A dangerous world-Analog parents with digital teens

“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”(Proverbs 22:6)

I read from Time magazine that Face book has crossed 500 million account holders recently. It is purely out of curiosity that I decided to open a face book account about 3 months ago just to find out what is it so fantastic about this social network platform.

I randomly typed some names of my old classmates under ‘search’ and only a few names surfaced. That means to say that most of the people in my age group have not caught up with this buzz. Currently I have only 15 ‘face book’ friends whereas my youngest daughter in secondary school has 500 plus. So my generation is still struck in ‘analog’ world that some of us do not even know that the "smart" phones we have given to our children are actually mobile computers.

Children are spending too much time on computers than anything else. Parents suppose to take control on this matter but it is a tough task. Arming themselves with knowledge is the first step but summoning the courage to establish clear boundaries, rules, and consequences is the real test. It is hard for our children to put away their digital devices on their own choice. Book seems to lose out to the computer. They feel much more at home in the virtual world of digital life than in the real world. Unfortunately, sometimes they cannot even differentiate the virtual world and the real world that they become easily deceived.

Addiction,lack of the self-control to turn off the computer is no 1 enemy not just to the teenagers, but also we adults. There are so many exciting things and information that one can get from the internet without having even to leave home or making a phone call. Children often use school assignments as a mean to get hold on the computers, but end up surfing other things when they are away from the watchful eyes of their parents. My husband often has to stay late at night to take away our child’s computer at night and I am sure he is not the only parent who does that. Internet has really influenced, shaped and re-defined our daily lives. It is dangerous for parents to continue to stay in their 'analog' world.