Is the only way children will be able to communicate with their parents going to be through Facebook or Twitter?

I was struck by an item in the New York Times (Thursday, June 10, p. D1; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/garden/10childtech.html?scp=2&sq=Scelfo%20&st=cse) that described a toddler who, after numerous attempts to get his mother to respond to a question, tried to bite her leg so she would put down her BlackBerry. The article goes on to describe how parents’ use of technology may be depriving children of interactions needed for their development of language skills.

In an admittedly non-scientific study of six Chicago-area households, Dana Suskind, a University of Chicago language researcher, found that in some cases the number of words spoken by adults to children ages 3-5 doubled or even tripled when the parents had their smartphones and computers turned off.  There is evidence that a language-rich environment helps children develop a broad vocabulary that helps them learn to read. So, in addition to affecting driving and other tasks where distraction can be life threatening, do smartphones and computers detract from the intellectual development of children? At this point we don’t know, and it will take some time for scientific studies to be done, but it seems likely that less attention translates to less development.

It is perhaps counterintuitive that appliances designed to foster communication have just the opposite effect, but communication with whom? For the people on the other end of the electronic line, the BlackBerries and iPhones are great. It is those in close proximity–with whom communication would happen in the absence of electronics–who are losing out.  Certainly electronic devices enable far faster and far more extensive communication than ever before, but with our heads in the clouds of communication, do we still have our feet on the ground?

There is no doubt that online attractions can be extremely enticing. One of the reasons some of my students gave for preferring a printed textbook to an online version was that when they studied from the printed version Facebook was not a single mouse-click away and so the temptation for diversion was much less. (Other students preferred the many new features enabled by the electronic version.) I know from personal experience that when a new email comes in I am tempted to interrupt my train of thought and attend to it right away.  Perhaps we all need to develop greater will power in this regard–declare a no-Internet time of day, refuse to be distracted, and pay more attention to what we are doing and those we are with.

I remember some years ago when my wife and I were in a restaurant. Another couple came in, sat down,  each got on a cell phone, and both talked to someone else. (As far as we could tell their phones were not connected to each other!) Why bother to meet for dinner and conversation if all of the conversation is going to be with someone who is not present? Isn’t it pretty selfish to ignore those we are with in favor of others who are not there?

I have always thought of teaching as a generous profession. We give our time and effort in hopes of helping students deal with situations they will encounter in the future and in hopes of improving society as a whole. What we do may not have immediately obvious consequences, but we believe it will influence things for the better in the long term. Is what we teachers are doing out of synch with modern society? Are we too unselfish for our own good? Can anybody still appreciate those whose motivation depends on future good, not just whatever is the flavor of the moment? I hope so, because what we do is (and always was) essential to our society.