Too Much Facebook, Too Little Face Time for Teens

It’s ironic that I work on the Web yet worry that my teen spends too much time interacting with his friends on Facebook and not enough actual face time with them.

If you’re from a generation that grew up without the Web, you’ll remember times spent actually watching the faces of friends while you talked to them.

On second thoughts, scratch that. Now I remember that I also spent hours after school (when I’d seen my best friend all day) hogging my family's one phone line while I rehashed the events of the day with her, blow by blow, until one of our parents yelled at us to get off the line. My parents couldn’t understand my obsession with the phone as they themselves never had the opportunity to use it that way as kids. I enjoyed hearing my friend’s laugh or sharing our joint disgust of someone else’s dastardly deed—say, flirting with a friend’s boyfriend—imagined or not.

The problem with the Internet and some new technologies is that they don’t really allow for intonation, like sarcasm, for instance. On Thursday, National Public Radio reported that a mommy blogger found the police on her doorstep after she wrote asking the question: "If I smother my 3 year old, who will NOT GO TO . . . SLEEP, is it REALLY a crime?" The blogger, it turns out was being sarcastic, but her readers were worried.

A few years ago, one of my friends who had a middle-school aged daughter confided to me that text messaging could be very hurtful. She happened to be close by when her daughter received a text message that was clearly crafted to cause her child pain and alienation. The message, it turns out, was sent by a group of girls, whom I pictured—in my mind’s eye, of course—giggling as they sent it. My friend and I commiserated about how things had changed. (Although to be honest, I do remember “bad-talking” people on the phone, myself.

Of course, no technology is intrinsically good or bad. The Internet has afforded distance learning to those in far-flung locations or who can’t physically be in school due to illness. Like everything else, technology’s impact depends on how you use it, but it does appear that communicating on the Net—as it stands right now—is ripe for misinterpretation.

Speaking of using the latest technology for good or evil: What do you think about the Department of Defense’s latest plan to create a virtual mom or dad who would carry on conversations with the children of deployed service women or men? A Wired.com blogger says the DOD is asking for proposals from businesses for a computer program that would replicate the voices of troops serving abroad, during phone conversations and video conferences with their families. The program—designed to ease the loneliness of the children of deployed troops—would be able to play pre-recorded messages of their parents to them when prompted by phrases like "I love you" or "I miss you mommy/daddy."

I question whether the comfort provided by a real life mom or dad can be outsourced to a computer. George Orwell’s 1984 might have finally arrived in a new form: Big Brother isn’t just watching, but Big Momma is comforting your kids. (Then again, maybe I’m just afraid my job as a parent is being threatened.) Incidentally, I do realize I’m writing all this on the Web. So I hope I’m not misinterpreted. My expression right now? Worried . . .