Every day I’m nearly run off the road by some driver texting with one hand on the wheel…. the other wrapped around his or her phone.  Sure, I know it is dangerous.   Sure, it makes me crazy.  But it also made me crazy the other day when I  watched the guy in front of me swaying in and out of his lane while taking his shirt off.  (Yes, I could actually see that was what he was doing — and when I drove past him — just to get away from him — I confirmed — he was, in fact, shirtless…..)  it also frustrated the heck out of me that he was weaving while reaching across the passenger seat for his food.

I see people chatting on their phones every day.  And in some states, like California, talking on the phone while driving, without a hands-free device, can get you a ticket.  But what about all of the other things people do while driving that provide distractions?  Eating, GPS, applying makeup, hassling with kids?  These are all still ‘legal’ activities….  what are you thoughts on cell phone and hands free device laws?

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Mandy Gingerich, an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Butler University has been giving her students an interesting test that’s not part of the curriculum. For the past three semesters, she’s conducted a little experiment of her own. Students in her Cognitive Processes class are divided into two groups. One group is assigned to listen to her lecture about time management. The other group is directed to text message while listening to her lecture. Both groups are warned that there will be a test after the lecture. The non-texting students averaged 84.7 percent on the quiz, while the kids who texted during the lecture averaged 59.3 percent. In terms of grades, that’s a B and an F, respectively. I’m sure it comes as no surprise that the group who listened with undivided attention achieved higher test scores. What surprised me, however, is that this teacher still isn’t sure whether texting should be allowed in class or not.

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Is your iPhone a gateway drug to neglecting your kids? Or are high-tech toys just the lastest whipping goats in the crusade against parents having their own lives?

A few weeks ago the media was all atwitter about parents blowing off their kids to play with their cell phones. Apparently, kids feel jealous and unhappy when their parents focus on cell phones or laptops instead of the kids. There was a lot of hand-wringing and some fierce criticism leveled at working moms in particular.

Annie from PhD in Parenting has a different take: parents have always had to ignore their kids some portion of every day. It’s how they can work for a living, stay sane and get any housework done.

We’re using technology to help us do everything in our lives, from grocery shopping to banking to socializing. Of course parents use technology to do things other than focusing on our kids. Continue reading »

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I’ve been fascinated with New York City for as long as I can remember.  When I was a kid, I wanted to go there before I really even knew what it was.  I remember being six years old, asking my mother when she would take me to New York.  She told me she’d take me when I was 15.  (She never did.)

Now the New York Times is reporting a story that starts with a Dad named David Poger, who promised to buy his daughter Maya a cell phone at age 15, “but last year he and his wife caved when she was 11.”

The Pew Research Center reports that “75 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds in the United States own a mobile phone, up from 45 percent in 2004.”  I’ve heard tales – as I’m sure you have, too – about 6- and 7-year-olds being given cell phones.  Why a child that age would need a cell phone, I have no idea… unless you’re planning on allowing them to circumnavigate the globe solo.  Ahem.

The Times says, “Parents generally say they buy their child a phone for safety reasons, because they want to be able to reach the child anytime…. But for children, it is all about social life and wanting to impress peers.”  Amen.  I’ve mentioned my 12-year-old niece several times because of her addiction to two things: technology and Justin Bieber.  She told me she got her first cell phone at age 10, has had “about 7″ phones in the last two-and-a-half years, and sends – in her estimation – “somewhere around 7 to 800″ texts a day.  I honestly almost believe her.  Every time I see my niece, she’s texting – obsessively.  And every time I see her, I ask her, politely but firmly, to put her phone down and talk to me.  She always does, but when I tell her I’m worried because she’s addicted to her phone, she shrugs and says, “Yeah, but all my friends are, too.”

The Times suggests that the age at which you give your child a cell phone “depends on the child’s maturity level and need for the phone,” but I’m convinced no child needs a phone.  Anyone who is old enough to have a child today is old enough to remember life before cell phones.  We got along just fine without them.  Obviously this is nostalgia taking hold, because I do remember being bored as a kid, but I also remember life being enjoyably simpler and simply more enjoyable.  And not just because I didn’t have adult responsibilities, but because – and this is especially poignant now that we’ve seen the other side – there is something blissful about being completely unavailable to anyone besides the people you are physically with. Continue reading »

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Think twice before you let your kid play with your cell phone. Feed your children organic food whenever possible and don’t heat baby bottles or other plastics in the microwave. And don’t forget to test radon levels in your home.

These are just a few suggestions from the President’s Cancer Panel, which released its annual report yesterday.

There are thousands of cancer-causing agents in the air, food, and water which are posing “grievous harm” to Americans every day, the report concluded. Not nearly enough is being done to research and regulate these chemicals.

Although large studies have found no links between cell phone use and cancer, the report said that people would be wise to play it safe by wearing headsets and to make calls quickly, according to Reuters. Continue reading »

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My 4-year-old is always on her toy cell phone, talking to her “sister,” jotting down phone numbers and making imaginary plans with imaginary friends.  Occasionally she’ll man two phones at the same time, and once she even got a text letting her know her neighbor had developed breast cancer.  The kids these days!  LULLABY!  (Laughing Uber Loud Like A Baby’s Yell.)  That being said, I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that “almost half of the top 100-selling apps in the iTunes App Store were for preschool or elementary-aged children in November 2009,” according to a piece by CNN, the headline simply reading, “Parents using smartphones to entertain bored kids.”

Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve never liked watching children play with handheld devices in public.  I was 12 when Nintendo introduced the first Gameboy back in 1989, and I remember seeing kids in restaurants as young as 5-years-old ferociously thumbing away at the controls while their parents stared off into space.  My parents and I loved going out to dinner together, talking through the whole meal.  (Or at least until the cheese-covered onion rings hit the table.) Continue reading »

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USA Today offers a heaping helping of guilt to working parents today with a story about how work at home hours conflict with family time.

Recent studies have shown that in spite of the rise of dual-income families, parents today spend more time with their kids than they did in the 1950s.

Now USA Today has rounded up a slew of experts to say that parents, especially moms, are hurting our kids by working when they’re around. Don’t worry, though, moms. You can still do housework.

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