Day 17: Age is Just a Number

     Working in the education field has shown me what it means to be a member of the digital age, more so than growing up with technology ever has. Today's youth are in many ways developmentally stunted, due to the ever-increasing availability of technology and increase access to the internet. Young adults have lost their ability to be shocked and/or in many cases their innocence due to the wealth of information at their fingertips. Today's youth have access to any subject they could desire to know about is at the tips of their fingers and yet they spend hours watching mindnumbing videos or researching inappropriate and at time gruesome events, texts or streams. However, what harm does this access have on our youth?
    Research has shown no indication that young adults that play/watch violent video games and movies are more violent than any other member of society. In fact, some research has actually shown that people who enjoy such activities do so as a form of catharsis (while others disagree). This being said, however, there is a definite change in young adult mental and physical ability/ages due to such activities. Today's youth seems to be mentally older due to their access to the internet, but lack the developmental skills in order to appropriately sort and understand what they view. This discrepancy has made it difficult for both teachers and parents to teach young adults the differences between right and wrong due to the internet providing them with whatever knowledge or entertainment they could ask for in a more easily digestible format. In many ways, education and parenting have become more about capturing kids attention and less about the actual education due to this increase in available information.

       So my question is: Should we allow young adults access to technology and the internet at such a young and developmentally critical age or is there a better way? I am not saying that all education should be left up to teachers, but there has to be a better way to teach our children about the world around them than plopping them in front of a screen and hoping for the best (you have all seen parents in stores and restaurants do this, just to get a moment of peace). Considering it another way, you wouldn't expect someone to know everything about a job on their first day (even if they had worked in the field previously), so why do we expect our children to make safe and healthy choices when it comes to the internet without first giving them the tools and knowledge to succeed.