suicidegirls.com — "there is, in fact, an entire generation of parents, about my age or just a little older, who are substituting technology for parenting. As a result, there's an entire generation of children who are overstimulated and undersocialized, and in some cases heavily medicated, because their damn parents would rather distract them with a DVD or videogame"
May 9, 2007 View in Crawl 4
anonymous3May 10, 2007
Ever had a lecturer restart a movie multiple times because someone started talking or a mobile went off after he politely did the "I'd appreciate it if..." spiel beforehand? That works after about 5 minutes of "Earth, home to over 6 billion blah blah blah. Earth, home to over..."
codyfrischMay 10, 2007
I agree with everything he said, except that jab at homeschooling. Again another person who doesn't get it. Homeschoolers are far more socialized than people think. Considering most homeschool parents tend to be very traditional, one can expect them to actually be raising kids the way Wil is ranting they should be raised. They aren't the kinds of parents to pawn kids off on video games.If he has a beef with what they are being taught, then he hasn't ever studied that very deeply before either. I went to a private Christian school, and our math textbooks were not even religious based. Our English books did contain some "christian" literature, but a lot of it was classics. We read classics, just like the public schools did. My home school friends (yes the private school kids were friends with home school kids because of sports and other activities) all read the same stuff too.The only place where there might be any concern (for him) was in the science curriculum. We covered all the the sciences, just as thoroughly as any public school did. We covered all the biological process, in depth. Physics, Chemistry, etc. all were covered. The only difference between our textbook at the public school books were that we attributed the "order" to God being the creator of it all. And we even discussed evolution vs. Creation, with arguments for and against both.So my point is, since homeschooling typically used the same books in my community as my school did. The homeschoolers I met were all very outgoing and polite. Many of them were involved in sports, there was a local home school sports club where the home school kids joined the team, practiced together, etc. They typically beat the private schools into the ground. They also had a bus and travelled to other towns in the state to compete against other private schools, and even some public schools in smaller towns. Though against the public schools it wasn't ever official because the government apparently believes a sports team competing against a group of home school kids who are partly Christians would be an endorsement of Christianity.My point is, they were all friends with each other, friends with kids at private school, friends with people at public schools. They weren't isolated freaks like Wil (and so many others want you to believe).Oh and having gone to that private christian school, and now at college, I'm not at any disadvantage. I was able to test out of a number of core classes, breeze through others. The quality of education was just that much better than what was received by so many of my current classmates. Though that partially does reflect on Montana as a whole, since I'm now going to school in Colorado, and I go to school with people who went through Montana public schools and they are generally far more well educated than the students from other states.Okay end rant, but while I agree with Wil about parents, please don't blame homeschoolers for it. They are probably the farthest from being what he is complaining about in the entire article. It smacks of his personal intolerance to throw that in at the end.
member57May 10, 2007
Electronic babysitter...My kids won't even stop for Dora...
ecclesMay 10, 2007
I partially agree with Wil, but in some ways I think this is more a symptom than the root problem.I love my kids to death, and play with them a lot, but yeah, at times I want them kept busy elsewhere. It's not the technology, though, that I think is the problem; the problem is that they don't have much of a social life to distract them from it. I didn't have many kids in my neighborhood growing up, but I did have one friend that I played with almost constantly. My son occasionally has a friend over, but it almost always requires organizing, it's very rarely spur of the moment. But with busy parents, homework, organized activities, etc., even if he's available, potential playmates aren't. So he wants to play with me. And given I'm working, helping him with that homework load, shuttling him to soccer practice, etc., I'm pretty limited in my free time already.Changes that would make it easier for him to spend more time playing with other kids would be good for all involved, I think.A nice side effect, at least, is that he's best friends with his old sister, while my wife and I have less than stellar relationships with our siblings.
zonkingMay 10, 2007
Wil Wheaton is married and has kids? Holy crapoly!
stonekeeperMay 10, 2007
Hi Patrick! Thanks for stopping by!
chess007May 11, 2007
The tv/videogames are babysitters for way too many children. A simple questio to parents: Do you want your child to have your values? Or do you want your child to have the values of whatever game/tv show he plays/watches?