Instant Gratification

The other day I was listening talk radio as I was driving.  There was an interesting debate between a Democrat and Republican that was quite interesting.  During the debate, a train began to run parallel to my car and sounded its whistle.  Since the weather was nice, my window was cracked and so I missed part of the debate.  I reached for my radio to hit rewind, only to realize that I do not have that particular feature in my car.  I laughed to myself thinking how spoiled I was to have Dish Network.  With three kids at home, I use the pause and rewind feature very often during a show.  Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom….you get the idea.

Yesterday, I opened my teen’s door without knocking and caught him changing his clothes…His response?  “Je–s Ch–t, Mom!”  Now, I don’t live in a bubble, I was a teen myself!  But since he wasn’t addressing Jesus Christ in church, I was taken aback.  What I then realized is that all of these wonderful technologically genius tools have changed the way children interact socially in the world. 

My teen years were spent in the early eighties.  I was the same “clever” teen as all the other girls.  I swore behind my parents back, but teens of yesteryear possessed something today’s teens do not…an internal edit button.  The edit button disallowed us to swear in the company of parents or other adults. 

Today’s technology allows us to “un-delete” an email, rewind a television show, recover a previous version of a document etc.,  As these new technological tools became more refined, a new era of multi-taking was born and living in the moment took on a whole new meaning.  We work faster because we know silly mistakes can be instantly rectified.  

What this technology fails to teach today’s kids that social moments cannot be taken back.  Today’s kids do not have an internal edit button.  In the age of instant gratification, they have not honed their editing skills and by the time they regret their words or actions, it is too late.  Technology has created a generation of children with no social impulse control.  “Think before you speak” and “look before you leap” is not commonplace like it was when we were growing up.  As teens, we equated our actions with the environment.  Subconsciously, teens knew not to swear in their own home, at school, or at a friend’s house while parents were within earshot. Our internal edit button was always on autopilot. 

It makes one wonder, if kid’s can’t control their mouth, how can they control their actions?  It is almost like today’s generation has developed technology-based ADD!  When a teen shoots someone, the parents are always suspect.  Their discipline tactics are called into question.  Now I am not saying that discipline does not play a role in a child’s behavior, that would be ridiculous.  But what I am saying is that today’s children are growing up with instant gratification technology, and therefore, and haven’t really been trained to look before they leap as we did.

Games can be re-started when a character is killed.  Technological moments can be taken back, social moments cannot.  The solution is really quite simple:  For every hour you let your child be on a video game, computer etc. make them spend two hours being social (BUT not on a social network!)  Today’s kids do not have the face-to-face skills they need to become productive members of society.  Interaction with people is paramount to the success of any career, job or business.  It teaches empathy, compassion and tolerance.  It allows for a deeper understanding of emotions because facial expressions can be read and understood leading to more effective communication.

It is everyone’s responsibility to help our next generation connect with their true social self, not their social network self.