whatsss up? my summmmerrr is grrreatt!!
By: Lara on July 15, 2008
Under: teens and technology
1 Comment
My thirteen-year-old niece Taylor is spending part of the summer with us. I had no idea how much time teens spend text messaging, IM’ing, and MySpace-ing their friends until she showed up at our house, cell phone in hand and asking to borrow the laptop.
It’s kind of astonishing, actually. On the rare days that we have no need or desire to get out of the house, Taylor can kill twelve straight hours using some kind of technology for social purposes. At first I was appalled— She’s not even talking to us! That phone vibrates every 30 seconds! She’s been staring at the computer screen for three hours! Does she even go to the bathroom anymore? Oh, yes—she just takes the phone with her. I have uttered more “old fogey” comments in the last two weeks than my mother did my entire adolescence.
But over these weeks, I have come to appreciate the constant beeping and buzzing of the cell phone, even the brief snippets of rock music I hear when Taylor loads another friend’s MySpace page. Why? Because, despite hanging out with just her uncool aunt and uncle, her infant cousin, and some pets, she’s not lonely. She hasn’t seen a friend in almost three weeks, yet I haven’t seen a twinge of homesickness. I hear details about her friends’ vacations and about movies they saw and about the boy her cousin recently went out on a date with (“Really cute, but way too old for her!”), as though they’ve all paraded through my living room to share their stories. Taylor is several hundred miles away from her nearest BFF, but she’s connected to them in a way that I’m not connected to even my own friends right next door.
I know, I know, there’s more to all of this technology than facilitating social relationships. My husband forwarded me this article describing a recent study of the presumed side-effects of all this connecting, and it’s sobering. “I don’t care if it is normal for a 13-year-old to spend 12 hours on mindless chatting,” he wrote me. “It’s just not physically or mentally healthy.” I agree with the “physically” part. But Taylor’s mental health seems, well, pretty healthy.
Most days, Taylor and I get out of the house together, even if it’s just to run an errand. We’ve even gone to the gym to run laps together and taken a few yoga classes. And our little family has dinner together every evening. The rest of the time, she’s texting or IM’ing or MySpacing—sometimes, it seems, all three at once. It’s not how I like to spend my free time, but I’m not her and I’m not 13. And I’ve actually been inspired to update my MySpace page for the first time in three years. Maybe I’ll make some connections of my own.
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