Friday, May 29, 2009

Crying Wolf: A Technology Timeline

Link to May 29 World of Psychology post, "Teens Text a Lot, Adults Worry".

Excerpt: With each significant technological development within society, we can go back into history and find newspaper and magazine reports about the potentially “harmful effects” of the technology, led by academics and researchers. For instance, it was very disturbing to many in society at the time when the radio entered into the American household and suddenly changed the nature of many families communications. Instead of reading or playing games, studying or going to bed, now the whole family gathered around the radio and tuned into the evening’s entertainment. “Shhh… I’m trying to listen!” There goes family conversation.

The television certainly didn’t help matters in the 1950s and 1960s, and the advent of the video game in the 1970s and 1980s just added to childrens’ and teens’ distractions away from the core family. Kids who grew up during these times didn’t turn out nearly as badly as some professionals thought they would. (Heck, even I managed to turn out okay, despite hours upon hours of video game playing every day in the 1980s.) Parents also couldn’t understand why their children spent so much time on that dang telephone, talking to their friends they just saw in school.

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