Today’s growing generation is developing a new definition of relationships – Facebook friends, Twitter followers and YouTube subscribers. But this online connections can’t be really identified as real kids’ relationships or friendships.
How technology and popular culture change children’s ability to develop personal relationships?
According to popular culture and reality shows, entertainment programs and TV channels, true love can be found only in a few weeks; friendship and school life should be like those on Nickelodeon, and the good family should copy The Real Housewives show. Modern day children spend a considerable amount of their time surfing the Internet and watching TV, so we should ask ourselves is technology influencing our children and in what way? The answer is yes, children’s behavior and way of perceiving the world are influenced by virtually everything, including technology and pop culture. The person’s qualities, understanding and interacting with others involve and develop in early age, allowing many factors to interfere and alter who we will become one day.
The influence of pop culture and technology on children is growing, so we should realize where and how today’s kids learn about relationships, do they know what exactly a good and healthy relationship is, and will they be able to establish positive and lasting relationships in the future. If we allow children to learn about relationships not from their parents, but from the easiest place – TV channels and the Internet, this will have very serious consequences on them.
Let’s see the examples that pop culture offers. Do you really want kids to learn about families’ relationships from Gossip Girl? Or about love from Bella Calamidades? Or about friendship and high school life from High School Musical? No. Or do you think that having 1,500 friends, like on Facebook, is healthy and real? If you want your child to develop healthy, proper attitude toward relationships of various kinds, the answer to these should be No. Real-life relationships can’t develop through the Internet.
On the other hand, social networks can teach children about all new, modern ideas and causes in life, besides the pure technology knowledge. Indeed, new technologies help increase creativity and productivity of the individual. They also help kids to be in contact with their grandparents and friends who live at great distances through emails, Facebook, Skype, Flickr and Twitter.
There are both benefits and negative consequences of the use of technology, but parents should mainly concern how children perceive relationships, as just relationships, or they are really able to tell the difference between a real life friend and a Facebook friend. If children learn about the world and how to interact with it on the Internet first, their real-life relationship definition will positively alter. That’s we should develop a more considerate and moderate approach towards the use of technology.
