Rob: Let's just go to the three different kinds of generation before we get into how it affects the different ones.
M.S.: Ok.
Rob: What's the second one?
M.S.: Just divide by age. The second generation includes individuals who are essentially twenties to thirties where iTech was always a part of their lives but they still had exposure to play and social interaction that wasn't totally overridden by iTech. And then the youngest generation ,which I call, essentially, iBabies, where iPads etc. are introduced in the cradle. They know no other, and in terms of the way they interact with parents and peers and the world in general are entirely different and the two younger generations, there are developmental issues; for the older generations, social issues.
Rob: Ok, so let's talk about the development issues first.
M.S.: Ok, well one of the first issues is in terms of attachment. If children are given iDevices from a very young age, they literally attach to objects as opposed to their caregivers. Now we understand why parents are doing this-- it's the absolute ideal babysitter-- and parents ,they tend to be very fatigued, overworked. It's just the tool that they're using. But the catch is that the child is not attaching to the parent. We were already seeing this a little bit before with a peer attachment as opposed to elder attachment, and now it's object attachment. There are a couple of studies that really...
Rob: Wait I don't understand that, peer attachment versus elder attachment. What's that?
M.S.: Meaning the children look for their social cues and how to behave fromm I'm going to quote Neufeld and Mate herem from equally immature peers as opposed to looking to elders for models of behavior that look to each other. Now arguably, that's the phase of adolescence for everyone but there is a set up for it, meaning when adolescents push boundaries, they know exactly the boundaries that they're pushing according to those that have been set by their elders in the community. So that's teachers, parents, police, what have you. And when it's purely peer orientation, I kind of joke, it's the blind leading the blind. They're only seeking approval of their peers to the point where the approval of parents don't matter, consequences of parents don't matter and all you have to do is talk with parents, they just don't have the authority over the children that previous generations did and that's because of peer orientation. Their perspective is not valued.
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