Seventy-seven percent of middle-age Americans (35-54 years old) say they want to return to a time before society was “plugged in,” meaning a time before there was widespread internet and cell phone usage. As told by a new Harris Poll (via Fast Company), 63% of younger folks (18-34 years old) were also keen on returning to a pre-plugged-in world, despite that being a world they largely never had a chance to occupy.
I agree with your assessment. I have a lot to say about this, and I’m glad to have found this article, as I’ve been having some serious inner turmoil about this lately, and this makes me feel a bit like I’m not totally alone or crazy. (But also I can’t find a link to the original survey, which makes it hard to trust, as I can’t find any description of the methodology or the exact wording of the questions)
I’m an older Millenial (sometimes consider Gen X, depending on the terminology used) with young kids. It’s true that I would rather have them brought up 30 years ago than today. Sometimes when I see posts about parents letting their young kids (like let’s say 10) have their own smartphone and then complain about, people get snarky like “You’re the parent. If you don’t like it, just take their smartphone away.”
But it is a tightrope to walk. I don’t want them expose them something like Instagram, which gives them eating disorders, depression, anxiety, chips away at their sense of privacy, etc. But I also don’t want them to be “the weird kid” who can’t relate to any of their peers. When I was growing up, I remember "the weird kid"s who weren’t allowed to watch TV, weren’t to play video games, etc. I can recognize that in many ways they probably benefited from not sitting in front of the TV for hours each day, but I can also recognize they probably didn’t benefit from not being able to talk to any of the rest of us about the latest episode of Fresh Prince. I do see it as a balancing act between teaching them that there’s a lot about their generation that sucks, but also letting them experience enough of it to see for themselves, and relate to the other kids around them.