 | Chris Hicks
Chris Hicks is a senior at Northwest High School. He recently won third place in the Wichita regional editorial writing contest sponsored by the Kansas Scholastic Press Association, and is on the newspaper staff. After graduating Hicks plans to attend Wichita State University, with an undeclared major. He enjoys music and is very active in local music outside of school. |
Young adults' forum
2006-05-01 17:06:00
Technology and communication
ANSWER: When you walk down a hall, it is becoming more common to see things like kids playing on cell phones, or listening to Ipods. As time progresses, it’s becoming fact that these are evolving into status symbols in today’s society.As all these thing are gaining popularity, many kids are staying inside more and using their cell phones and computers to associate, which is causing a direct decline in social skills and behavioral issues. When kids don’t actually talk to each other in person, or learn how to behave in person, it slows down their process of being able to tell right from wrong. While on the Internet, they can get off whenever they get in a fight with a friend, or just walk away, but when confronted in person, the lack of social skills takes an obvious toll on them, by not knowing how to handle the situation.With the rise of this new wave on technology, the younger generation is learning to use these things, as they are new, putting them ahead of most common adults who don’t have time to learn how to work every new device put out. This gives children freedoms they may not need, or have the responsibility to use correctly. When you cannot supervise what the children use and how they use it, the parents lose a large part of what they can do to help raise their children. Rather than restrict the time spent on these devices, the parents more commonly just learn to look the other way.While technology will always be in the future, it should be limited in the time of use someone should get. The idea isn’t to ignore technology but rather to remember there are things we can do outside or face-to-face. As technology continues to grow, we should invest in it and help the youth be able to use it, but we should also ensure they do more than just use it all day and night. Through every generation there have been break throughs in technology that change how everything works, and that is what has happened, and will continue to happen through out history.So as new technology emerges we shouldn’t necessary remove the youth from it, but rather restrict how much time can be spent on it and to learn to help control these things from spiraling out of control.
