By The Way...

Friday, December 8, 2006
7:22:00 PM EST
Hearing Nothing at the moment.
I find this very sad, and yet at least moderately amusing:

"As hand-held email devices proliferate, they are having an unexpected impact on family dynamics: Parents and their children are swapping roles. Like a bunch of teenagers, some parents are routinely lying to their kids, sneaking around the house to covertly check their emails and disobeying house rules established to minimize compulsive typing. The refusal of parents to follow a few simple rules is pushing some children to the brink. They are fearful that parents will be distracted by emails while driving, concerned about Mom and Dad's shortening attention spans and exasperated by their parents' obsession with their gadgets. Bob Ledbetter III, a third-grader in Rome, Ga., says he tries to tell his father to put the BlackBerry down, but can't even get his attention. 'Sometimes I think he's deaf,' says the 9-year-old."

This is one reason I don't own one of these things. I get it enough from Athena just working on the computer. "You're always working," she'll tell me from time to time. However, as she uses this line just after I've played several games with her, it's slightly less guilt-inducing than it might otherwise be. All the same, it's best not to give myself any more distractions. She's not going to be young forever. And no e-mail is that important.


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This entry has 2 comments: (Add your own)

• #2 Comment from monponsett 
  12/9/06 10:52 AM | Permalink

  I plan to text-message nag Gabrielle when she's old enough for her own email. My ultimate goal is to make "OE" into a common Internet acronym for "or else."
• #1 Comment from psychfun 
  12/9/06 9:53 AM | Permalink

  Yep, I see this so much especially with fathers! And little kids want to be with their dads...they never really get to see them very much & then they come home & just bring "the work" home!