While watching an e-marketin presentation ( http://vimeo.com/11904502 ) I remained really impressed by a statement of Mr Eric Schmidt, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Google, who claimed that "children today if are not at school or asleep they are on line".
What really shocked me is that he made this statement with a normal tone of voice as if it is one of the most natural thing that a child is now used to staring at a computer screen if not at school or in bed.
Ok, I may sound like an old guy too attached at his past, but when I was a child I used to play with other children, I used to spend a great deal of my spare time kicking and running toward a ball, riding a bicicle, in other way I used to interacting with other children or play with real objects and no virtual stuff. And I really think this is what a child should do. I really think this is the only way a child has to understand ( from scratch ) how to build relationships, to understand what being part of a community/society means, to start bulding those social skills that will stand him in good stead in the future.
Today the interaction among human beings seem to be a step behind the interaction between virtual alter-ego on the internet. Today you are cool if you have 1000 friends on facebook or 2000 connection on linkdin on if you post as many pictures as you can on the web to show everybody how much fun you have, how many places you have visited or how many parties you went last month. As if somebody really cares.
But this could be ok if you are an adult when your personality is now well shaped and maybe you post ypur pictures on facebook because you really think you are cool. But a child being conditioned by what he/she sees around him/her may really grow up with the idea that the virtual life is what really matters today. Maybe I am being too extremist but if I think how fast the world is moving and how much the things are changed compared to just a few years ago my pessimism clearly prevail on my optimism.
I find this site quite interesting http://psychcentral.com/netaddiction/.
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I completely agree with you. I think that a lot of adults also have face-to-face communication problems because of the internet. An old roommate of mine would send me messages rather than walk 3 feet to talk to me. Online she had a completely different personality than offline...a social butterfly on facebook, and moody and introverted at home. And this is someone who most probably didn't grow up with these kinds of sites. Yesterday on NPR I heard about a test phase of an online social network for elementary school aged kids. They can send messages and "virtual gifts" to each other and play games. The parents have full control, and in small doses it's probably not harmful. But I was saddened by the thought of children playing online rather than outside with their friends.
RispondiEliminaI agree with Mr. Schmidt, children spend more time online than playing with other kids or building social skills which they need for the future. If kids are not using computer, they are probably playing games such as DS or PSP by themselves. These kids are the future of many countries around the world especially, developed countries because majority of developing countries do not have an opportunity to have a computer or any games. Also, peer pressure is a big reason why many teens spend a lot of time on the internet. For example, it is a huge matter to show each other how many friends they have on the Facebook or MySpace. I do not think it is good for adults because they are their children’s role model. I do not understand why people spend so many hours on Facebook chatting or doing other things. Even some adult when they get to work or home the first thing they do open their Facebook page to make sure they won’t miss anything on that website!!!
RispondiElimina