Alert: Social Media Impairs Your Hearing

Danger! Social Media will make you hearing impaired. Parents, you will no longer be able to register the words “Mom, Mom, Mom!” or “Dad, Dad, Dad!” in your hearing range.

Before I explain how, let me ask you a question. Does your family feel in competition with your other friends Jon Blackberry, Sally IPhone, Mac IPad and Dr. Droid? Mine does. I started Social Media Club Virginia Beach,a small social media company and do non profit social media for free. My husband is going for an online MBA through UMass Amherst. There are five screens going at the same time in one room (TV, two laptops, and two Blackberries. ) It doesn’t matter how much non-laptop time my son does get, the damage is done. My 9 year old is now having serious feelings of jealousy and competition. He says he wants his old mom and dad back.

We’re at Red Alert. I’m past doing little things to balance tech and family time. This is why I am reducing my Black Dog Social Media hours this summer. For the family. What a wake up call. I am not rich at all, and I hate to give up business leads that I worked hard to get. But its money now or LOTS of therapy later.

I just read an article in the New York Times “The Risks of Parenting While Plugged In”. A mom wont look up from her Blackberry so her 2 year old bit her! Ok, my son never bit me but his words are just as painful, and I don’t blame him.  The post says that parents’ use of technology — and its effect on their offspring — is now becoming an equal source of concern to some child-development researchers.

Just think of the things I will improve upon this summer by dedicating my time to family.

More sincere face to face conversations.

More trust.

More Monopoly (the City version rocks!) on rainy days.

More  swimming, bike rides, cookouts, books, art projects: just like my childhood, the way it should be. I’ll still blog and keep a client or two. But I wont do it when my son is around. (He’s at Water Country with my husband as I write this!) I will fit the time in when he is at a friends or asleep.

What do you do to keep balance in your technology & family life? Be honest, people. Fess up your issues and lets figure this out together.