Our devices have become such a part of who we are that we may be losing sight of who we are.
- Thomas Kersting
“We and our children do not have control over electronic devices and screens; electronic devices and screens have control over us” (pg ii).
“In 2007 Small began researching technology’s impact on the brain and discovered that when research subjects spent as little as an hour a day online, the activity patters in their brains changed dramatically. According to Small, ‘the human brain is malleable, always changing in response to its environment.’ Dr. Small explains that the brain is very sensitive. Every stimulation the brain receives causes a complex cascade of neurochemical electrical consequences. With repeated stimuli the neural circuits in the brain become excited and if other neural circuits are neglected they will be weakened. A young person’s brain, which is still developing, is particularly sensitive and is also the kind of brain that is most exposed to modern technology” (pg 4).
“the more we become used to just sound bites and tweets, the less patient we will become with more complex, more meaningful information. And I do think we might lose the ability to analyze things with any depth and nuance” (pg 4).
“This lack of face-to-face interaction, particularly for children, is evident in their reduced social and communication skills, making it difficult for them to handle the everyday bumps in the road of life. The end result: a substantial increase in stress, anxiety, and self-esteem issues” and “if young folks spend most of their time communicating through text messaging rather than face-to-face, the brain will weed out the neural pathways that are necessary for becoming a good face-to-face communicator” (pg 7, 9).
Chapter 2: Cyberspace Children : A Full-Time Job
“In 2005, the Kaiser Family Foundation released the findings from a 2004 study” that “revealed that the average eight to eighteen year old spent six and a half hours per day using electronic media” (pg 15). In 2008, that number “had risen by over an hour, to seven hours and thirty-eight minutes per day, seven days a week” meaning “the average kid in America was spending more time per week plugged in to electronic devices than the average full-time worker was spending at work.”
Between 2004 and 2008, YouTube and Facebook had been introduced to the world.
What’s even more alarming “is that the Kaiser study did not include smartphone or tablet use because they weren’t relevant in 2008 . . . In October of 2015, Common Sense Media conducted the most up-to-date, large-scale, probability-based survey to explore young people’s media diets. The findings were that the average American teenager now spends nine hours per day, or sixty-three hours per week, immersed in electronic media, not including school-related technology” (pg 18).
Chapter 13: Social Media and the Development of Self -Esteem
“Our children are on the receiving end of hundreds, even thousands, of narcissistic photographs from their peers, which can cause them to start questioning the quality of their own life when compared to everyone else’s” (pg 26).
“Children need to experience rejection at times in order to develop a sense of “self” by overcoming adversity and learning from it“ (pg 18).
The word ‘self’ is the crucial part of self-esteem, it is not ‘others’-esteem. But that is what is happening” because they’ve lost their sense of purpose. A sense of purpose can be defined “as ongoing motivation that is self-directed, oriented toward the future, and beneficial to others” (pg 28).
Chapter 4: The Multitasking Brains of Kids
“High multitaskers fail miserably at counting the correct number of passes btween the girls wearing white tee shirts because their brains can’t help but be distracted by the girls in black along with other distractions happening in the video. Low multitaskers have no problem counting the correct number of passes between the girls wearing white” because high multitaskers use “twenty times more of their brain . . . than low multitaskers.” But they’re using the wrong part of their brain, “the part known as the visual cortex. Low multitaskers needed only a small amount of brainpower to complete the task, and it was the area of the brain they were supposed to be using, the pre-frontal cortex. In other words, the high multitasking students were actually worse at multitasking than the low multitasking students” (pg 36, 37).
Chapter 8: Raising our Children to be Leaders Instead of Followers
“It is our job as parents {and educators} to do what is right for our children, not to allow outside influences to decide that for us. When I have these conversations with parents they sometimes become defensive because, let’s face it, no adult wants to admit that they were peer pressured into anything” (pg 73).
What is the right age to get your child a smartphone? When you feel comfortable with your child watching pornography (pg 73).
“A leader is someone [who] leads by example and has the integrity to do the right thing even when it is not popular. A good leader has positive influence over others, inspiring them to become a better person and example for others to model their life against” (pg 74).
Chapter 10: Using Mindfulness and Meditation to Reconnect Our Disconnected Kids
Five rules every parent should follow:
Keep your child’s room clean of screens
Your child’s phone is your phone
No electronics during dinner
Limit screen time for entertainment purposes (including TV) to two hours per day
Be a role model
Grade: A+
Sure. At times, he’s extreme, because that’s what sells books, but he’s also right. Not perfect, but right in that he raises the question, sounds the alarm, and looks to the adults to act and parent/teach like adults, and that in and of itself is what makes this short book worth the read.
He got my attention, that’s for sure.
For more one . . .