Over the past several years, digital technology and the new media have become indispensable tools for families. We rely on cell phones, mp3 players, PDAs, and even GPS devices to help us manage our lives, and the Internet is usually the first place we look for information.
While the digital world has made our lives better, it can be argued that our tendency to embrace technology as the cure-all for our busy lives only leads us to take on more responsibilities that we don't have time for.
It also appears that this reliance on technology has begun to wear away at some of the basic skills most of us take for granted, even as it helps us develop new ones. In most cases, this is not a cause for much concern. Who knows how to churn butter or darn a sock these days, anyway? In other cases, we may want to take note, because there are a few basic skills that I don't think we should give up too easily.
A recent study by Nickelodeon called "The Digital Family" pulled from a number of sources to provide insight into the attitudes of kids and their parents toward technology. While most of the findings are innocuous, others are a little bit scary.
In the innocuous column: 26% of parents and 25% of kids said it's not necessary to be able to use a printed dictionary, and similar numbers said it's not necessary to read the newspaper. Those tools haven't disappeared. They've just moved online, and families are discarding print to join them.
Also innocuous: 36% of parents and 31% of kids no longer feel the need to have a land line, and 21% of parents and 31% of kids think there is no need to listen to the radio anymore. Again, they're just going digital. Nothing to see here, folks.
Article comments