The Instant Gratification Generation

Remember the days where you would have to do a report and would be relegated to the library for research.  It may have involved something called Microfiche  and hoping you would not tangle the film while reading a journal from Mother Earth News circa 1980.  We were lucky enough to have our own set of Encyclopedias at our house.  I remember the song that helped me remember to spell that word, but today's children are much more familiar with the less accurate Wikipedia than World Book.  How about yellow pages or even the good old phone book from when people actually all had home phones.  Hand written notes to friends with smiley face letter i''s?
 
It is so different today.  In fact I see a change between my five year old and two year old.  Yes, she has a more demanding personality, but her life has been full of instant gratification.  Being a stay at home mom allows my children the leisure of at least one lazy morning of television a week.  We do a lot of running around otherwise,but try to have a lazy morning once a week.  For Cole this consisted of whatever was on, but for Cecily we now have DVR.  She basically is under the impression that if she just picks out a show and yells out the name that I can deliver.  Often times I can, but when she suddenly selects a new favorite out of left field, I do not have that on the DVR and she becomes an enraged beast asking for it over and over. Technology in this case has created a little monster.  Same goes for other things in life, like when the children have a question we just look it up on the computer or even now on our phones and they have an instant answer.  However, not all questions can be answered by the computer. For instance when Cole wanted to know who God's father was last year, he thought it should be as simple as looking that up. Some mysteries can not be answered through the world wide web.

My children will grow up as a generation who has the world at their fingertips.  With DVR, I Phones, phones that have cameras and video so each moment can be captured, and complex gaming systems. I myself am afraid of this and long for the time where we just headed out on our bikes to the park and came home when our tummies grumbled.