The development of technology has played a vital role in the start of the twenty-first century. It has saved many lives from all the new breakthroughs in medicine but also may be starting to ruin some early lives. By this I mean the lives of America’s youth. With the growing availability of Ipad’s, Iphone’s, tablets, etc. it is now easier than ever to get connected with online games, apps, and social media. Some may see this as just another modern fad, but I think this could be a problem. Almost every single day I see children staring at their personal devices on social media or some type of game instead of communicating with each other, playing a sport, or doing school work. Many of them posting and sharing information with people who they have never even met. The picture in Tech Addiction’s article “Helping Kids Addicted to Technology” uses the elements of color, spacing, and scaling to depict the negative impact of modern technology on the youth. 

First of all, I believe the youth’s technological addiction is causing problems socially. Children are losing the vital life skill of communicating face to face. This is something everyone must learn to do in order to build a true solid relationship with family and friends. The spacing and scaling in this photograph demonstrate this perfectly. The main focus point of this picture is a young boy on his tablet distanced from his mom on a couch in the background. I believe this spacing and scaling demonstrate the gap in their relationship. Since the young boy spends so much time on his device from addiction, he is unable to build a healthy relationship with the people who care for him the most. Another social problem from technological addiction is health. Instead of doing the activities children usually do growing up such as playing outside, a vast majority of the youth choose to just sit on their devices all day. This is causing an increase in obesity from a lack of exercise which can cause young children to have low self-esteem. Another health issue is sleep deprivation from children staying on their devices all night checking social media and other apps. One could argue the boy in the picture is sleep deprived from his messy hair and weary look on his face. 

Secondly, technology addictions are causing issues with the safety of children. Most adolescents do not realize just about everything they post online can be seen by anyone, and they tend to post things online such as addresses and personal information. This can put children in bad situations if the wrong person were to come across this information. This is another reason the mom in this picture could be upset. She knows the dangers of the internet, but her child is too addicted to listen. I believe that the white in the photograph represents the purity of the youth, and the mom is angry because she knows that technology can possibly open her child up to material that would get rid of her child’s purity and sterility. Another issue related to safety is privacy. Since most children tend to have social media account nowadays, if someone were to post something on accident chances are someone would see it before it was deleted. This post could be saved and sent around which could possibly cause embarrassment to the individual who made the post. This is a major invasion of privacy which would not occur if so many children were not addicted to technology. 

Lastly, although technology can be very useful for school work, it can be more of a distraction. Technology has definitely made it easier to procrastinate for all students. Many children find themselves on their devices for hours when they are supposed to be doing school work. This is definitely not good for young children who need to receive a solid education in order to be successful as adults. If addicted children spent as much time on their school work as their Ipad’s, I guarantee grades all over the country would significantly increase. The faint look on the woman’s face in the picture tells me that she should way rather her son be doing some other type of activity which could quite possibly be school related. Also, many elementary and middle schools now provide devices to their students. This causes distractions in the classroom because the young students now have the availability to play games without the teacher knowing which causes them to miss important information learned in class.

The photograph in Tech Addiction’s article “Helping Kids Addicted to Technology” perfectly depicts this growing problem of technology addiction among children. Those being the social problems, privacy and safety issues, or the distractions in school. Technology is not a bad  when used correctly and properly. Consistent use of social media and games, however, is not the correct way and could be a sign of addiction. The correct way would be occasionally checking one’s social media accounts, the news, your favorite sport’s teams score to the game, or maybe some research, but the key word is occasionally. Personally, I have way more fun talking to my friends in person and being outside which I believe every person should experience. Every person needs to develop a true sense of a relationship, not just a fake relationship over the phone. Technology can be a very helpful tool, parents and their children just need to make sure it is being used safely in order to prevent this growing problem of addiction amongst the youth to prevent all of the problems that come along with it. 
