Creek Speak April 2017 | Page 32

5 Reasons Why Technology is Making it Hard To Grow Up

By Kam Wergin and Abigail Brown

1: Going outside to play is no longer the first choice- Remember when you would go outside and play with your friends? You would pretend your scooters were rocket ships and see whose ship was the fastest. You would spend hours playing endless games of tag and hide and go seek. Well, todays kids play hide and go seek with their IPads, Ipods, Iphones, tablets and computers. Instead of actually going outside and playing with real people, they sit inside and play video games all day.

2:Kids are growing up with virtual friends- The best part of going outside to play was the people you got to meet and the friendships you formed. Nowadays,the only friends that kids are making are the ones in the same party as them on Xbox Live. “Snap streaks” are keeping teens connected at all times, even with people they don’t talk to in real life. We did a serve and 66% of Silver creek students said they prefer texting over calling and or FaceTime.

3: Kids are growing up with bad communication skills- The issue is that kids are growing up behind screens and are only engaging in one way conversations with Dora and Barney. Then when they are forced to have an actual conversation with an actual person, it is like a foreign language to them.

4: Technology takes the fun out of getting your licence- A recent product has come out that allows parents to track their child's driving. It tracks how fast they are going, how many people are in the car, how high the radio is and they can even set up a perimeter and receive notifications if you drive outside them, most likely getting you in trouble unless you have a good excuse. It takes away all the freedom that they were just given.

Privacy no longer exists- Parents can see who you text, who you call, and what you are doing on your phone at all times. We live in a world where social media is booming, and every thought is put onto Facebook or Twitter. There is no mystery anymore, and everyone knows what everyone else is doing.