It came up somehow the other day in
our faculty cross-curricular post-planning meeting (sounds fancy, huh?) that a
good number of our school’s second graders have cell phones. Mostly smart
phones. Seven-year olds are now equipped not only to browse and download all
the web has to offer, they could also, theoretically, type a paper, start a
blog, or, like that little girl in the phone commercial, start a lemonade
empire.
This is Progress* for you. No one
under twenty five or so would likely be all that shocked to hear about the
second graders’ phones, but for those of us who grew up back in the day, this
is still kind of a shocking reality. Think about it: when I was a kid, I did
have a television in my room—which was actually somewhat unusual in my group of
friends—but that was it. Our family, like most, didn’t have a computer until
the mid nineties. So of course life was different back then, as those of us who
experienced (or have been forced to hear about it) know. But here’s the thing.
If you accept the basic tenet that tools are what separate us from the animals,
isn’t it significant that kids today are equipped with so many powerful tools
at such a young age? I really think we’re talking about more than a change in
how kids spend their free time.
Here’s my theory: having access to
the same tools adults to makes them grow up faster. I don’t just mean that kids
can access adult content online—I think it might go further than that. Today, for maybe the first time in
history, the second grader and the businessman have access to exactly the same
tools. Once upon a time, a person had to enter adulthood first, and then they
went to work, where they were equipped with a computer, phone (and later
work-sponsored mobile phones). Today, some kids are getting all that
practically at birth, no job required. I made it through college on a
Smith-Corona word processor with a tiny little LCD screen. You could move
blocks of texts around, but it almost made you blind. Now, just a couple of
generations later, my students have laptops more powerful than any in existence
during my college years. (I love it when my students complain about computer
problems, I’m like, you just have no idea.)
I
know technology changes the way we interact with the world—it has to. But I also
think that having the same tools as the adults is one of the factors that’s
erasing childhood. In some ways, empowering kids is a positive. But for every
good technology brings, it takes something else away. These kids with the cell
phones may never know how great it feels to be playing outside and out of
earshot—free. For one thing, these poor mites are carrying Mom in their pockets
all the time. Nine times out of ten when one of my students gets a text in
class, they tell me, “But it’s my mom!” Technology has definitely allowed the
helicopter parent a whole new level of attachment and involvement. When I see
Facebook posts from parents to their kids saying, “Call Me,” it kind of makes
me glad that my parents are still on dial-up internet and have no interest in
that world.
So
there are some clear negatives, but there are certainly benefits. These kids
will enter the workplace computer savvy, as opposed to playing catch-up on the
side while also learning how to do their actual job, like we did.
They
can do anything, really. With the right tools, the world is your oyster. I’ve
recently been re-watching one of my favorite shows, Veronica Mars. If you’ve never seen it, because you missed it, or
you came of age in the era of The Vampire/Witch/Werewolf: when the show began,
Veronica was a seventeen-year old who helped her dad, a private investigator,
with his cases. Except she seemed to solve more cases than he did—and why? She
had the tools. She had a laptop, cell phone, and access to databases and
information courtesy of her father’s work. Essentially, Veronica was a private
detective. Even though this was fiction, it doesn’t seem all that far-fetched.
Why not? The character was a very bright, resourceful person. Add in the right
tools, and there’s nothing to separate her from any other adult starting out in
that field. You can get experience simply by doing. She could not have done the
job at age ten—developmentally, humans aren’t ready for adult cognition at ten
(yet?). But at seventeen, properly equipped, why not?
This
new breed of kids, growing up with the same tools as adults for the entirety of
their lives hasn’t grown up…yet. I think it will be interesting to see whether
the tools give them such a boost that they leap over and past childhood, or whether
the inherent distractions, the dark side of these devices and tools, will
simply infantalize them. Rather than wanting to learn and master an adult skill
at seventeen, maybe they won’t ever want to. It’s a brave new world out there.
Grown-ups, just keep in mind the playing field’s been leveled a bit in recent
years. If you do have a lemonade business, be careful that some little girl
with a smart phone doesn’t put you out of business.
*I am rather Saddened that the eighteenth century custom of
Capitalizing words that were Important is not longer an Option. I had a Student
this year who used this System, and I must say it was rather Entertaining.
