Just Another Norm

Photo by Oliur Rahman

Whenever I see a child glued to their parent's smartphone or tablet, I feel disgusted.

How could they let this happen this happen? Why would they allow their child to just sit idly in a room, completely dissociated from the physical world around them, and melt their brains playing video games and surfing the web? It doesn't seem right at all and it's only making them stupid and antisocial.

When I was their age I was running around outside, playing with my friends and riding my bike all over my hometown of Jamaica, VT. I was a troublemaker, constantly breaking what ought not to be broken and putting grey hairs on my mother's head every day. I would always hang out with my school friends as much as possible, playing catch, shooting hoops and occasionally talking about girls we thought were kind of cute. Ah, such a simple time.

Game Boy Advance Sp (2003)

Every so often, we would go into my house and turn on my old PC, sitting right smack dab in the middle of our family living room for the whole house to see. We would plop down in adjacent chairs and turn on the bulky machine, waiting up to ten minutes for it to load all the way. We would then proceed to play video games on my collection of various CD Roms, alternating turns. After about and hour or so, my mother would kick us off to give other people a turn on our family's lone electronic device and to not have our brains rot.

"Two hours already?" I would think, "Geez, that went by real quick!"

As I grew older, technology began to develop exponentially and I found myself getting even closer to the screen. The first piece of personal technology I can remember having to myself was the Game Boy, which every one of my friends at school seemed to have. Then came the iPod, which dominated the majority of my middle school years. In high school came the next biggest revolutionary piece of technology in my life; the iPhone 3. At the time, it was the single greatest piece of technology I could ever want or ask for. I could now call, text, Facebook, Instagram, take photos, listen to my music and basically any other thing I could possibly want. It changed the way I viewed the world and limits of my social life.

iPhone 3GS (2009)

As Nancy Baym points out in her second chapter of Personal Connections in the Digital Age, we humans are constantly subject to this notion of "technological determinism," where we basically see only the awesome potential or the horrific potential of new technology. With the iPhone 3, for instance, I was completely euphoric. My life was going to be easier. I could contact my girlfriend whenever I wanted. I could look up virtually any piece of information in the history of mankind within seconds and I would feel invincible doing it. There couldn't possibly be anything more convenient. My parents, on the other hand, weren't so sure. They were constantly worried I was spending more time on my phone than I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, such as doing my homework or practicing for baseball. They thought that I was dissociating myself from my priorities and that I was becoming a zombie.

At the time, I never thought I could understand where my parents were coming from. Who were they to judge? They didn't understand the new technology the way I did. What could they possibly know?

And here we are. Caught right back in that same cycle as I watch this new generation of kids play their games on their iPads and iPhones without a care in the world. But I am judging them much like my parents judged me as I was growing up. Who am I to say that this technology is bad for them? After all, I spent my developing years glued to a different set of screens and I turned out fine (I think).

So perhaps Baym has a point. Maybe the new era of technology isn't just "pointless banter" but rather a new way of communicating and creating social connections that will soon become just another norm in our society.