Children and Technology
My young daughter asked me recently if I had a Sony PS3 when I was her age. A Simple enough mistake to make, of course, but it got me thinking about how pervasive technology is. Something that is technologically incredible, something that was utterly unheard of when I was a lad, is now commonplace in homes all over the world. It doesn't stop there. I am not old - at least I don't consider my self to be that old - yet as a lad computers simply didn't exist outside of specialist companies who had paid millions of pounds for hardware you would today laugh at in a modern smart phone.
So she is growing up taking for granted this incredible technology. She wants a mobile phone (I can remember when a house phone - a single house phone - was a luxury afforded to few), has an iPod (how many remember cassettes and records?) and her own computer. Fully teched up, in my view.
There's a but coming.
But, I am not keen on the way many young people interact with each other these days - or more specifically how they don't interact. They have their own language, full of short cuts and atrocious spelling. They typically speak, if they speak at all, in grunts. I realize I am starting to sound like my grandmother used to but there is a wider point I am trying to make outside of the "old geezer takes a whack at new fangled youngsters" point.
I am well aware that language evolves, English perhaps faster than others, and it is right and proper for it to do so. Aside from the poor spelling and poor grammar that alters the meaning of sentences unless you understand the context in which they are written (I am most certainly against that - "there", "they're" and "their" are three very different words - don't be thick: understand when to use which), I applaud many of the new ways of communicating. Language is a tool for us and if the rules no longer make sense, ignore them. I just feel that electronic communication is simply one way in which we can communicate, and should not be used as a replacement for speech and other forms of interaction.
Continued on the next page
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