnected, wired game. The Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll found that “a large majority of the 12- to 24-year-olds surveyed are bored with their entertainment choices some or most of the time...” Would having a friend in which they spend face-to-face time help? (Has human contact become as boring as multi-tasking?) Should having a family that eats dinner together and discusses the events of the day count? Listen, out of a collective fear, we’re more and more cocooning, streets empty, playgrounds half-full, children’s laughter nowhere to be heard. Imagination, out the door. I worry about a line in a terrific new business book, “The Long Tail,” by Wired magazine Editor Chris Anderson: “What happens when everything in the world becomes available to everyone?” Is that the definition of childhood’s end? Parents, you may think you’ve created an oasis by retrofitting your home with all the modern goodies so that your child never leaves. But if he’s been up in his room, door closed, earphones in, IM-ing for the past three hours, you haven’t embraced him, you’ve lost him. Craig Reem Executive Editor |
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