The Southwest Voice

For Mother’s Day this year, my son bought me a small electronic contraption that I plug into my ears when I jog. 

I was very appreciative since it was so thoughtful of him.  This is the first time in his life he has real money so I asked for something frou-frou for Mother’s Day. I got an iPod. My son thinks I need to be welcomed to the 21^st century in style. I reminded him I grew up with rotary phones. 

Anyway, I have noticed this phenomenon regarding our youth today: They are always plugged in and tuned out to the real world. One time my husband and I were in a very nice restaurant and noticed a child who wouldn’t take the earphones out of his ears to order his meal. I thought this rather odd because most kids are very particular about what they eat. He protested vehemently because he was trying to get to the next level of his video game. His parents were making sure he didn’t distract others around him so he was plugged in to his whatchamacallit. He was so entranced in the game that he forgot to exist in real life. 

Last year I rode the train to San Francisco –– a luxury I relish. Hours of hands free reading and writing. What I noticed was the youth were plugged into their various assortments of thingamajigs. My generation of people was reading voraciously while the young ones were tuned out to the people they were with. No conversations ensued. 

If you do try to talk to someone plugged into their electronic device, you have to shout at them. It is very frustrating.  Also, I have been on planes or trains and the kid has his gadget up so loud that everyone can hear it and you have to shout or use sign language to ask them to turn it down. 

Now they have cars with DVD players attached. How can the family find time to interact with all the devices meant to occupy your child’s time and to discipline them by entertaining them constantly? No wonder when they finally get to school they are bored. They are so used to electronic stimuli that the teacher pales in comparison. Whatever happened to road sign games and "I Spy" games played in the car? Or better yet, bad singing?! Some of the best times/laughs we have had are in the car on the way to somewhere. 

Let’s fact it, electronic equipment keeps on giving and giving and requires nothing in return. We are programming our kids to be instantly and constantly entertained. I will tell you, I can pick out the readers in class. I just ask a simple vocabulary word and the readers will know it. For example, a reader will know what monogamy is, but someone else might think monogamy is a type of wood.

We are raising socially inept children who don’t know how to interact except through text messaging, IM, email, cell phones and posting garbage on MySpace. Whatever happened to just plain conversation, face to face? Teenagers are interacting with each other but need to be rewired to interact with adults. A friend told me her daughter and boyfriend text-message in the back seat of the car so the parents can’t “hear” their conversation. Looking someone in the eye, shaking their hand and carrying on a conversation –– that is intelligent, but seems to be an outdated forum.  

I guess I hit the wall when we went to another restaurant and they had the portable DVD player out for the toddler at the dinner table. Let’s stop and rethink this! Let’s unplug, unload, turn off, and take all the wires and gizmos out of the house –– at least for dinner. Sit down to dinner with the TV off and look your loved ones in the eye and converse.  There’s your life-line to your family!