| By M.V. Moorhead |
June 10, 2006 |
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A friend of
mine often complains about what he calls
“cell-phone babysitters.” Disturbed by
the sight of children of 12, or even
younger, spending hours unsupervised in
malls or other public places, around
potentially harmful influences, he rails
against the parental attitude, “It’s OK;
he has a cell phone.”
At first I thought this concern was
principally with child safety, and that
a counterargument could be made. After
all, when I was a kid—back in the age of
the dinosaurs—I often spent hours on my
own or with friends, sometimes without
so much as a dime for a phone call.
Today, mom and dad can program their
phone numbers onto their kid's
speed-dial buttons, and satellites can
track a phone's GPS signal practically
anywhere on earth. Couldn’t it be argued
that cell phones are a powerful tool for
keeping children safe?
It took me a while to understand that
what bothered my friend wasn’t the cell
phone for kids per se, but the use of it
as a replacement for vigilant and
personal parenting. The issue was
summarized with chilling concision by
Malcolm Gladwell, in the afterword of
the paperback edition of his remarkable
book The Tipping Point:
“We have given teens more money, so they
can construct their own social and
material worlds more easily. We have
given them more time to spend among
themselves—and less time in the company
of adults. We have given them e-mail and
beepers and, most of all, cellular
phones, so that they can fill in all the
dead spots in their day—dead spots that
might once have been filled with then
voices of adults—with the voices of
their peers. That is a world ruled by
the logic of word of mouth, by the
contagious messages that teens pass
among themselves.”
When I discussed the matter with Kyrene
Corridor psychologist Neil Weiner,
he told me that the concern is not only
valid, it goes considerably beyond the
realm of cell phones.
“I think it’s worse than you think,”
says Weiner, an Arizona State graduate
whose practice includes families,
children and teenagers. Cell phones, he
insists, are just one of the devices
that are swiftly insulating children and
youths—among other groups—from direct
social contact with their parents, their
friends, their fellow human beings in
general.
Some of the other culprits?
“We’ve got the TV,” says Weiner. “We’ve
got iPods, which from what I read are
causing deafness at a record rate. If
it’s loud enough that you can hear it
[when it’s in your kid’s ears], it’s too
loud. It used to be that when your kid
said, ‘What did you say?’, it meant that
he wasn’t listening to you. Now it means
that he really can’t hear you.”
Some of the dangers computers pose, like
inappropriate online relationships and
exposure to predators, have been well
documented. Others are only now gaining
notice.
“Kids are being left with computers, and
quite a few of them are developing
ADHD,” notes Weiner. “When kids are not
parked electronically they get antsy.
Insomnia is getting to be a problem for
kids. A lot of them have trouble
sleeping without a TV or radio on,
because they’ve gotten so used to
constant electronic stimulation.”
But Weiner is quick to point that it
isn’t only psychological well-being and
social skills that are affected. Along
with the aforementioned impact on
hearing, the sedentary, “electronically
parked” lifestyle is also giving rise to
record obesity, diabetes and other
health troubles. And it’s starting
sooner all the time: Weiner is
particularly appalled at the appearance
of the BabyFirstTV, a new cable channel
with programming aimed specifically at
infants.
Weiner is a consultant with Get
Psyched!, a new store run by his wife,
Lettie. “The concept is to take mental
health into the community,” says Weiner,
who says that the store, located at 1709
E. Guadalupe Road, Tempe is organized
into four tracks of products and
services—everything from books to
seminars for the general public,
continuing education for therapists, an
institute to teach parenting skills, and
an alternative healing department.
So if, say, in honor of Father’s Day, a
parent wanted to counteract some of
these electronic trends with his or her
own children, what would be Weiner’s
advice?
“Turn off as many things as possible,”
he says. “Have dinner with your kids,
sit down with them to do their homework,
tell stories, tell them family history.”
And finally, simply: “Hold your kids.” |
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