A colleague of mine just shrugged his shoulders and asked, “what can you do?” I told him I’d think about it, because I am confused about this.

His son, age 14, heads home and plays those thumb video games or hangs out on Facebook. My daughter is in her room all the time, hanging with friends. She refuses invitations to go for a walk or to go pumpkin picking. I’d say that 80% of the time she is home, she spends it in her room… with the door closed. “Doing homework.” She does a lot of homework, but not that much.

In generations prior to the internet, it was the television that stole the teens’ attention. My parents solved this by not owning a television. The internet is interactive, but is that enough to redeem it?

I’m not so much opposed to television watching or internet networking or video game playing because I know you can actually learn useful skills from these things. What does concern me is the amount of time that teens spend inside, doing these things.

So, first of all, should anything be done about teens spending so much time indoors. If not, why not? If so, what can or should be done? Is it even realistic to forbid the use of the internet? Or video games or television?

Topics: TV, internet, children, parenting, video games, teenagers