Why Adults Need to Stop Complaining About How Kids Use Technology
Their habits simply mirror ours
Doors slam quickly when I return home after picking up my 11- and 14-year-old sons from school. They’re not angry or depressed, but they seem to crave some time alone on weekday afternoons. I guess they need opportunities to be liberated from the social stress of the everyday school routine. And their preferred way to do that is online. I sympathize, but I also can’t help but be annoyed.
Within minutes, I can hear the muffled sound of YouTube videos blasting from my sons’ smartphones. After a while, they transition out of the spectator role, and I cringe hearing them scream into their headsets as they play multiplayer games with friends from school. Their overly enthusiastic conversation mimics the exclamations, trash-talk, and humor they regularly hear from the web’s most popular video-streaming stars. I roll my eyes.
I’m typically sitting at my desk, settled into my comfortable Steelcase swiveling chair, trying to respond to emails and finish the day’s work. But my kids’ pubescent voices are distracting. Their use of slang, idioms, and inside jokes is downright irritating. Also, I’m tired of screaming at them to “watch the profanity.” So, I pull on my Sony WH-1000XM3 noise-canceling headphones and launch Pzizz, an app that…
