Smart Phones Research Paper

880 Words4 Pages

How Smartphones are Changing Our Parental Instincts
“Ping, ping, ping,” have you ever counted how many “pings” you hear, in one day, from your smartphone? Nowadays parents are more distracted by “pings” than ever. Working parents are constantly checking emails and taking phone calls, while stay-at-home parents are struggling to multitask and yet still feel connected to the outside world. This distraction comes in the form of a rectangular screen that magically connects us to anything and everything from work colleagues to a pot roast recipe, but this rectangular screen has taken its toll on our children. Parenting has taken a backseat in many households as children watch their role model’s glued to their smartphones. Out of control, disrespectful, …show more content…

Dictionary.com defines role model as, “a person looked to by others as an example to be imitated” (dictionary). The reality is with moms and dads glued to their phones children are growing up without an imagination. "Children need to be bored sometimes because boredom is their imagination calling them to turn inside," says Sherry Turkle, PhD (Novotney 52). She continues on to say, "If they see a parent always going to their phone in moments of boredom or solitude, there's no model, so they think when they have a moment of boredom, they should go to the phone" (Novotney 52). Use of a smartphone can help teach someone to multitask, but from imagination stems creativity and innovation. As parents spend more and more free time on their smartphones, playing games or looking at Pinterest, children are learning them too, never have to be bored. Imagination is being halted at a young age and according to, A.C. Samli, writer of, From Imagination to Innovation, “Without imagination, creativity leads to incremental innovation. With imagination, the innovation can be radical such as the electric motor, the telephone, the vaccine, the iron boat, the H-bomb, and the like” (30). Will future generations lack inventors and engineers? Only time will tell, but if children continue to watch their role models grab for their phone at every free moment, …show more content…

As parents spend more and more time connected to their smartphones, children are suffering the effects and either missing out on developing vital life skills or developing traits that will hold them back socially in life. Maybe next time you hear a “ping,” see if you can wait ten minutes to look at your phone. If the urge to find out the cause of the “ping” is literally killing you then question if your smartphone has taken over your

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