Posted on 05/16/2009 7:09:29 PM PDT by martin_fierro
Edited on 05/16/2009 7:11:58 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
NEW YORK -- Tim Chai keeps in touch with friends through Facebook, listens to music on his iPod and never goes anywhere without his BlackBerry.
So when the 17-year-old was looking for a summer camp, he ruled out a church camp with a no cell phone, no computer policy.
(Excerpt) Read more at reporternews.com ...
So so true. On this spring break, I went on a mission trip to Mississippi and didn’t bring anything but my cell (I hate with a passion, so my mom knew I was alive), a 1950’s light meter, and a film camera. At home I’m attached by the hip to my computer (FR has aided in that, but I’ve been hooked to my computer since 13, and introvenously since college).That whole week, I didn’t miss my computer once till on the way home I heard Obama had monitized a billion dollars of debt from my friend. My friends looked at me like my head had fallen off when I started sputtering for five minutes about it. Why I’m trying to avoid FR so much lately, to give more to God, classwork, and friends, all three which that go out the window when I get hooked on what’s going on in politics.
When I was a teen we went to church camp and we had no TV. Maybe someone would have a radio (with batteries) there was no place to plug it in. The only way to get news was if someone made a phone call from a pay phone to the parents. I remember one year during church camp week a very famous singer from Mississippi died (he also had a large house in Memphis) and we didn’t even know about it till the next day.
Stevie Nicks recently said pretty much the same thing. She has no cell phone and no computer.
Ze missing technology will seem like nossing...NOSSING...when zey find out zat zer are piranhas in the lake to eat zem one by one!
Muahhhhahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
No, nowadys their all in the house playing video games till their eyballs bleed.
I never went away to camp, but I'm sure kids from decades ago where just as scared leaving the nest for two weeks and it had nothing to do with electronic gadgets.
Obama worried about losing his Blackberry after the inauguration. Same thing.
No different from any other addiction. Very scary if you ask me.
Actually as addictions go, tech is rather cheap.
Most drug addictions, require petty theft or violence to support.
Geeks at very least are building their resume with their vice...
These days, that’s certainly not a bad thing!
:)
She's now doing exceedingly well as a third year college student.
I have to disagree. I just can't believe that there are children that benefit from the impersonal correspondence of technology without the face-to-face interaction that society requires.
How will these children survive?
Who said anything about not having the "face-to-face interaction that society requires"?
I certainly didn't.
Kids do need real world interactions, absolutely they do. But for some kids those alone are not going to be enough.
I work with profoundly and exceptionally gifted children. Children with measures IQs of over 160, kids who are at the 99.99th percentile of intelligence. One in ten thousand. Some of them are more like one in one hundred thousand.
These kids are not likely to find peers in their school. They're not likely to find peers in their neighbourhood. They do find them online where it doesn't matter if the only person of your age who shares your brainpower and your interests lives 2,000 miles away.
Yes, they do need to be able to relate to the kids and others around them too. They do need face-to-face interactions. It's just not all that they need.
The net gives these kids an opportunity to find others like them that didn't exist before. It can't and shouldn't take over from normal social interactions 0 but where that normal social interaction isn't giving them everything they need, that's another matter.
“So when the 17-year-old was looking for a summer camp, he ruled out a church camp with a no cell phone, no computer policy.”
Sheesh
Had my drivers license at 14 (Texas hardship license)
At 17 I had two jobs (Landscape design and fast food)
By 18 I owned 2 cars (fully paid for) was paying rent and driven to and visited 31 of the states. Summers were a blast driving my Grandfather all around the US in his truck and trailer. He was legally blind. At the tender age of 15 I was driving Ford F350 pulling a 35’ fifth wheel trailer up the PCH. Great times!!!
What did I wind up with as a career? IT of course. So now I spend my days in the ice cold server rooms.
Dang I have to get out more!
I think you're missing the point of the article. The kids you're talking of may or may not need technological isolation to pursue their interests. The idea of the camps, and preschool, it to encourage an environment of social interaction, at least on a temporary basis.
Anyway, we'll may have to agree to disagree on this point tonight. G'night.
Why not? If they are "real friends" (a highly dubious premise at that), being away a couple weeks won't hurt a thing. If they are just addicted to this pseudo-contact however, they will experience discomfort akin to withdrawal. Unhealthy dependency is all that's at stake here, and a good thing to learn to do without, in my view.
All this new gadgetry is accomplishing is a reduced societal cohesion and decreased neural activity. It all started when TV was introduced, but it’s gotten much worse since then.
I happen to agree with most of what the article itself says - but I disagreed with his statement about technology reducing societal cohesiand and reducing mental activity. I think when used appropriately it does the exact opposite.
Remember, people aren't always commenting on the original article - sometimes they are commenting on other comments. Just as you commented on my comments.
And, yes, I believe camps and pre-schools and a lot of other potential opportunities for socialisation also have a big role to play.
It will if it happens at a critical time in the child's relationship with that particular friend, and it will if it forces that child to abandon a real friendship temporarily in order to pretend that these new people they are being forced to meet are actually going to be their friends.
If you force a child who has had little chance in their life to develop peer relationships, away from one of their few genuine social interactions in the hope that they are somehow miraculously going to suddenly acquire skills they've never had before, then you're unlikely to do the child any good whatsoevr. If they are just addicted to this pseudo-contact however, they will experience discomfort akin to withdrawal. Unhealthy dependency is all that's at stake here, and a good thing to learn to do without, in my view.
I'm in the business of helping kids with social issues actually develop social skills in a tried and tested way that works, rather than trying to do it by using methods that only work for kids who don't have problems in the first place.
Taking a profoundly gifted child - and that is my area of expertise - and putting them into a camp environment with 'average children' in the hope they will make friends, makes about as much sense as taking a nine year old and sending them to kindergarten in the hope they will make friends. Sometimes they might - some kids have the knack of making friends in any environment. But if the child doesn't have that knack, you're unlikely to succeed in any meaningful sense. And taking them away from the best relationships they've already formed to try and do it is very likely to be counterproductive.
There's nothing at all wrong with camps as a way of helping kids to develop social skills, and independence. For a lot of kids, probably most kids, they work really well. But there's no such thing as a one size fits all solution to most things in life, and this is no exception.
Addictions come in many forms. Withdrawal can be painful no matter what it is.
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