Kids Today Don't Chat-They Text

I came across this newspaper article entitled, 'Kids today don't chat-they text'. True enough, I agree to a large extent of this statement.

In the past when technology has not aroused, when there is only telephones and no handphones available, either we tend to call our friends or find time to meet up with them to catch up. However, now when we are late for an outing, what we usually do is to sms them saying, "Sorry, I will be late for half an hour. You all go first, can? When I have reached the destination, I sms you again." We rely too much on technology and sms to convey our messages. Nowadays, we hardly meet up with our friends we know years ago. Because we tend to rely on msn to start a conversation with them, read their personal blog and social networks such as facebook and twitter to know how are they doing.

Even young kids now in primary school own their own personal handphones. For my case, I prefer to text my friends instead of calling them, unless the issue is important then I will call them. Now the debate is if technology is changing the nature of kids' friendships. Will social networks help us to be more connected and supportive of our friends or the quality of interaction is diminished without the intimacy and emotional give and take of regular extended face-to-face time. Although we can webcam with our friends, but do we meet up with them often?

Sometimes when we are texting, we tend to use emoticons to express our feelings. But sometimes the emoticons we use, are they really what we feel deep inside? Or are we suppressing our feelings in order not to offend the other party, even if we feel sad and angry inside, we still put a happy smile in our text?

Also these few years, schools are indulging students to buy a personal laptop for e-learning. It seems like in polytechnic, most students do own a personal laptop. A laptop is highly encouraged in schools for e-learning. Some textbooks even have their own e-textbook. Thus, they may end up relying on technology more. With children's technical obsessions starting at a young age, even kindergarten pupils will play side by side on laptops during play dates. Their brains may eventually be rewired.

For example, there is a case of a 17 year old guy, who keeps up with his friends so much on facebook that he becomes more withdrawn about face to face interactions. When that day is his friend's birthday, instead of giving her a call and wishing her happy birthday, what he does is to go and write happy birthday on her facebook profile wall.

To solve this problem, his mum encourages him to get involved in more group activities after school. Last but not least, is technology controlling us now or the other way round?