I consider myself a little more openminded than most kids about how much time they spend online and playing video games. Most of the time they spend online is posting or commenting on Instagram, texting friends or using FaceTime, or playing XBoxOne online with friends around the country. This is their time to relax and connect. I spend time chatting with friends on Twitter or sending Pins to my girlfriends, why limit the time my kids “hang” with their friends just because it is online instead of in real life?
My opinion on this was validated after I read “We Are Addicted to Connection. Why Being Online is Good for Kids.” Writers, Scott and Alison, hit the nail on the head with this article when they equated kids time online with hanging out. Do you remember riding through the neighborhood with your friends on a bike after school? Maybe you hung out at the mall on weekends with your best friends? Times have changed and most parents just don’t allow their kids as much free reign as in past decades.
As people, we need other people. And in today’s world of hand sanitizer and home security, we find one another any way we can. Social is just the record store on the corner for today’s kids. They need it, and sometimes we need it too. I know social saved me when I was home with three young children and couldn’t always make it out to meet friends in person. Unplugging and sanity could not coexist for me…let alone unplugging and happiness.
I get what she is saying, I can’t unplug for long before I start wondering about my friends. I have girlfriends in at least six time zones that I can think of at this moment. I love the ease of checking out what is happening in their lives on Facebook or Instagram. My kids connect with friends they met when we lived in another state and another country. They love playing games with their friends on XBOXOne, even though they are separated by a few hundred miles.
They are connecting with other people, they are nurturing relationships, it just isn’t what some people think of as normal. It is a new normal. Times and technologies are changing, connections are changing as well. I love that there are other parents who see online time as kids hanging out.
What do you think: Is being online good for kids? Is it the new place to hang out for kids?
