Where Does it End- Vallarie Perez

Saturday and Sunday mornings when I don't have work are typically spent having breakfast with my mother. I make a conscious effort when we do decide to have breakfast together to leave my cellphone upstairs in my room. The decision to routinely separate myself from my mobile device during this time with her has stemmed from my frustration with the fact that I can't help but notice that my family has the tendency to neglect the value of actual interactive conversation and has in turned compromised it for the consumption of social media. I am guilty of the same. It's ironic, isn't it, that social media has the power to in fact make us less social, at least in the settings that matter. Can you tell I'm annoyed? Anyway, I left my phone upstairs for breakfast as I typically do, and made sure to remind my mother that I wanted to talk to her about some things (and to leave the damn phone alone). Believe it or not, my parents are more glued to their phones than I am. I think it has something to do with the fact that they're only forty years old, thus, we're twenty years apart. Facebook is to them now what Myspace used to be to me when I was like ten. Practically a lifeline. They have Instagrams too. Anyway, I keep getting sidetracked. So, we were talking and down comes my younger brother from his room. He has his Iphone in his hand, and to my dismay, throws the phone on the counter, says, "watch this" and walks back up the stairs to his room. I was appalled. (My mother never objected to his behavior and I couldn't find the words to say anything to her either.) Immediately I thought about this class and Boyd's work on teens. Is this really what the exchange of opinion and simple parent-child interaction has come to? Does the generation behind my own really think it is acceptable to simply throw a phone or an opinion in someone's face via some sort of digital device and then walk away without presenting their own interpretations or asking questions about the way the person they presented it to reacted to it? It made me think about the way I want to raise my children, and what I hope I'll do my best to instill in them as well as prohibit them from doing.