By Elliott Brack, editor and publisher | What are these social media devices doing to our kids?
Or further, what are these devices doing to all of us?
Look inside yourself: are you hooked on Facebook, or Instagram or Twitter? Or online games, gambling and even pornography?
Do you find yourself constantly often on your cell phone, even talking on it while driving?
Or perhaps you are merely on a simple computer all day, emailing, or surfing or “staying in touch.”
Think, too, to compare your telephone bill 20 years ago (if you are that old), with your “connectivity” of phone, internet, cell and no telling what is next? There’s some difference, eh? (Can you really afford it?)
Do these questions bother you?
They should.
If nothing else, they could be affecting your quality of life, whether you recognize it.
These thoughts came to mind when hearing a radio (another social media) broadcast when in the car recently. The host was talking to a New Yorker staff member who had a provocative title for a new book. The author is David Denby, and the book title is Lit Up: One Reporter. Three Schools. Twenty-four Books That Can Change Lives.
What he says ought to cause us to think deeply about what is particularly happening to our children: they don’t read as they should, nor as much as the previous generation did growing up.
And why don’t children and many of today’s students read?
All too often it is because of the way that social media takes over their time.
Denby also maintains that because so many of today’s students are spoon-fed information from the many social media, that they are more concerned about personal gratification, gossip among friends, and entertainment, all of which is the easy-to-read and listen to on social media. He emphasizes further that today’s kids no longer think as sharply as they should.
And from all this, what gives? They are almost stonewalling themselves against having curiosity.
Say what you want, but we see in many successful people the vital characteristic of curiosity. They are eager to know more, and seek out this information, no matter what field they are in, becoming more learned in the process. Almost all of this information they seek comes from reading about it in books, in newspapers, on the Internet…….but it allows them to answer the questions that curiosity brings up.
Another element missing from those who don’t read much: without curiosity, they cannot discern matters. They tend not to question items that should raise hackles among the more curious. They accept pronouncements as fact, never thinking that everything they hear is not automatically true.
“You mean that’s not right?” they might say if you questioned something they said. Gee, they never thought of that, and often will question you for even bringing it up.
In essence, they think less than many more learned people.
The frightening matter is that some of these non-curious non-readers actually register to vote. But they are an easy target to having the wool pulled over their eyes. You shudder to think who they might be voting into office, at all levels of government. Maybe already we have people in office that they helped elect.
You can see, this is getting serious.
And it all goes back to not “having the time” to read and think and have curiosity. This lack of reading by the oncoming generations makes us have great worry.
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