Literature Review
Electronics can be a blessing and also a bourdon in the
hands of the youth. Instead of playing with friends outdoors kids are choosing
to play video games inside. Today’s youth is much different than what used to
be playing outside with your friends. What ever happened to playing baseball,
two hand touch football; wiffle ball, riding bikes, and roller blading? You
could always find something to do outside in the nice weather. If it so happen
to be raining kids would put on a rain jacket, boots and go puddle jumping. As
for the snow I think everyone can agree that snow ball fights were a must,
along with building Ole Frosty. When there was work to be done around the house
the boys would get the yard back to shape and the girls would sweep and vacuum
the house. It wasn’t always bad, you could learn a lot and find a way to have
fun doing the chores.
What ever happen to the old way of having fun, the days
where there was always something to do? The main objective of this paper is not
to tell you to work your kids to death or to shove them outside until the start
to play, but to better understand why kids and young adults don’t want to go
outside and play. This creates problems such as lower grades, laziness, and
obesity. Sources for this topic came primarily from online data bases such as
EbscoHost, Google Scholar, and JSTOR. There were also personal interviews done
as well. Sources tend to fall out along certain lines, which are basically addiction, health, and social skills.
Many
of the sources I have are about addictions in one way or another. It can be addiction to video
games for instance. In one source Stuart JH Biddle’s “Physical Activity and
Sedentary Behaviors in Youth: Issues and Controversies,” explains the exact
reason why I am writing this paper. It gives great examples of “couch-kids”,
and not only relating them to video games but computer games and television, it
states that too much of the youth population is sedentary and doesn’t go
outside to play. This also is the same population that happens to be obese
among children. There must be some solution for this problem whether it is the
parents or the drive of the child. Eating habits can also play a huge role in
this problem. This information was published in the Perspectives in Public Health website in 2004. I looked up the
definition of addiction
to get a better idea on it. The definition I found came from the article “Addiction.”
This website gave me several definitions of addiction that I will be able to
incorporate into my paper. Some definitions consist of World English
Dictionary, World Origin and History, The Medical Dictionary and the Science
Dictionary. When talking about addiction
people have different views than what experience can tell you. Linda Richter in
“Effectively Addressing Addiction Requires Changing the Language of Addiction,”
gives some great information about changing the stereotype about addiction.
What society thinks addiction is and what addiction really is are two different
definitions. Once you can understand the true meaning and how someone is
addicted to anything you can understand how to help or where to get help. We
need to make people aware that addiction is a disease and is not a quick fix. I
have personal experience with addiction and will use this and my own to help me
back up key points in my paper. Journal
of Public Health Policy published this information in 2014 which makes it
up to date and valuable.I found this online at Dictionary.com published in 2014. When talking about cell phone addiction, some bring it to
the limit of relying on it for relationships. Michelle Drouin and Carley
Landgraff in “Texting, Sexting, and Attachment in College Students’ Romantic
Relationships,” explain the addiction teenagers and college student rely on
their smart phones for their romantic relationships. Texting for communication
purposes and sexting for sending pictures over the phone is a huge problem I
think. They choose this method instead of seeing someone in person because it
is faster and easier. Some people would agree that this kind of relationship is
meaningless to have and others would argue the opposite. This information was
pulled from Ebsco Host database and was published in 2012. In the article
written by Min Kwon, “The Smart Phone Addiction Scale: Development and
Validation of a Short Version of Adolescents,” I learned that the youth has a
huge problem with cellular addiction
mainly when it comes to smart phones. Everything you want is at the press of a
button, or slide of your finger. Smart phones are in every pocket in the United States
A
couple sources are on health, I found information on health amongst the youth generation. I read some
great information about this from Douglas Gentile’s “Pathological Video-Game
Use Among Youth Ages 8-18 A National Study.” This article helped me to realize
that people have problems with getting addicted to video games. The article
talked about ages 8-18 and did a survey to find out information. Pathological
gamers spent twice as much time playing as non-pathological gamers and received
poorer grades in school. This helps to back up my thesis statement that kids
should spend more time outside rather than inside. It also gives me a better
look at why kids aren’t outside more playing sports. In 2009 Physiological Science wrote about this
topic. In another perspective there are other ways to stay healthy. From “Capital District
YMCA,” I looked up the YMCA to find out what activities you can do as a kid.
The YMCA now offers a summer camp for your kid to attend to. This can help with
lazy kids who do nothing but play video games. Your child will have the chance
to make friends and to be active. There are other opportunities to do this
through the YMCA you just need the incentive to sign up. I found this from the Cdymca.org
website published in 2014. There are health risks to internet gaming as well as opportunities explained
by Shu-Sha Angie Guan in “Youth Internet Use: Risks and Opportunities.” Risks
and opportunities are present when young people search the internet. Bullying,
addiction, and solicitation are risks that one might face and need to be
protected from. This article states, “We need more research to understand which
youth may be most susceptible and to develop targeted interventions to protect
them”. The Internet also has many positive aspects and can be used to enhance
youth learning. There are spelling games and grammar games I’m sure we have all
played as kids. The only thing is that the internet at home must be better
monitored. This backs up my statement and helps to lead my paper more to my
side than the opposing side. Current
Opinion in Psychiatry published this in 2009. Some valuable health information was pulled
from “4 Signs You’re Addicted to Your Cell Phone,” written by Markham Heid. This
gave me four signs to tell if someone is addicted to their cell phones.
Anticipation or thinking about calls and message you may receive is one sign
you may be addicted. Activity interface is another sign, or choosing to spend
time on your cellular device rather than your friends or family. If you get
angry when someone interrupts your phone time or you aren’t getting enough
phone time you may have emotional attraction to your phone. Problem recognition
is the first step in fixing the problem many have. You must know you have a
problem to fix the problem. With this information I will incorporate these
signs into strong points with solid examples. Published in 2013 by Menshealth.com this information is up to
date.
Sources
on social skills
comprised a small portion of the literature. I talked to Kimberly Hummel, a 20
year old college student transferring to Washington State
University Troy E. Beckert did a
study and wrote about it in “Perception of Texting: A Comparison of Female High
School and College Students.” In a recent study females deemed it more
appropriate to send text messages in relationships rather than to talk on the
phone. This is how young adult females choose to have relationships with males
in today’s world. If smart phones were obsolete then relationships would most
likely last longer or be more involved. This information helps me prove a point
that we should be more interactive and not rely on social media to have
relationships with human beings. This was published recently in 2013 by North American Journal of psychology.
Some people are teaching their kids early on about how important social skills are.
Kelly Wallace wrote about a wood maker in “How to Cut Your Kids’ Cell Phone
Addiction” about how he went about his kids social skills and cell phone
addictions. I really like what this writing had to offer. Not only did it
address that there is a problem with cell phone addiction but also suggested a
solution. One wood maker made a ‘Be Present’ box. To where people would put
their phones in and shut the top and be present with others around them.
Another suggestion was that when eating out people should put their phones in
the middle of the table and the first person to touch their phone would pick up
the tab. I think this is a great idea and might try this with some friends. I
can also use this as a strong example in my paper to relate to people. This
article was published in 2013 by CNN
Living.
