http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7276939.stm
Title of Article: Was Childhood ever Innocent?
Author: Tom Geoghegan
Publisher: BBC News Magazine
Date: 5 March 2008
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Is it not common to see teenagers, or even children, these days walking on the paths of Orchard Road with a mobile phone in their hands? Or perhaps, teens blasting music from their newest iPods into their ears as they doze off on the trains? Maybe a good ten years ago, all these would not exist, and in their place, would be teenagers clad in simple clothes and armed with no mobile phone, but just a nice book, or maybe a Rubik’s cube.
Only adults carried mobile phones, or maybe only the business class owned them. It was not a necessity back then, when payphones were largely used by the young. As we look into this situation today, we realize that majority of teenagers own mobile phones. It has become part of their everyday lives – to swipe out that phone to send a message to their friends, or call a girl friend to gossip about everything. Something that used to be for work has been integrated into everyday life.
To see that even children have their own mobile phones would irk certain adults, I believe. These days, we can see kids as young as 7, carrying their own phone and playing away. I was a spoilt child myself. I received my first mobile phone when I was in Primary 3, and at that time I was proud of it. In retrospect, I did not have a need for a phone at that age – the payphones in school were perfectly useful! Yet nowadays, even the parents are willing to spend that much for their young children. We can even notice that younger and younger people own a mobile phone.
To say that only the material wants of children, or teenagers for that matter, have evolved over the years would be a grave mistake. I do think that the above article is very accurate in saying that the disciplinary actions taken on misbehaving children have changed, and so have the conditions they are in. Children back then did not have much influence from the media. Their lives were restricted, and revolved around simple games and toys. With the introduction of televisions, radios and most significantly, the Internet – children nowadays are exposed to much more things.
People say that the media is all about sex because sex sells, and I agree to that. With the increasing number of advertisements that contain suggestive sexual innuendos and whatnot, our young are getting exposed to this much earlier than the young years ago. Perhaps this young exposure is what brings about the influx of pre-marital sex and teenage parents.
I believe that the media is the key factor to the increment of our young being badly influenced or “growing up too fast”. After all, the curiosity of the young is a fire raging madly. Their quest to obtain knowledge on certain things would make them do things they should not do at their age.
That is why Mother always says not to watch too much TV.
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