Toddlers & Technology

Reilly Moore
Sep 3, 2018 · 2 min read

Upon attempting to visualize my childhood home, one monstrous, seemingly prehistoric chunk of metal sticks out quite vividly: our desktop computer. It sat next to our stack of phone books, our landline phone, and our vast family C.D. collection. Despite our computer’s large presence in our kitchen, I did not experience much fascination with technology until my discovery of Club Penguin, an interactive fantasy kingdom involving talking penguins, their pet puffles, and customizable igloos. At school, this site was all my fellow second grade peers would giggle about. This marked my first conscious experience of the intertwining of the Internet and reality. Since then, most conversations throughout elementary and middle school seemed to revolve around a new hilarious YouTube snippet or the latest online game. However, communication escalated with the creation of Instagram after my completion of seventh grade. This media platform heightened body image issues, social anxieties, and an addiction to instant validation by likers and commenters. In eighth grade, my eyes were constantly glued to my phone as I checked what my friends were up to through their online posts. Then, Snapchat emerged as a major multimedia hub. While it offers the ability to privately chat with friends, people can easily feel left out and ostracized. Social media has the ability to strengthen connections between friends, and prolong friendships across the world. I am still very close with my best friend from elementary, who lives across the country from me. There are negative things about social media and the Internet, but the positives should not be forgotten. The Internet has greatly impacted every person’s life, but especially those who have not known a world without it.