An email from a parent to me: “From a parent perspective this IM stuff is really disturbing and a bit out of control. It is hard to know how to exercise appropriate controls.”
I can so relate. Ally, my tween daughter, was IM and text message obsessed. She was texting on her sidekick3 and IMing on her laptop… sometimes she did both at the same time, to the same person. I’m not making that up. Then the “friends of friends” started to appear… and one of those friends wasn’t the 14-year-old friend’s cousin that he claimed to be and that lead to my declaration: “NO IM or texting for the next month.” At first, Ally wasn’t sure how she could survive without her lifeline to the outside world. I made a suggestion, “Talk on the phone and have a REAL conversation.” She looked at me like I just dropped in from Pluto. She insisted that NO one talks on the phone. But within a few days, a strange thing happened…the phone actually starting ringing – Ally’s friends were calling her. Fast forward 30 days: Ally wasn’t bugging me to get her texting and IM rights reinstated. Here’s her take on IM, texting and talking: “it’s so much better to talk to my friends… but I never knew what I was missing because ever since 6th grade, IM and texting are our lives.” They're tweens... they only know what they know.
We asked the tween girls on allykatzz.com to tell us if they could live withOUT IM and texting. Results were mixed. Just wait til they hear about the 13-year-old Teen Texting Champ… she won $25,000 for having the fastest texting fingers in the nation.
Posted by Denise Restauri
1 comment:
While I think the blog makes a good point, the girls also made a good point: IM is still the best (and most cost-effective) way for long-distance communication. However, that doesn't mean that parents shouldn't try to limit IM time. Too much IM = a significant decrease in one's ability to communicate via non-text means. It really takes a bite out of listening skills, too!
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