http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/34955632/ns/today-parenting_and_family/
Media usage (cell phones, video games, internet) has gone up with disturbing consequences
I’m hoping my son will appreciate spending some time with his dad working on models when he gets older. (Not that I’ll force him too)
When I was a kid, I loved going out in the garage and turning a wrench on antique cars with
an interesting post and i agree with most of what you said.
i subscribe to the Shockley theory of regressive evolution and as each generation goes downhill on the intelligence scale they are less likely to have the intellect needed to fully appreciate a hobby.
maybe that is why many colleges offer a remedial reading program for freshmen.
statistics are like bikinis; what they show is revealing but what they hide is vital.
grizlump (grouchy german)
Don:
Interesting article and VERY true.
I teach choir at a boy’s high school here in town. Every year for the past three years, when the new choir class comes in and gets settled, I give them my lecture:
“By the way, gentlemen, Doc here”–and I point to myself–“Is in desperate need of a new Ipod, Blackberry or I-Phone. So if I see any of those articles up on the choir risers, they are automatically MINE!”
I usually get blinks from about forty pairs of young eyeballs.
“Now,” I continue, smiling all the while (and they know by now how DANGEROUS my smile is), “Your backpacks are at the other side of the room. We’ll all have a little race now to deposit your electronic thingamabobs into your backpacks and get up to the risers. Ready, set–GO!”
The absolute Pandemonium the first couple of days–until they get the message–is something to behold, LOL!
This is a college-prep high school with VERY high academic standards. But I can’t believe how many of them are standing around the quads with these things attached to their ears or thumbs on break or lunch-time.
Dang, I don’t even have a cell-phone. Talk about feeling like a Dinosaur, LOL!
But oddly enough, at least six of my students are very active teenage model railroaders. In fact, they’re thinking of forming an on-campus club and if they do, they’ve asked me to be their Moderator. So there’s hope still.
Tom [:D]
I know what you mean,
I go to school with people like this every day. Myself, I don’t have a cell phone, don’t really need/ want one, and only use my “Ipod” (It’s not even a real Ipod) on my 3 hours of daily bus trips (I go to a regional technical school for half my day). Anyway, Tom is right: everytime a teacher turns thier back at least half the class is checking thier phones. And I’ve watched this situation again and again, while silently standing there and laughing to myself:
Oh well, I’m not completely guilt free, I check this forum almost daily[(-D].
And that Is GREAT News!!!
Jamie[:)]
Hold on a minute there my brother. Regressive evolution? If my somewhat addled memory of logic courses is correct, that’s at best an oxy-moron, at worst, a contradiction of terms. I don’t think you can have it both ways. Just a thought. Gerry S.
I see this everyday at school. I see the same people in all of my courses texting and listening to an iPod so loud that I can hear whatever trash that is playing clear across the room. These are the ones who show no respect for anyone including the professor.
The other day I saw a person talking on their phone for 3 hours in front of the place where I work. Granted it is a public sidewalk, but who can anyone be talking to for that long. My battery doesn’t last that long.
in reply to gerry s. oxy-moron/contradiction of terms or not, according to what i have read, regressive evolution is defined as the reduction of traits over time.
at the risk of being politically incorrect (like i care) William Shockley’s theory was that intelligent people tend to have fewer offspring than those with lower IQ’s. regardless of the reasons for this, it could be genetic or it could be environmental or any number of other things, the outcome is the same. overall, with each generation the general population gets progressively dumber and dumber.
i think this is noticed mostly by the older members of society and after a few more years, there won’t be enough of us left for it to matter anyway.
grizlump
My 17 year old step son is a typical teenager of sorts of the modern techno era crap. He was having a conversation with is mom one day about the texting on his cell phone, mind u this kid has either worn out, broke or lost 5 cell phones to date. His older sister pays for his phone and they have an unlimited texting plan
He figured out that over the last year 2009 if he were to have paid for all the texting it would have cost $43,000 yes that is not a typo. I just shook my head and said that is total BS and there is no need for that bla bla bla and to get that many messages you have to be texting during school and of course he says oh no they don’t allow that.
Well not much more then 24 hours after this fruitless conversation justice was served up when he dropped his precious cell phone in the toilet. We were watching TV when we heard loud obscenities and other assorted words coming from the bathroom. We both almost fell off the couch laughing so hard. He asked can I borrow that crabber thing you use on your trains, laughing to the point of peeing myself I said no and quoted Forest Gump saying Sh___t happens and almost fell off the couch again.
I recently sold some stuff to a guy from an add on craigs list and he told em he was building a layout with his 8 year old daughter, I thought that was cool.
It’s funny, but when I was attending grade school (and high school) my parents would get notes to the effect that I was too much of a loner, seemed anti-social, didn’t make friends readly with my peers and seemed to spend too much time making doodles in my notebooks…
Then I would bring home straight As, unlike all those well-adjusted peer-groupie C average…
The truth of the matter was that I was usually bored silly. Sketching machine designs and layout plans (those, “Doodles”) probably saved my sanity. My teachers didn’t know that I had plenty of friends - adults with technical backgrounds and wide experience who were willing to put up with a kid with an oversupply of curiosity and a willingness to get his hands dirty. All they could see was that I wasn’t homogenized into the narrow little enclave they administered at school.
Later in life I became a statistician - and learned one basic lesson. You can draw conclusions from statistics about anything from machinery performance to social issues - but the more the data includes anecdotal or personally-submitted input, the less reliable the conclusions.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I have taught adult students from time to time, and I have to say by and large the level of distraction is about the same, though the devices are different. Some PDA’s, some writing in small calendars and organizers, others drawing in the margins and other’s yet chatting it up, its their dime who am I to complain, except on behalf of those who really want to hear the lecture… One fellow actually read an issue of MR thorugh my Entrpreneurship lecture… When the project was due in that class, there wasn’t a lot of curvature to be had… No wonder they say I’m an acquired taste as a teacher.
Or it could be that kids are ALWAYS going to be dumb, but you only get wiser (as they will in reality at some point). its just an illusion.
I need to borrow this quote!
Not to get off topic any further, but that figure is based on a highly inflated rate set arbitrarily by the phone companies, partially to encourage upgrades to unlimited plans, but mostly just because they can. Text messages are incredibly small pieces of data, and are (or can be) carried to and from the phone in the regular carrier signal that polls the phone every few seconds. In other words, they’re charging extra for something that the phone does anyhow.
As for “those kids today” and all their high tech goodies, who fixes your computer when you get a virus or your VCR blinks 12:00 all the time? 
I wonder what these watch dogs would have said when I was a kid spending 90% of my time model railroading or chasing trains in the Columbus,Oh area? After all I never played sports,chase the female species(the one I finally did chase I married.) or did any of the “normal” kids stuff of that era.
My son played video games and D&D a lot when he was a kid and he turned out ok…
No, it’s because k-12 education is being continually cut, programs eliminated, and teachers underpaid, especially with the current budget crisis.
But than again, as the US doesn’t even rank in the top 25 for math educational levels world wide, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that no one’s figured out that when you cut resources, the end results will suffer.
It may not be of help, but this is a trend in many a western nation. In Germany, our education system as well as parental behaviour i.e negligence have successfully “ruined” a complete generation. Not a comforting thought for our future.