Quotations Weblog

CNN and Time Magazine have declared that kids are too plugged in for their own good.

• CNN.com – Are kids too plugged in? – Mar 20, 2006

I’m sorry to disagree, but the “experts” are WRONG.

They are worried about children who are multi-tasking. They are worried about children who spend too much time with technology and not enough time with people. They are worried without remembering or even analyzing what children did in the past.

I remember what it was like to be a teenager. I could sit in a room and be somewhere else entirely. I didn’t need an iPod or Nintendo DS to do it, either. I escaped from the “real” world so often that I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had accused me of zoning out, but the sad truth is that grownups just don’t notice. I guess if you have earbuds in your ears, it’s easier for adults to notice when a child is zoning out.

Kids today aren’t zoning out or participating in “absent presence” any more than they did years ago. The earbuds just make it more obvious.