The Flight from Conversations

The Flight from Conversations

The transition to a wired society is transforming people’s lives for the better and the worse. Children and teenagers are growing up using smartphones. They enjoy texting and chatting. They use their phones to listen to music, text and play games. Most children view smartphones as an essential aspect of their lives. Therefore, they do not understand any lifestyle without them. However, the use of smartphones by teenagers and adults has positive and negative consequences that parents and guardians should pay attention to before they disrupt children’s way of life.

Smartphones help children by making it for their parents to maintain contact with them when they are away from home. The use of phones is making it easy for parents to monitor the activities of their children on social media and plan their schedules. When children on their own, they use smartphones to capture photos and videos to later that they later share with their families. Without the use of modern technology, families would miss capturing critical moments in the lives of children. Teachers are also discovering that some applications in smartphones are some of the best tools to use in teaching challenging and engaging subjects such as mathematics. Therefore, they use these devices to teach these subjects and give their students assignments to do during spare their spare time.

Children use mobile devices to maintain contact with family and friends. At the same time, they lose the personal interactions that people require. Like any other innovation, the proper uses of smartphones add to someone’s knowledge and enjoyment. In most cases, the brain of a person develops fully at the age of 24 to 25, and the rational part of the brain develops last. Therefore, children can suffer the consequences of peer pressure. In most cases, children cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is fictional. When fictional issues overshadow the true ones, it can have negative consequences on the self-esteem of a child.

Excessive use of smartphones has numerous disadvantages. For example, it is a source of nightmares and may cause teenagers to develop sleeping disorders. They are also a source of unnecessary cost to parents through the purchase of data, cell phone accessories, online gaming, among others. The use of smartphones is also a source of online bullying. Unfortunately, it leads some teenagers to commit suicide. Therefore, it is critical for parents, school administrators to understand how to assist children in using the phones for the best possible causes and avoid anything that may be a danger to their wellbeing..

Smartphones are also a source of destruction in school, during a family gathering, and corporate meetings. In most high schools, teachers have to compete with gadgets for the attention of the learners. Although they request students to switch off their mobile phones or put them on silent mode, students are always tempted to look at them. According to Sherry Turkle, “….the little devices most of us carry around are so powerful that they change not only what we do, but also who we are.” As a result, dependency on smartphones may make teenagers lazy and incapable of achieving their potential. Therefore, parents must be vigilant in the use of smartphones by their children lest they harm themselves.

The excessive use of smartphones is also a source of depression and other mental illnesses that cause children to commit suicide. “The correlation between depression and smartphone use is strong enough to suggest that more parents should be telling their kids to put down their phone (Twenge 10).” However, it is challenging to identify what is normal or abnormal as children grow older. It is essential for people who live with children to learn the signs that are going astray or are suffering from depression. Some of the warning signs include frequent isolation, difficulty sleeping, and falling asleep at awkward periods of the day. They also lack interest in family activities, feeling down, and have frequent mood swings. Therefore, parents must be aware of the changes that take place in the lives of children as they transition to teenage. According to Twenge, “what is at stake is not just how kids experience adolescence, but the constant presence of smartphones is likely to affect them into adulthood.” Thus, parents and guardians must develop a system of engaging with them to learn when they are experiencing difficulties to help them cope.

Creating real connections

The excessive use of smartphones is making it difficult for people to connect emotionally. Although people are also chatting and texting, they edit what they share with the rest of the world. Unfortunately, children and teenagers who are not conversant with this mode of communication may think that they have many shortcomings. According to Sherry Turtle, “we live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating, and yet were having sacrificed conversation for mere connection.” Parents and school administrators can help such students by engaging them in physical activities to minimize online communication. Since it is impossible to connect via social media and other online platforms, it is vital to spark emotional connections. However, if the primary relationships take place through digital platforms, it is challenging to have rich emotional connections. It is only constant engagement with teenagers on a face to face communications that can help alleviate the problems of regular online connections.

Suicide has become the leading health care issues that developed countries are handling. According to the American Physical Association, 1 in every ten high school students has attempted to commit suicide. Some commit suicide after online bullying. Some commit suicide because they cannot deal with the pressures of not belonging to peer groups. Most of the teenagers who try or succeed in committing suicide have a mental illness such as depression. However, it is notable that children do not to be depressed to commit suicide. In some cases, the suicide of older children has a connection to feelings of self-doubt, stress, financial worries, the pressure to succeed, loss, and disappointment.

Since “restricting technology might be an unrealistic demand to impose on a generation of kids accustomed to being wired at all times,” it is vital to minimize the hours that teenagers spend online. Parents and schools can assist their children in this process by involving them in extracurricular activities. They can engage them in sports, science, music, art, and other areas of interest. Instituting these changes take a lot of time to formulate and execute. However, families and other stakeholders have no choice because inactivity may hurt the children and society more. Where the children require professional assistance to address complex behavior problems through therapy, parents need to participate and learn the role they can play in the process. Thus, although children are accustomed to the use of smartphones to access social media and other services, parents must moderate their activities.

Parents need to help their children overcome the problems that they may encounter on online platforms. A relationship with an adult that they trust can protect children from harmful behaviors. Parents who have a close relationship with their children show them that they value them and can confide in them when they have difficulties in their lives. To achieve such objectives requires proactive behavior from the parents who can easily be distracted by busy schedules. Their daily activities may prevent them from noticing warning signs and only learn about the problem when it has escalated. Therefore, one of the best solutions to protect children and teenagers from self-destruction is to develop close relationships with them. Such friendship enables them to notice warning signs as early as possible.

The process of transiting to a digital world is making children and adults lose the benefits of real friendships. As a result, most people are lonely while in the company of many people. Although many people complain about the lack of concentration from their colleagues, Every person with a presence online is guilty of chatting amid essential discussions. According to Sherry Turtle, “in the silence of connection, people are comforted by being in touch with a lot of people-carefully kept at bay.” However, the connection is difficult to achieve in a group of many people, such as through Facebook friends. Thus, although people share a lot through face to face conversations, few people are willing to put their gadgets down for such talks. As a result, everyone loses the benefits of making honest friends.

The world is experiencing an unusual period of transiting to a digital world where children and adults are always using their smartphones to chat, text and connect with friends and relatives. The changes have both positive and negative consequences. Although the positive impact of the process far outweighs the negatives, the constant occurrence of the negative repercussions makes it essential to limit them. Since the problem affects teenagers who have used the phones and other gadgets for their whole lives, s crucial for parents and other people in their lives to develop measures to protect them from harm such as online bullying, depression, and suicide.