Keeping Up With Commodore

On Sunday, as we were driving from Nana and Granddad's to Sydney, our national radio call-in show asked us what we thought about technology and children. Had technology had a positive impact? A negative one? Was it sure to be the demise of civilization as we know it?

First, an about us: we don't have an iPhone or a smart phone (and I'm not entirely clear on the difference between the two). We have a cell phone and it gets used about once a month We don't have a television. We have two computers and probably spend about an average number of hours online (maybe a little less than average since our time wasting time is pretty minimal these days). We watch movies, documentaries and mini-series online and are introducing Frances to the important childhood silliness that is Sesame Street via You Tube. We keep what works for us and pitch the rest.

The call-in show began by stating that parents today are increasingly isolated from the technologies that permeate their children's lives. Our lack of smart phones aside, I'd have to disagree. Compared to the last twenty years, parents are probably less isolated than ever from the technologies that their children use. My school got it's first computer when I was in grade four. Five years later, when I started grade nine, it was assumed that our assignments would be completed on our home computer and printed on our home printer. Yes, I remember dial-up and no my kindergarten class didn't have a smart board, but I feel nonetheless that I have less of a gap to bridge than my parents did. Does this familiarity make me feel any better about the pervasiveness of communications technologies in Frankie's life? No. 

No because of cyber-bullying. No because of ridiculously shortened attention spans. And no because of the increasing irrelevance of the outdoors (in favour of the connected indoors) in children's lives. As we listened to the show we talked about the age at which Frances could have her first cell phone. Sixteen was my initial old person/parent reaction, knowing full well that this will likely mean eight years of pleading and then more pleading. One high school teacher came on and said that many of his student's can't make it from their desks to the black board without getting (and having to respond to) a text and that group-work is no longer feasible since it most often becomes students sitting in a circle sending texts to other students not in the circle. My sixteen became seventeen and then eighteen. 

A student council president came on and tried to make the case for smart phones having an educational place in the classroom. It was a stretch at best and made you wonder about the families who can't afford these phones and the sometimes hefty monthly fees that come with keeping them turned on. But what if Frankie was student council president? What if she was a member of the math club and volunteered on weekends? Would I feel differently then? Yes. If she was responsible and focused and engaged in different academic and non-academic activities I'd worry much less about her ability to use and incorporate technology into her life without it taking over; without it becoming a means rather than an end.

This was our first lesson of the day: its pointless to try to set arbitrary age limits for things that will happen years in the future, especially when we know that we don't know which technologies will then be a part of our everyday lives. Who she is as she grows up will dictate when and how much technology she has access to. 

Our second and most important lesson was one that we sort of arrived at ourselves. If we want Frances to live a robust life and to balance her use of technology with all of the other non-technological wonders that life offers, it is up to us to do the same. To balance time online with time outside and time with books and time creating. To balance our constructive use of communications technologies with our non-constructive use (oh hello there facebook) so that our access to infinite information always remains a means for us to explore and experience and contribute to the offline world rather than an endless dead end in itself.

What about emergencies you ask? We're ready for that one (when her wise seven year old mind prepares itself for check mate). Luckily, while we're young enough to know how to use a cell phone, we're old enough to know that emergencies were invented before them and not the other way around.