Monday’sNew York Timesincluded an article on the purported danger of texting ( or text - message - sending , for you grumpy elderly folks ) . EntitledTexting May Be Taking a price , the article strikes me as bizarrely alarmist , and return societal panics of my early days ( seeThe Panic Over Dungeons & Dragons ( in 1985 ) ) . Perhaps it ’s my own wasted youth talking , but this article is downright silly . Here are some fundamental clip :
My Take on Texting
OMG , teenagers are exaggerate something ? ! They ’re getting cramp thumbs from too much technological twiddling ? Say it ai n’t so ! ( We used to call this Nintendo Thumb back in the Clarence Day . ) None of this is new : teen overdoeverything– that ’s part of the stage of growing up . The special technology is irrelevant ; teenager will come upon and overuse ( even ill-usage ) whatever applied science , plot , or other distraction is available . Teens eventually learn to lead their own behavior , and most come through it without impair ovolo .
In the same style adult are stunned by statistics about teen texting today ( tens of thousands of texts per month ! Egad ! ) , grownups havealwaysbeen stunned by what adolescent are doing " these day . " When I was a kid , the main panic was over telecasting games . statistic about how many hours kids spent planted in front of video game appalled parents , and made them marvel how a kid could perhaps produce up without going outside to play stickball . Prior to video games I ’m sure parents could n’t fathom how shaver could originate up with so much television , or loud rock euphony , or wild " terpsichore party , " and so on .
( picture courtesy of Flickr userNate Steiner , used under Creative Commons license . )
