kids and gadgets

I’m looking at all these new age parents and their rush and battle with the technology and can’t help thinking and wondering where did we as human beings fucked up. Seems like you can’t really be a parent now if you don’t own ipad, iPod, sony playwhatever, dvd player for the car and all the rest of the modern technology gadgets that gives you a false sense of buying and having more time. It amazes me what parents would do just so their kid would not cry in the public. The speed in which they take out all these gadgets and the level of the child’s upset is something I will never get used to. It’s like it’s the matter of life and death. What are we creating? In whose hands are we leaving planet earth? Seems to me that our society does slowly but surely travels to the wall-e creation. Not saying I’m not part of that reality, after all, I’m typing these exact words on my “smart” phone just so I won’t forget the criticism of modern society.
Mary and I were at this Italian place recently. There were two families having a meal at the same time as we did. Now, my guessing was that they were there to spend some quality time with their kids, while having the pleasure to enjoy some good food as well. Two families, 5 kids in total. All under age of 7. 3 of them were enjoying their food while playing on their own ipads each. The other two kids were stuffing themselves with frozen, microwave heated profiteroles. Parents? Well parents were talking to each other. How the school starts soon, how things are expensive, how society is fucked up. It was like the kids did not exist at all. They were completely invisible. No interaction, not a single question was addressed to any of those 5 kids. They were lost in their virtual world. In my eyes that did not look like a quality time spent with the family, with the kids.

So, it made me wonder, were they just buying some quiet time for themselves? I mean, they did not have to cook, kids were fed and pretty quiet and in their own world, separate world I might as well add, and they had a pretty decent chit chat with someone they probably will never meet again. I can’t help but wonder, why go through all that trouble? To bring 3 kids to a restaurant is not a simple task. Dressing them all, putting them in a car, checking if all went to the toilet, checking if they brought everything they needed. Were they just giving themselves a false impression of spending some time with their kids? Do we live in a society where quiet kids mean, by default, happy kids?