Distracted Parenting By Deborah Fallows

Sherry Turkle’s “Stop Googling. Let’s Talk” article was published on September 26, 2015 in The New York Times. The author explains that college students spend more time on their phones than talking face-to-face. Turkle mentions that parents have realized this at the dinner table with their kids or just trying to have a conversation with them. Teenagers and young adults claim that they can multitask and understand what the person is saying while being preoccupied. Multiple studies have been done to demonstrate the influence and behaviorial changes without a device. This generation reports that they feel more personal when their phones were taken away for a certain period of time. A boy from one of the studies describes this dilemma as “It’s what texting does to our conversation when we are together that’s the problem” (Turkle par. 6). Texting has become more popular as time goes on and college students were born in a world where phones were a problem and with new features coming out, they have become more intrigued. Using rhetorical strategies such as mentioning research studies and rhetorical appeals, the author effectively explains how technology changes society.

In Susan Campbelle article, she tells her audience that today children who have access to cellphones are using it for inappropriate use. She argues that children believes that “Cellphones are the most important thing in the world” (1) She then tells us a story of a ten year old boy and how his parents deal with his addiction of cellphones usage. The article works primarily around the kids and parents that the author interviews and quotes that, “Children are using their cellphones inappropriate nowadays. I will use this essay in order to contextualize my argument about why cellphones

In the article, the authors reference the infamous AT&T BFF Jill commercial that aired in 2007, when texting and smart phones were just becoming popular. This commercial represents the idea that texting can have an influence on adolescents Standard English when talking out loud. This commercial also depicts the epidemic of texting lingo replacing Standard English that many people at the time feared. There were multiple receptions of the commercial exemplified in this article. The authors review the comments made about the commercial on not only the comment section of YouTube, but popular news channels such as

​Technological advancement is one factor that affects parent-child relationship. According to research, 46% of smartphone owners consider their smartphones as a necessity for daily living (Smith). Technology has made it possible to incorporate a lot of things in just one phone – you can use it as an alarm clock, a camera, a dictionary, and many more – making it a constant feature in day to day activities. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and other social networking sites have made communication easier, that’s a good thing. However, most college students spend their time interacting with their friends online and that causes them to spend less time bonding with their parents. Likewise, the parents distance themselves from their children when they use technology as a means to bring more work at home. Even if technology

Before, people used to leave their homes to communicate with friends through places such as the bar, café, or even going for a walk. Now, technology has made communication so much easier. With applications such as Skype, Facebook and iMessage, we are able to instantly message our friends without spending money, time or energy to commute. Overall, messaging applications have made communication easier, quicker, cheaper and more efficient – all four are demands of which most humans look for when performing tasks. However, there are times when technology usage is more than we should take. Television for example can easily prevent a family from communicating. With 24 hours of nonstop broadcasting news and entertainment, some families can sit through these programs for hours without saying a single word to each other. According to a survey conducted by the Mirror, the average parent spends only 34 minutes with their children a day (Maughan, 2015). Over 2,000 parents surveyed had admitted to being too tired or busy to spend time with their children. With 24 hours in a day, if the average human spends 8 hours a day sleeping (Bjarki, 2015), 7-12 hours a day working or going to school (Ferro, 2015), and 8.4 hours on media devices (Chang, 2015), communication among friends, family members and the outside world in general is expected to be at its concerning lowest. According to research by the telegraph, 65.8% of children under 10 years old own smartphones

In the summer of 2013, The Atlantic, a highly regarded editorial magazine, published “Papa, Don’t Text: The Perils of Distracted Parenting.” This editorial, written by Deborah Fallows, a Harvard educated linguist, examined the possible negative effects of cell phone usage among adults when around children. By the merits of her own knowledge and that of the referenced studies, emotional appeal and logical consistency, the editorial effectively shows that too much phone time and not enough conversation is potentially threatening to a child’s language learning.

In the article “Hold The Phone”, written by Kristi York and Liz Hasting, the two authors debate the use of phones and other electronic devices during their children’s extracurricular activities (i.e. gymnastics, ballet, swimming lessons). Both of the writers have a firm standpoint on either side of the argument, with York being against, and Hasting being for the use of phones in the situations described. They direct their disputation towards a parent-based audience, especially at the parents who transport and are involved in their children’s activities. The purpose the authors are trying to portray in the piece is their personal opinions topic with the use of their individual writing tone or voice. York about the topic with the use of their

I am a firm believer in the idea that everything we learn, see, touch and experience can have a lasting effect on us. For my controversy paper I will be discussing how infants develop their language or communication skills from the way their parents talk to them. While talking to a baby who may not be able to talk yet or does not even seem to be responding to you may seem silly. But it actually has a lasting effect on their language development. Even from when they are so small something as simple as talking to them can make a difference in their lives. Parents need to talk to babies as soon as possible because it can make such a difference in their development. I strongly believe and my view is for the more interaction with infants. They need it to grow and develop into the best possible version of yourself. All though infants are usually known for not speaking, they do participate in communication in their own way. They do this hearing, gazing, babbling, looking and smiling through their auditory and visual senses.A newborn infant primary way of communication is by the turn of it head when hearing sounds. The voice of the child’s mother that they remember from the womb or the caregiver would get the most responsive communicational feedback.Which is why it is essential for parents to take time to communicate with their children even if their babies. This controversy is basically how the more parents speak to their infants it seems to correlate with how much vocabulary

Surely, we can’t deny how technology helps us contact each other, but there is one idea that they overlooks, which is the addiction that people have on the cell phone. Whenever people congregate, the action they do is stare on the phones. Audrey, sixteen, a Roosevelt junior, describes how her relationship with her mother breaks up as her mother spent all her time on the phone every time they were together. “It could have been four days since I last spoke to her, then I sit in the car and wait silently until she’s done,” said Audrey (377). In other words, Audrey is trying to express her feeling that how the cell phone has estranged her and her mother. From these, we can tell that how technology has been a “drug” that keeps us from interacting with each

Kristen Isgro highlights the challenges that the mothers and caregivers go through on a daily basis. Three groups of women, ages ranging from 33 to 66 and all having a child with Down syndrome, discussing the issues such as how they advocate for their children. They also discuss what they have learned from experience dealing with health care providers and educators, and deal with how their children are viewed in different settings.

When thinking about a drug, most people think to substances like heroin and cannabis; however, there is new substance that has been sweeping nations. A drug is a substance that has a phycological effect when introduced to the body. Though people don’t think of social media as a drug, it has the same addictive side effects. Upon reading article “Addicted to Distraction” by Tony Schwartz, which talks about the addiction society has to social media and its effects, I realized what a drug social media is. This generation has experienced technology like never before, and it has led to advantages and disadvantages. Although social media can be fun, there is a developing addiction that has causes, effects, and solutions.

Distracted parenting is the newest hazard caused by the normalization of cell phone usage in our everyday life according to Deborah Fallows in her article “Papa, Don’t Text: The Perils of Distracted Parenting” originally published in The Atlantic. The article directed at parents in the technological age. She claims that parents are spending more time focusing on their phones and less time talking with their babies. This situation can potentially cause long-term problems for their children’s linguistic skills. Fallows herself has a Ph.D. in linguistics from Harvard. In her article, she also includes research from two other reputable sources to further validate her claim. Fallows delivers her argument in a short article with appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos, but her article lacks any real opinions put forth by the author, which weakens the impact of the piece.

Study’s made by AVG shows that fifty four percent of children think their parents check their smartphones too often and thirty two percent of children ‘feel unimportant’ when their parents are on their smartphones. The constant use of the smartphone is a bad model of parenting, but it does not mean that parents have to stop using smartphones because parents can give hundred percent attention to their children without giving hundred percent of their time. In fact, it is healthy for children and they will not see the smartphone as more important than

Not all people raise children the same way. Each parent has his or her own method of preparing a child for the world. In the article “What Makes a Good Parent,” author Robert Epstein lays out ten criteria for “good” parents. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Walls’s parents display techniques that initially seem detrimental to her life. However, throughout the memoir, Walls’s mother and father demonstrate Epstein’s good parenting qualities by promoting self-sufficiency and providing educational opportunities in unique ways.

The study solidified the theory that social interaction is key to a toddler developing his language. This study proved that children with mothers who talk and text frequently, or disengage from their children, are less likely to learn the new words. This disengagement distracts the toddler and thus interrupts the important cognitive processes occurring in the brain to map the new words. This study was effective because of the intention and concern in its design. The researchers did an amazing job explaining the material and taking great pains to control as many