Addicting Technology | Teen Ink

Addicting Technology

March 10, 2008
By Anonymous

The most common time I spend on video games during summer is usually around 12 hours a week. A recent study shows that a total of 534 teens (36 percent) played video games. Most of these (425 [80 percent]) were boys and 109 (20 percent) were girls. "Female gamers spent an average of 44 minutes playing on the weekdays and one hour and four minutes playing on the weekends," the authors write. "Male gamers spent an average of 58 minutes playing on the weekdays and one hour and 37 minutes playing on the weekends." (Cummings 1)


That is what I usually do if I’m bored and usually only play during the night hours. So that asks the questions “Is today’s technology making today’s teen isolate themselves from there peers.” My opinion is yes today’s technology is making teenagers isolate themselves from there peers.
Today’s technology is becoming more and more commercial and addiction is growing. Children are drawn to video games at about the age of seven. For most, the games remain a harmless activity, but a small minority could be termed "addicts". A recent study of children in their early teens found that almost a third played video games daily, and that - more worryingly - 7% played for at least 30 hours a week. (10)

However, not all technology is bad. "All these things that that have long been assumed to be rotting our brains, there might be this hidden benefit," said social critic Steven Johnson, author of the controversial new book, "Everything Bad Is Good for You." Americans bought about 248 million games last year, enough for two in every household, according to a study by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. (3)


Limiting children to 1 hour a day on a video game is not unreasonable. Giving them the opportunity to play all day and night is outrageous. Video games are not the only electronic device that makes kids isolate themselves. Computers are getting highly noticeable in peoples homes. “The vast majority of teens in the United States, 87% of those aged 12 to 17, now use the internet. That amounts to about 21 million youth who use the internet, up from roughly 17 million when we surveyed this age cohort in late 2000. Not only has the wired share of the teenage population grown, but teens’ use of the internet has intensified. Teenagers now use the internet more often and in a greater variety of ways than they did in 2000.
There are now approximately 11 million teens who go online daily, compared to about 7million in 2000”. (Hitlin 2) Some families have more than one computer in a home. This is completely unnecessary unless it is job affiliated. Computers can be good to look at news and trivial facts on the World Wide Web. Computers are also a vital part in education if used correctly teens can do homework and search on the internet for school affiliated work.
Other technology that exist are growing in number such as ipods and big screen televisions these are also taking a toll on teenagers social life. Ipods are not always a bad thing when it comes to exercising people love to listen to music to get themselves going. However, big screen televisions are showing up in homes across America. Kids spend about as much time watching television as they would if they were playing video games.
Again the question is technology making teens isolate themselves and the answer is yes. It makes children isolate themselves from there peers when not limited by there parents. Internet and secrecy ruins relationship between lifelong partners. Technology in the world today is making teens isolate themselves from there peers in more ways than one if it is a friend or even worse if it is there family.


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