Is Technology the New Babysitter?

Remember the good old days when Coleco-Vision first came out? I do, for my brothers and and I would spend hours just sitting in front of the television in the early 1980s. Those were the days! We would fight over whose turn it was though, especially when playing games like Burger Time. We would actually get mad at each other; too, if one of us thought the other took too long on a turn. A more vivid example is when my teenage son got mad at me, because my character on Mouser wouldn't die. The ironic twist is he plays the strategy and mmorpg games! Case in point is today it seems the conundrum of a turn is getting ridiculously out of control, given the amount of time we spend on media like computers, television, cell phones, and Blackberries. We become obsessed with making sure we meet our schedules and check our email in a paranoid frenzy, but is the panoramic media eye fit to watch over us? Most likely not.

This mode of babysitting is dangerous and can incite people to a panicky paranoia, as they start to believe their emails boxes are constantly filling up with tons of messages. There is even a commercial on the air, in which a woman in a crowded airport checks her email while sitting on a bench. She appears oblivious that life is passing her by as she concentrates on her email. As ordinary as this would seem to us nowadays, frightening is when the woman says she has been checking her email account since the 3rd grade. The point is as a race, we should be fighting more for tomorrow and more for our kids, than throwing a laptop in their faces. That isn't parenting people! It just gives us leeway to run away and avoid our responsibility as adults, for it is a convenient escape goat and release valve. This inclines me to wonder who the parent is.

Yet back to my example, the scene is unnerving as the lady sits there absorbed. Although this is an insurance commercial, it emphasizes the arresting nature of media. It inclines me to wonder what could happen if we get sucked into the technological void. It can be dangerous to go about our personal lives with a gadget forever in our face, like some sort of steak. Yet I doubt anyone wants to be compared to Pavlov's dog. Further a person cannot receive the nourishment s/he needs to stay alive from a laptop, so it questions the nature of the reward. This state of society can also be likened to a scene in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, with Tom and Jerry forever running because they are trying to catch the carrot forever in their faces on the end of a fishing pole. Is out of control? Good question. Since most of us have become obsessed with checking our email night and day, and because we struggle to put the cell phone down for text messaging, it is quite possible that there will be self-help groups in the future for such things. Be that as it may it IS our responsibility to say NO. Likewise it is a struggle and an upward battle to insist that our children, especially if born in the digital age and if they see their parents figuratively drooling on their laptops, get off the computer. It would seem parents and authority figures become unpopular as they try to enforce the limits necessary for our children to grow up as healthy adults. Yet what if the reason is also due to parents expecting an email and a laptop to take their place? Frightening! If the not-so-far off future has technology running amok, to the point of man no longer being able to put enough healthy distance between his priorities and watching the newest movie on Netflix, then it is little wonder why children are becoming more and more disadvantaged than ever before.

The last thought I will leave you with is a metaphor for this situation. Imagine a sea full of electronic gadgets with people barely staying afloat. Arms reaching out to the sky, as man doggy-paddles amidst laptops and cell phones to stay afloat. The fear is we might be drowning under this entire media overload, and treading water will get tiring after awhile. What happens when we succumb? Is the situation overrun to the point that we reach for the closest pda and not each other? This is a good question to consider as a people and as individuals! As a conclusion and reality, living and breathing people, in contrast to the "human network," need to remember what is important in life. Although it is tempting to misuse media as an outlet and escape goat for our responsibilities and problems, we still need the middle man to live, which is US! Do not allow the excuse of an ever-present media to sidetrack us from treating each other with the dignity and respect we all desire, want, and deserve.