A blogger seeking a richer life... in a wasteland called the suburbs... for my family, myself, and anyone who will listen!

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Text-Free Living!

I sometimes miss the sound of voices in this new world of texting... it's sometimes deafening,  feels like something is missing... like a texture that is missing from a painting...

So when I saw this article my husband emailed me, it struck a cord...

How do you think you would fare if you swore off texting for a few days?!

And what about your kids?...

Well, college students at the University of Maryland experienced withdrawal like a drug addict (no surprise)... but middle schoolers had a different reaction during a two-day experiment reported by the NY Times, at Riverdale Country School... the 'Text Generation' rediscovered it's voice.
Riverdale Country School, photo by Jennifer Altman

As NY Times reporter, Susan Dominus put it...
"Boundaries between work and home have long since fallen, so maybe it should not be surprising that the same is true for school and home. But what middle school student 20 years ago would have voluntarily reached out to her mother 10 times between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.? If school had any universally agreed upon upside, it was that it gave a 12-year-old some much-needed space to revel in independence or struggle with rejection — space in which, presumably, that 12-year-old could start to figure out who she was, or how he wanted to navigate the world."


I would love to do this experiment at our middle school, in fact I'm going to suggest it at our PTA Council meeting... 


“Kids will do poorly on a test, and more often than not, right away they’ll go into the bathroom and text their mom and dad,” she said. “There’s no sense that the kid just has to feel his feelings. It’s an instant Band-Aid.”




My boys do not text me from the bathroom about how they did on a test, but I know a mother who told me the other day that her daughter texts her everyday from school just to check in with her...


This concerns me... how do you feel?  Leave  your comments below so we can hear your voice.

2 comments:

  1. i only get a text when my son misses the bus and needs a ride.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for visiting on my special SITS day.

    ReplyDelete