Commentary

Who Said Technology Will Make You Smarter? Not a Parent

According to the Associated Press, the Web site of WikiLeaks, the organization that just released yet another batch of sensitive U.S. State Department documents, appears to have lost or left its main Web host, Amazon.com. The main Web site and a sub-site devoted to the diplomatic documents were unavailable from the U.S. and Europe on Wednesday, as Amazon servers refused to acknowledge requests for data.

Who knew that Amazon was even in the server business? Their vast shopping site has not blinked from the usual pre-holiday buying onslaught, and one has to assume that something more nefarious is afoot here. Quiet call from someone high up at the NSA to someone high up at Amazon? Kinda provides a whole new dimension to the net neutrality debate. Geez, if it is OK for the government, why not for Comcast? Also goes to show how the flip of a switch can do what the Fed couldn't do to printing presses in the Pentagon Papers and earlier WikiLeaks.

I tried to engage my kids in a conversation on whether the leaks were morally justified -- but given their relative youth, they got hung up on the national security breach and couldn't fathom concepts like others hating this country or trying to end what some might see as an unjust or unwinnable war. Their idealism is refreshing -- even if it stymied what was shaping up as a very cool dinner debate.

It is interesting to me that in a world where information and thousands of points of view are more accessible than at any time in history, teenagers -- who have utterly forsaken newspapers and by and large network or cable news -- can't find the time or inclination to be better informed. This is not to suggest that more information would change their opinions on the WikiLeaks debate, but too often I encounter a startling acceptance of things at face value -- or worse yet, colored by urban myths and crap passed along by their friends via social media. It is dumb sending to dumber.

Whenever I meet with teachers, I constantly suggest exercises that would force kids to read newspapers. I get all the right answers, but never any real action. I post news clips on the doors of my own kids' bedrooms and bathrooms, but only occasionally are they noticed, much less read. I am at the point of asking artists to start writing songs about current events (thank you Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, back in the day). Songs they seem to be able to memorize by the score. Has anyone written one about quadratic equations? Send me a link.

We rationalize giving our kids laptops and smartphones because they can be the set of 26 volumes of the encyclopedia that no longer gather dust in each and every middle-class home. Yet these tools are mostly deployed for signing into Facebook and/or IMing or texting nonstop. And not about whether the WikiLeaks were morally defensible, but rather who is making out with whom, along with pointing to videos of stupid human tricks.

There is an endless debate about the value technology brings to kids and teens. As far as I'm concerned, if playing "Call of Duty" for hours on end produces drone pilots for the Air Force of the future, then so be it. But the jury is still out on whether holding a cell phone to your ear for hours at a time is beaming cancerous elements into your brain -- or if using iPads produces more dexterous kids or helps minds more rapidly acclimate to a world that will be technology 24/7. Both sides can make convincing arguments. But try to tell your 10-year-old why he is the only kid in his class without a cell phone or an Xbox, and see where you end up.

I am sure our parents thought TV would turn all of our minds to sludge, so I'm not really all that worried about the ramp-up of technology in my kids' lives. But geez, I wish they'd wander onto the Web site of The New York Times. If only once in a while.

5 comments about "Who Said Technology Will Make You Smarter? Not a Parent".
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  1. Paula Lynn from Who Else Unlimited, December 3, 2010 at 9:16 a.m.

    ooops - should be Whispering down the lane on steroids does not truth evolve - as an awkward sentence construction.

  2. Allison Bond from I'm Rich!, December 3, 2010 at 12:14 p.m.

    Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, reliable/credible interpretors of current events back in the day? Like wow, man. I need another hit. That'll put me in the correct frame of mind to read your other news source - The New York Times.

  3. Jane Doe, December 3, 2010 at 2:01 p.m.

    George. Sweetie. Darling. You are chasing down kids with newspaper clippings? Putting them on their door? Are you 80? It's time to get with the program. No one reads newspapers in paper form. Send them a link, at least. As for insinuating that they're disinterested/unintelligent/have minds that are turning to sludge? Wrong. They're just not interested in the same issues you are. I'm sure they would (and already do) go out of their way to know everything about topics they're interested in. Just not yours. I'm a grown adult working in technology and the Wikileaks story bores even me to tears. Rather than pushing your agenda on them, sit down and ask them to teach you about something that interests them. I guarantee it'll be an enlightening experience.

  4. George Simpson from George H. Simpson Communications, December 3, 2010 at 2:24 p.m.

    Thanks I also ready know what I need to know about Vampires, Glee, X box, Gossip Girl, Harry Potter and Lady Gaga....:0)

  5. Jane Doe, December 3, 2010 at 2:31 p.m.

    I'm sure you do. But there's a reason they like those things. Vampires because they're just starting to learn about death and mortality. Gossip Girl because it's a (granted, grossly inaccurate) representation of the glamor of being an adult. There's meaning there if you look for it. (End of touchy-feely sharing hour). Cheers!

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