Welcome one and all to 2013!!! I hope the New Year finds you all well!
Well, it's been quite a while since I've written, so I've got quite a lot on my mind. Forgive me in advance for my long-windedness, but here goes.
Technology, friend or foe? Well, both actually. Taking a look around my little slice of the planet, lately, I've noticed a few things that have really got me bent out of shape. Not the least of which, is our society's apparently intrinsic need for mobile communication and social media. Everywhere you look, someone is on a mobile device of some kind, texting, checking facebook, checking in to a location, surfing the web or "googling" something. That's not all bad, though. Today's technology has afforded us many different ways to stay connected to friends and family, and to manage our daily work and lives. It can be a great thing......in the hands of the right person, with the right set of motives, and the ability to separate it from real life. Here are just a few examples of what I am talking about.
While sitting around the house the other day, my youngest son Daniel (who is known for his high intelligence level, mind you), actually used the non-word LOL verbally. No, seriously. He actually sounded it out "L-A-W-L". I have to admit, I got a bit of a chuckle out of it, because it was Danny, who has a knack for making anyone around him LOL. But upon further review, it became very clear to me, just how strange this was! Apparently this is the newest trend in a long line of sad trends. Thanks to the era of text messaging and social media, our teenagers are now verbalizing the acronyms they use in messages!!! Laziness has reached an all time high.... or is it low? He goes on to inform me that the commercial he just watched on TV was "TOTS CRA CRA, it made me LOL". Allow me to translate from my new 2013 Webster's Teenage version Dictionary: "That commercial was totally crazy! It made me laugh out loud!" Why didn't you just say that, then? I wondered.
After giving this minor little incident some thought, a much bigger picture began to unfold before my very eyes. Today's generation of teenagers are tomorrow's leaders of America's government, corporations and families. How will they manage? Today's youth are so fully immersed in their technology, that many of them have never even learned or practiced the basic social skills necessary for them to carry on a normal face to face conversation. They don't know how to physically interact with their peers. They have no concept of what it means to go on a real date. They have a hard time interacting with anyone, without some kind of electronic interface involved. Try this little experiment. Go to the mall, find a bench and just watch. Virtually every single teenager you see will be typing on a device of some kind. Even in a group, they are typing to one another instead of talking, even when their friend is standing right next to them!!! Better yet, try to carry on any verbal conversation with a teenager. I guarantee that you'd have a hard time getting them to even make eye contact with you! That's a little scary, isn't it? It is ultimately our responsibility as the parents to make sure our kids have ample opportunity to practice these very basic skills. What does that mean? Well, maybe it means we need to set some boundaries in regards to their use of social media, texting, etc. Maybe we need to set some limits. Perhaps, we need to interact with them ourselves!!!!!! Have you sent a text message to your kid lately? Probably. I know I have! Try giving them a call instead. Have dinner together as a family, while verbally discussing your day. Ban devices from the dining room. Do whatever you have to do. Let's get back to talking to each other!!!
Now, having said all of that, I want to be clear. I'm not completely against all technology and social media. I can't be. In fact, I am employed by a Fortune 100 company, whose entire mission is to insert as much technology as is possible into our daily lives. I live and breath technology every day. Notice, I'm not writing this all out in cursive in a notebook! I can embrace technology when it is used correctly and for the common good. Here's an example.
A colleague of mine from Texas was in town recently for a series of meetings, the last of which he announced he was cutting short, due to a dinner date with his daughter. I asked if his daughter lived here in town. He chuckled a little bit, and stated that he would be joining his daughter for dinner via FaceTime. "I never miss dinner with my daughter" he said, "even when I'm out of town. It's too important."
So, you see, it's not all bad. We, as the adults just have a responsibility to ensure it doesn't replace the basic, everyday social skills required for us to still call ourselves a society. Otherwise, we're all just binary digits in the grand social experiment.
To conclude, I'd like to paraphrase from an old buddy of mine. An old telephone man I used to work with passed away a few years ago from cancer. In the months leading up to his death, he spent some time making preparations for his soon to be demise. One of the things he did to prepare, was to write down some final thoughts to be included in his obituary and eulogy. In it, he talked about what he thought of today's culture and more importantly, today's youth. In his summary, he wrote something similar to the following:
" The very best thing we can do for our society, of course, is to go outside and play catch with a kid."
Well said! Maybe it's time we all found a kid and threw the ball around for a while. Slow down, take a breath, and take some time to look around. What do you think?
There's the first rant of the new year for all of my BFF's!! LOL! I hope you give it some thought. Well, I GTG! TC! TTFN! and TTYL!
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
- Ferris Bueller
Thanks for reading.......
