Teacher Urges Families to Put Technology Down: ‘It is Ruining Our Kids’
By Movieguide® Contributor
Cassie Martinez, a kindergarten teacher and mother, is begging parents to limit technology use in the home, both for themselves and their children.
“I mean this in the nicest way possible. I really truly mean this in the nicest way possible,” she said. “If you’re a mom or a dad or someone who is responsible for children that you are raising, please put down your cell phone, take away the tablet, and talk to your children.”
“Talk to them. Interact with them. Have conversations with them,” she continued. “There’s a time for the phone, there’s a time for the iPad, I get it. Technology is killing our education.”
Martinez’s concerns come from her personal experience in the classroom.
“Technology is ruining education for us [educators]. Instead of being able to teach academics, we are having to teach basic things like saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ Why? Why are we having to teach things like ‘say please when you need something?’ I knew that when I was two,” she said.
Martinez admitted that she’s not perfect either and that this is a common problem.
“I’m not trying to come at you. I do it too. My kids have iPads,” she said. “Technology is a thing. But it is ruining our society. It is ruining our kids. Our kids don’t know how to have conversations. Our kids don’t know how to talk to each other. They don’t know how to interact with each other.”
“Put down the phone, put down the tablet, put down the iPad, turn off the TV. Talk to your families. That’s all,” she concluded.
Martinez is not the first to express concerns over the use of social media and technology.
VeryWell Family noted, “As we figure out how to have kids use screens in a practical, beneficial, and limited way, it’s important for parents to keep in mind not only the benefits kids gain from limiting screen time such as increased sleep, improved grades, decreased aggression, and lower body mass index, but also what kids lose when screen time is not limited.”
Parents who are addicted to their screens can harm their children as well. Psychology Today says, “In a large international study of six thousand eight- to thirteen-year-old children, 32 percent reported feeling ‘unimportant’ when their parents use their cellphones during meals, conversations, or other family times.”
“Distracted parental attention harms children’s social/emotional development,” the source added.
Influencer Lilly Singh warned parents about the dangers of social media. Movieguide® reported:
Lily Singh believes that social media will always be a negative environment because “arguing” drives the most amount of engagement…
“I want to preface by saying I do not have any kids. So take this with a grain of salt, but my belief coming from social media is I don’t think that landscape and climate will ever change and become what parents want it to become,” she said. “[Social Media] forces us to compare ourselves to other people, that gets us in the comments reading an argument and arguing with other people, because that’s how engagement is formed…”
“We need to give our kids, and ourselves – let’s be real, not only our kids – the best tools and mindset possible to understand what social media is, Singh said. “Things like, I meditate and journal enough to know that when someone says something to me on social media, it actually has nothing to do with me.”
