Glad we aren't the only ones bothered by this!

With our son, it's not even that he is on it 24/7 that is the issue. The girlfriend has two jobs and doesn't text on the job, so there are long stretches where he isn't 'connected' to her, and even when she isn't, it's not like all he does all day long is text...

But I just think it's healthy to be *with* the people you are *with*, and not have your mind always multi-tasking with a dozen other people. I think there is something to be said for not always needing *input*. From the phone to the MP3 player, it seems like their brains don't often have time to just *be*... and it just doesn't seem like a recipe for good mental health.

We recently took a large group of teenagers from our church on a week-long trip, and we confiscated electronic devices at about the time we left. If they wanted to call home we gave them their phones so they could make those calls, but our goal was to get them to interact with each other and not with their buddies/girlfriends/boyfriends back home. We played word games on the bus for hours and hours. They laughed and talked and really bonded in a way I'm not sure they would have if we had allowed the 200 people from 'back home' who weren't even on the trip with us to dictate their interactions.

I know times are different and that every generation seems to be 'going to the dogs' to the adults who aren't keeping up with the times, but the whole cell phone/texting thing does seem like a very, very significant change when compared to any generation before ours. I'm not remotely against technology and wouldn't prevent our children from having phones at all... but even beyond the potential naked photos and inappropriate text messages, I just don't know that kids are likely to *build* depth in the relationships in the room with them if the option to seek out others they find more interesting without even leaving the couch... well... I'm just not convinced that's good for them. It's human nature to gravitate towards that which is most appealing, and let's face it - Mom and Dad aren't as appealing as their friends and girl/boyfriends. And yet, it's the familial relationships that will (or should!) last for their lifetimes. In times past, by default, you *did* interact with your family whether they were most interesting to you or not, and long-term, that's what cemented families together. Now that your family can be in the room with you and yet you never speak to them (yet you send 1000 messages to other people during that time......)....

I dunno. I'm just not convinced it's going to ultimately result in *better* adults to raise a generation of people who never really *had* to develop the skill of attending to those who are *here* and *now*.

Who even knew that was something we were developing ten years ago??? It was just *life*!