Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I don't get it. My son would certainly do the same if given the choice, but he is allowed to play 2 hours a day on week-end, and 0 minutes the rest of the week. He's not supposed to be in command. And he hasn't got a mobile phone, either, because he simply doesn't need it. This is good parenting 101, setting limits.
But more importantly than that one day they will be old enough that you can no longer set the limits for what they should do, which they will not be able to handle unless they have had their freedom handed to them gradually.
13. He's getting responsible enough; we don't need to tell him what's reasonable and what isn't, so the rules are now subject to interpretation, which wasn't the case at 9 :)
Assuming that means she sends 27k/2 = 13,500 SMS per month, and she sleeps 8 hours a day, that means in a 30 day month (480 waking hours), she's sending 1 message every other minute while awake. 13,500/480 ~= 28.1 per hour.
I guess that counts as distraction.
-> "hey"
<- "what"
-> "movie?"
<- "sure"
<- "when"
-> "8"
<- "ok"Yes, this is the beauty of statistics.
Perhaps she does the same?
And, the main character study, Vishal, won't finish his Summer take-home book, but he'll slave away for two hours perfecting a few seconds of his demo reel for college? That's not being lazy or digitally distracted; to me, it's academic arbitrage. And, he's still making A's and B's. What's more, if that article is at all correct, Vishal was taking AP courses _in his junior year_. In my day (yes, back when we trudged up hill in 10 feet of snow to and from school) AP was only for seniors.
These kids are way ahead of the game. I'd venture a guess and say they aren't really representative of most kids. Take this article out of silicon valley and put it smack dab in the middle of the US fruited plains to see how digitally distracted the mainstream youth has become and if it really does a detriment.