So close, yet so far away




Mary Henkel Judson

Mary Henkel Judson

For today’s teens, smart phones are the new “keys” to freedom to hang out with your buds, so getting a driver’s license is no longer such a rite of passage. Kids don’t need wheels to “hang out” away from the watchful eyes of their parents if they have a smart phone – and most of them do.

The upside to that, according to a story in the San Antonio Express News this week, is that traffic fatalities among 16-18-year-old drivers has decreased.

But on the downside, have you ever met someone you know online (either via email or Facebook) and discovered that in person they are totally different from their “cyber personality?”

Acquaintances who appear online to be strong-willed, Type A personalities have turned out to be shrinking violets in person. What a surprise!

It’s a little like anonymous letters to the editor. You can say anything if you don’t have to be held accountable. Online, anyone can be someone they’re not if they don’ have to come face-to-face with the object of their fear, affection, disdain – pick your emotion. That glowing screen provides a sort of shield between who you’d like to be and who you really are.

What’s the reality?

The drop in teen traffic fatalities is the upside of cyber connectivity, but the social skills these kids won’t develop, or will be slow to develop, is a serious downside.

There has to be a balance.

Cyber dependence is not limited to teens. Adults seek refuge, security or posterity – I’m not sure what drives the addiction, but I’ve seen it – from cyber connections.

Not long ago I watched as a gentleman at a party clung to his iPhone, consulting it regularly while also conversing with others at the gathering. He was not having a family or business emergency. He was keeping tabs on a sports team with a colleague.

Pu-leeeze!

Put. The. Phone. Down.

Or don’t go to the party.

The convenience and speed of the Internet has so many positives, yet so many negatives. I sure don’t look forward to a world where all shopping is done online and “brick and mortar” shops where you touch, feel, smell or taste products and converse with a sales person are a thing of the past.

I don’t look forward to the day when our family Christmas gathering is conducted online, or when kids hunt Easter eggs using a monitor and a mouse.

I miss seeing kids hanging out in front yards chasing fireflies, playing freeze-tag, riding bicycles or playing hop-scotch in driveways.

No. These days they’re inside glued to a glowing screen, sitting on a couch or in a comfy chair.

They’re talking to their “friends” who are next door or down the street, in the next neighborhood, town, state or country. They seldom, if ever, have eye contact. They rarely, if ever, hear each other’s voices.

They’re growing up together. Separately.

I’m sure glad I spent my childhood on the streets of my neighborhood, in my friends’ homes, knowing their parents and siblings. And all these years later we have a strong connection, even though now we probably “see” each other via cyberspace more often than in person.

The difference is that those bonds were formed face-to-face. That’s why they’re strong. The Internet makes it easier to maintain our relationships. But the Internet cannot replace how those bonds were formed, eye-to-eye, face-to-face.

Those are the bonds that last.

Or maybe I’m just old-fashioned.

Nah!

You can’t give a noogie to your best friend’s little brother online.

Mary Henkel Judson is editor and co-publisher of the South Jetty. Contact her at southjetty@centurytel.net, (361) 749-5131 or P.O. Box 1117, Port Aransas, TX 78373.


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