One of my delightful daughters-in-law sent a link to this article on the risks of too much media use, not by kids, but by parents!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/garden/10childtech.html?pagewanted=1
Kids want and need good attention, for heaven’s sake, and online activities do have a seductive if not addictive appeal for adults and children alike. My occasionally less than idyllic childhood, well before the Internet age, includes this unfortunate episode:
My mother had spent too much time meeting with friends and colleagues about a project she was working on. Or so it seemed to my six year old self. She had told me repeatedly to stay outside and play. I was fed up. Eventually, getting no reply to my repeated pleas, I went and got a shovel and broke the glass of the front door. I got her attention, certainly, but it was far from the best solution. Later, however, my mother acknowledged that she had stretched my patience and that I was entitled to be frustrated.
No one in my family was very adept at managing conflict in ways that did not involve raised voices and even broken furniture, so I suppose I was doing what came naturally. Thank goodness for all I learned from other parents in the program (described in Where the Heart Listens) about how to handle strong feelings. Mercifully, my chair-throwing days are long gone!!