Hand-helds in Little Hands?

“Keep hand-held devices out of small children’s hands.”  It seems like a common-sense approach to me, but I am constantly see small children (younger and younger every day) with hand-held devices.  I even see it in Mass, which boggles my mind.  The damage being done is mostly under the surface, so maybe we aren’t really aware of just what’s happening.  I recently read an article from a pediatric occupational therapist and thought I’d summarize what she wrote.

*DADS:  Before you read any further, and this post becomes hard to read b/c it hits too close to home, keep in mind that we didn’t have these devices.  We played outside.  We skinned our knees.  We got dirty.  We lived an adventure.  Get your kids away from the screens, and send them outside!  This is an opportunity to step in and make some life-changing decisions for your children.

1. Rapid Brain Growth: she said that “early brain development is determined upon environmental stimuli, or lack thereof.”  Think about it… nowadays we have all sorts of issues that never seemed to exist “back then”.  ADD, ADHD, hyper-activity, impulse, etc.  A cure?  GO OUTSIDE.
2. Delayed Development: imagine a few inches of a screen vs. an entire outside playground with toys, bikes, balls, and the like.  Physical, mental, emotional, relational, development is hindered behind a screen.
3. Epidemic Obesity: nothing to add.
4. Sleep Deprivation: when we’re constantly plugged in, it’s hard to shut it off.  Kids need sleep (in pretty sizeable quantities) to develop properly, especially at young ages.
5. Mental Illness: apparently the increase in child technology overuse is shown to be related to a drastic increase in depression, anxiety, ADD, etc.  (I don’t know if I’m sold on this one, but it wouldn’t surprise me.)
6. Aggression: content leads to action.  What our kids consume they will become.  (You are what you eat.)
7. Digital Dimentia: kids who can’t pay attention can’t learn.  (Again, I’m not sure about this one, specifically, but I’m sure it correlates.)
8. Addictions: I have no doubt in my mind that this one is 100% fully absolutely without a doubt true.  Let’s see… addiction to junk on the screen or addicted to the outdoors?  GO OUTSIDE!
9. Radiation emissions: I’m convinced that there’s a conspiracy going on where cancer from radiation is in and comes from everything.
10. Unsustainable: these methods, of overuse of technology starting at a crazy-young-age, by which our children function, grow, learn, and develope aren’t sustainable.

Let’s link this to virtue, because everything should.  To be virtuous, and to instill this in our children, we must possess TEMPERANCE.  Temperance moderates our attraction to pleasure.  We should find ourselves somewhere in a moderate level of use.

Look… I’m NOT a technology hater.  I’m not trying to point fingers… that’s not what we do here.  I have multiple laptops, a tablet, a smart phone, a flat screen, Roku TV, and obviously have a presence online.  However, when it comes to my kids, they don’t spend time on my hand-held devices.  They do, however, spend some time on learning sites (we like ABCMouse.com when they’re young), and do math-fact-games, etc. on an old laptop.  They watch the occasional movie (our family favorites are “The Sound of Music” and “Mary Poppins”.)  But, and this is the point here… it’s regulated.  They spend exponentially more time outside, in the fresh air, without their eyes buggin’ out staring at a screen.  They also spend a ton of time reading books.  Every. Single. Day.  My kids are young, but hold conversations with adults, are polite, have imaginations, and are well-spoken.  It makes a difference.

OK – now it’s time to think about our own use.  OUCH!  Am I right or am I right?  Adults won’t be as effected in terms of the developmental pieces, but our noses in screens has a negative impact on us, too.  Same principle applies… GO OUTSIDE!

TrueMan up!

iPod, iPad, iPhone (87G) and iGov’t

I haven’t made any comments about our government and the debt crisis yet because I believe there are plenty of people who know the right answer and none of them work or are associated with anything that happens in or around Washington.  The entire situation is beyond frustrating to the American people, especially to those of us who are hard-working, smart-spending, family-oriented, small-government-oriented, red-white-and-blue-proud, military-supporting, separation-of-church-and-state-doesn’t-mean-what-everyone-thinks-it-means, kinda people!!!

But get this… I check Facebook today and see lots of people posting about how Apple has more cash on hand than our government!  How crazy is this?!?!  I mean seriously!  These people sell gadgets… the government is supposed to be in charge of everything!  Gadgets versus government and gadgets is winning?!  I’m actually not as surprised as you might think.  And honestly, I think the whole thing is laughable.

I don’t own any Apple products.  I’m completely fine with that.  (Did you like my iPhone 87G joke in the title?)   The last time I used an Apple computer for any length of time was playing Oregon Trail on one when I was a kid in grade school.  I can’t stand them, mostly because I don’t know how to use them.  I’ve tinkered around with a few Apple products before, but I just don’t get the hype.   Apparently, I am the only one because they’ve got more money than the US government, which means that most of you reading this probably own all sorts of products from this booming company.  Mr. Obama… maybe you should step down and let Mr. Jobs do yours for you.

TrueMan up!

Porn Gone Mobile

It may not be news to some of you, but porn is everywhere.  When I first got my Droid phone, I searched through lists and lists of free apps to add to my phone just as most people who have app-enabled phones do.  Obviously, we want to utilize the machine for what it can do, right?  In those lists, I came across apps that were quite scandalous… these apps served up porn (of varying degrees).  It’s porn gone mobile… as if porn wasn’t easy enough to access on the web, the porn industry had to add it to web-enabled phones as well.

This was all brought to mind today when I saw a thread about Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, and his comments to a hack-job blogger on the topic of “the ‘freedom’ that iPad offers.”  Currently, to the best of my knowledge, there are no apps for the iPad that support pornography.  It’s hard to say that porn isn’t accessible on the iPad because porn is still accessible via the web browser on iPad, but not directly via any apps.  Some porn companies are frustrated with the inability to have an app for their porn site(s).  What it comes down to for the porn companies is the almighty dollar.  Totally disgusting.

Here’s the whole point… and I’ve said this before, but will repeat it as many times as is necessary.  PORN HUNTS FOR US!  It’s not like the ‘ol days’ when you had to be ballsy enough to walk into an ‘adult store’ and purchase a magazine or VHS.  Now, porn is accessible in places we can’t even imagine.  Porn is everywhere and it doesn’t wait for us to find it, it comes after us and doesn’t stop.

Parents – don’t assume your kids aren’t looking at, watching, using, distributing, streaming or buying porn.  Get into their media, including their mobile media… basically anything that has access to the web or a signal, and put a stop to it.  It will destroy their lives!

Many people wonder (and debate heavily) why porn is so bad.  I’ll leave that for next post.  Until then, fight the giant.

If you are addicted to pornography, please click HERE to start getting help TODAY.

TrueMan up!