IPad

I have been known to be down on the technology kids own today. Beezus comes home from school telling me all her friends have iPhones, iPads and iPod touches. I hope she is misunderstanding them. The idea of six to nine year olds with their own iPad makes me shudder. 

I remember my parents had a typewriter for writing until I hit middle school and email was new to me in high school (mid 1990s).  I also played outside after school and swam all summer long, rarely did I sit and watch TV.  I know this is typical when I was your age I had to walk to school in the snow!  technophobic thinking.  Or is it...

The obesity epidemic is indisputably known to be impacted by childrens' television time. Too many sedentary kids binge eating in front of technology.  Kids and adults are known to eat more in front of the TV and to eat less healthily.  Violent video games, movies and television are known to cause de-sensitization to violence in real life.  Images in magazines, music videos, advertisements, TV shows and movies lambaste our daughters with the role of what 'feminity' is by today's multi-billion dollar CEO industry standards.

In my own home I can think of more than a couple examples where movies, advertisements, video games and TV have impacted my daughters negatively.   Over the summer we did a lot of activities, but I was also a lot pregnant, so there was significantly more video game and media time in general.  My kids were exposed to Lego Harry Potter, Indiana Jones and Star Wars.  I felt safe knowing there was no blood (Legos just broke apart) and that there was a good deal of problem solving within the games.  However, you combine those video games with their movies counterparts and suddenly my kids are playing more violent pretend games, the females in their games get more and more sexy and helpless, and less, and less real.  I mean, how often, as a rather typical specimen of female, do I swoon around my house half naked and cry for some man to save me - try never.  Okay, let me stop there, because this where I get off track and start lecturing the world on feminism.

All this being stated... I love the iPad.  The iPad is awesome.  I know, I know, I should have prepared you more for my change of heart.  On the last night of Chanukah my man handed me a package, which looked a lot like a box of candy.   I love my man, I do, but often candy has nuts in it and I can only have a couple pieces of the non-nut chocolates, so I put it to the side while everyone else opened their Chanukah presents.  Well, at the end of the night my kids and my man turn to me and say, "you have not opened you present yet."  I put on my best face (the I-swear-I-will-look-grateful-and-happy-face) and start to unwrap a white box... and then I see the Apple logo and I do not need my fake happy face, because I am jumping up and down like a ridiculously happy woman.

Because... I have always wanted an iPad.  I admit it... oh the shame!  Perhaps all these years I shuddered in jealousy as nine year old tote the technology I have always wanted.  I even, ironically, have used the kids to try to sell the idea to my man in the past with logical arguements like, we travel a lot honey, don't you think an iPad would make the airplane easier!  I am always the one with the kids, you always nap!

So... how do I save face now....

Well, for starters, this iPad will be the only one and they still cannot have unsupervised Internet access.  I limit the amount of time spent on any technology.  So, I guess, like with the TV and the computer, I have house rules that keep their use in perspective and in moderation.  We might have nice technology, but I expect them to take advantage of the yard, the park, the pools, books and other real world activities.  I assume every family determines what role technology can play and regulates it... sooo maybe I have not lost face, but gained an ipad.

The iPad rocks: 

Travel:  My middle child spent two plane rides playing various apps.  Mostly a free doodle app.  She did not complain once!  There was no marker mess.  In the past we have used markers and crayons (which means I spend the whole time picking up the ones they drop), plus getting it all back in our bags to switch flights.  My man and I could watch our shows in bed at my parents house or at a hotel, after the kids fell alseep.  I could take a quick photo w/o my larger, heavier camera to record a travel moment.


Everyday use:  Email, calendar, alarm clock, journal, music, radio, TV shows, educational apps, game apps, blog, reading, shopping, grocery listing, online classes, and of course everyday photo journalism...

In short, long live the wonderful iPad!