Tuned In, Tuned Out?

The New York Times' Room for Debate blog asked five panelists (including UVa grad and Cavalier Daily alum Lisa Guernsey) about media overload affecting our kids. All five experts offer good advice, though I worry that the saturation of media in all of our lives (from work to home) affects our children.

As more work goes online, the line between work and leisure increasing becomes blurred for parents, and I believe our kids pick up on this. Also, I believe that parents set the tone not just by setting guidelines for their children for TV and computer time but also through their own use. Parents are role models, and kids ape them. Maybe I'm just over-emphasizing my own experiences, but on days I use the computer a lot, the boys want to use the computer more. In short, their best remedy may be my own best remedy: exercise more, read more, play more. 

It's time to turn off the computer.

Media Overload

A recent USA Today article reports that kids are less happy as they're more plugged in to media, from cellphones and iPods to TV and video games. To me the numbers in this story make me more skeptical than anything (for example, in this study, a "heavy user" was consuming media content for 16 hours or more in a day - when is there time to sleep?) but it reinforces my resolution to read more to the kids. Since I'm already slacking off, perhaps this story will serve as a good scare tactic. (Maybe I should turn off the computer myself.)