Nicholas King

King 1

Verda M. Jaroszewski

UWRT 1101

4/11/17
Hard Wired, or Short Circuited?

I remember looking around an Applebees to see a bunch of families conversing over a

nice brunch after Sunday mass, when the best part of the day was sitting around the dinner table

to discuss the day with your family while enjoying a nice meal. After working two summers

serving food in an I-hop restaurant, I had realized that the tradition of a family dinner had

dwindled drastically. The traditional family dinner is now constantly interrupted by cellphone

and tablet use. Families still sit together, but instead of conversing they become absorbed by the

various uses of modern technology such as texting, email, internet use and game play. We are all

guilty of using our devices more than necessary, but what exactly are we teaching the youth by

making our phones our lifeline? Furthermore, providing children with access to technology at

their convenience.

I noticed a trend that parents of younger children will tend to give their child a device in

order to distract them from otherwise being bored or unentertained. Immediately the child

becomes absorbed in the device and seems to cause no more problems, but what you dont see is

the damage they are doing to themselves. Although this tactic may be effective, how does all of

this use of technology affect the youth? Researchers have found many tremendous effects that

overuse of technology can have on the developing mind and it may surprise you how detrimental

it can be to a child. The effects that overuse of technology can have start anywhere from stress

and isolation, and extend to depression, obesity and even neurosis.

Children are spending more time alone now than ever. A 2010 Kaiser Foundation study

showed that elementary aged children use on average 7.5 hours per day of entertainment
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technology, 75 percent of these children have TVs in their bedrooms, and 50 percent of North

American homes have the TV on all day (Rowan, The Impact of Technology). With all of the

access to technology and lessening supervision, children are overloading on electronics and not

getting the activity nor interaction time they need. Social interaction is an important part of a

childs development, so the new found lack of socialization of children can hugely affect their

future communication skills as well as brain development. Excessive overuse of electronic

activities such as Television, Cell Phone and internet use can in turn promote issues such as

Autism, ADHD, or even a warped sense of reality (Rowan, The Impact of Technology). Not only

is the overuse of technology stunting the youths development, but is also causing them to learn

harmful habits that will continue to hinder their chances at a healthy lifestyle.

According to NHS Choices, Children age five to eighteen should get at least one hour of

exercise per day (NHS Choices, Physical Activity guidelines). However, many children are not

meeting these criteria which in turn is causing many children to have issues with their weight and

health. Eating healthy is a whole other issue when talking about the health of the youth but some

of the blame for obesity issues lies in technology use. The youth is exposed to a litter of

propaganda and commercials used to shape the way children view a heathy diet. Many fast food

companies try to install a positive view of their company on the youth within their advertising

without concern for how it affects the viewers of the ad. These companies understand how

impressionable children are and use these ads to increase their restaurants attendance. Any

chance of convincing children that their food is meant to be eaten daily or even regularly will be

acceptable in the world of advertising. In turn, many children arent getting the necessary dietary

needs from the food they eat daily, and have a warped perception of what is or isnt healthy.

Building the appetite for a healthy diet is a crucial part of living a healthy lifestyle so its
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important that we instil these truths on our youth instead of allowing them to draw conclusions

based on propaganda.

Many forms of explicit material are available to anyone with access to the internet. The

danger comes in how often and when they present themselves. You may come across vulgar

language, illicit photographs, or gory video games without any intention of finding these things.

When using a search engine to explore the internet you enter key words that determine what

results show up first on your screen, and often times the search engine misinterprets your search

and make assumptions based on other searches close to yours. In a sense, this makes surfing the

web like navigating through a mine-field, so how do we protect the youth from accidentally

coming across material that will potentially corrupt their innocents?

Younger and younger children are beginning to join social media websites. Social media

is a great way to stay connected with other people in your community, but how young is too

young? Although the logic behind online websites is to connect friends, often times there are

many dangers that come with using it. Between the sexual predators, online cyber bullies and

thieves trying to collect your financial information, there is not much room for children who

arent able to sort out whose who. Another problem often seen on these social websites is

cyberbullying. Kids are using the internet to put distance between themselves and the bully

victim. The internet is giving children a sense of detachment from their conversations which is

resulting in more and more brutal bullying tactics. In saying that, I believe that teaching the

youth of the importance of properly using the internet is vital to the time they will inevitably

spend online. Technology has many great advantages and has increased business productivity

immensely, however, it is imperative that we inform the youth of the dangerous that it can
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present. Living a healthy lifestyle is not worth throwing away for the benefits of technology,

especially in the most crucial developmental years of your life.

Work Cited

Xue, Katherine. "Is There an App for That?" Harvard Magazine. Harvard Magazine, 03 Mar.

2014. Web. 02 Apr. 2017. <http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/11/is-there-an-app-for-that>.

Habib, Marlene. "Youth and Technology: Power and Danger." The Globe and Mail. Special to

The Globe and Mail, 25 Sept. 2014. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.

<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/giving/youth-and-technology-powerand-

danger/article20790028/>.

"Physical Activity Guidelines for Young People - Live Well." NHS Choices. NHS, 11 July 2015.

Web. 03 Apr. 2017. <http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/fitness/Pages/physical-activity-guidelines-for-

young-people.aspx>.

Rowan, Cris. "The Impact of Technology on the Developing Child." The Huffington Post.

TheHuffingtonPost.com, 29 May 2013. Web. 05 Apr. 2017.

<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cris-rowan/technology-children-negative-

impact_b_3343245.html>.