QUERY for DU'ers: What Happens to Kids today who don't like the Internet?

[KoKo]

Video Games, X Boxes, I-Pod, Cell Phones?

Will they feel they are the MISFITS of Tomorrow? How will we deal with these kids in a NEW AGE of TECHNO HAVES?

What about the "HAVE NOTS?" Those who can't afford and those have the access and the money but who CHOOSE not to be a part of it.

What do you think? Any of you have any kids or relatives who have kids or are you aware of kids who just DON'T WANT IT...or that Can't Afford It and STILL Don't Want it?

:shrug:

[LARED]

1. How will we deal with these kids ??

What's to deal with. Life is full of choices. Not all we will agree with. I say leave them alone.

[KoKo]

2. Agree...but the Peer Pressure must be enormous...how will they deal?

Everywhere I go I see little kids with "hand held games" where they are totally absorbed. Kids go on vacations with DVD Players in their cars where like on the Airlines they always can watch a movie instead of the boring scenery going by or their parent siging songs and asking them to "count the licence plates from other states or play word games."

I'm wondering where those "clueless kids go" (who do look out the car window and maybe just fall asleep) and how they survive...:shrug:

[grasswire]

3. I think I identified a new syndrome

I call it "distraction addiction." I noted it in some kids I know. Not a moment can be left to dream, to think, to have the mind to its own devices. Every moment is filled with either pop reading, television, Internet, computer gaming -- often while engaged on the cel phone at the same time. A brief stint at the dinner table reveals a young teen unable to converse; unable to even sit still and make eye contact. Each moment away from the distraction of choice brings more restlessness and anxiety.

Distraction addiction.

[KoKo]

4. yeah..."Distraction Addiction." Good name....I see it, too.

It's very "tuned out." I worry about these kids.....but it may be that I'm looking at it from my personal frame of reference and just am not getting that what they are doing is important...in the years ahead.

They laughed at the 60's folks for "Tune Out and Tune In."

I wonder...if it's not all come back to bite everyone in their backsides.

:shrug:

[cynatnite]

7. I would have died if there was a sing along

ICK!

And if you ask my kids, they would have if hubby and I did the sing along bit.

We did books, coloring books, card games and so on for activity on long trips. I grew up with that and that's what my kids got.

[Chemical Bill]

5. They'll get exercise? n/t

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

6. Don't Know. Thing Is Though, I Don't Know One Kid Like That.

Kinda like when I grew up there weren't any kids that were against watching tv or playing cassette tapes. I mean, maybe there are always a rare few here and there, but overall I doubt this is really going to turn out to be any sort of issue :)

[cynatnite]

8. What about the parents?

Parents are a large part of the equation as to whether or not kids want or don't want these games and gadgets. My kids express interest in gadgets, but we don't buy because everyone has it...we usually get it out of need. Our teen has a cell phone because we feel safer with her having one...she also pays for it, too. She has a job. Our little boy has a few games he's very satisfied with for the playstation. He's looked, but nothing has interested him.

My kids know computers. I made sure of it. They know the web and with my supervision do a fairly decent job of navigating the internet.

I think computers should at the very least be made more affordable and in many ways they are. My daughter's friend comes from a family with very little money. He scrounged up the parts from school and put his own system together with very little money. It's pretty good, but they do struggle to keep the internet every month.

The internet should be free to everyone, IMO.

[Cleita]

9. Kids will always get what they want.

I remember when TV first came out in the late forties. Within three years there was an antenna on every roof in my town. Even the poorest slumbs in third world countries for some reason or the other managed to get their hands on a TV and an antenna. Photos in the National Geographic would show the humblest of cardboard shacks with every single one of them with a TV antenna poking out from somewhere.

Fast forward to our time, I think you will find very few kids without access to all those electronic toys.

[pitohui]

10. there will always be kids who won't or can't read

the internet is reading w. more bells and whistles

they'll be left behind, not sure we can do anything abt it, there will always be know-nothings in th is world

all you can do is lead the horse to water, can't make him drink

i am not aware of any kids who can't afford internet, down here it is free to all comers at the library -- in my parish you don't even have to show a library card to use the internet