Home > Health > MOMania > Archives > 2007 > September > 23
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Google mapping the ones you love
Has technology changed the way your family communicates? Has it affected your children’s perspective of the world?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A few weeks ago the baby was playing in the basement with my husband and the kids. I came downstairs and took the baby away for her nap. My 4-year-old son came over to my husband and said, “Where’s the baby?” My husband declared, “She must be missing.” My son replied. “Well, then we’d better Google Map her.”
We, of course, cracked up at his comment, but on later reflection it crystallized for me how much my son and daughter are truly children of the 21st century. Their perceptions of the world, their understanding of life and often the way they learn are all influenced by the Internet and technology.
For many families there has been a fundamental shift in home life similar to what happened when electricity and telephones became commonplace in residences. Technology has transformed how modern families communicate, how children relate to the world and how families stay connected.
My son knows about Google Map because we use it to help the kids feel connected to their father when he travels for business. We usually Google Map his hotel in whatever city he’s visiting, often Manhattan. We look at what streets he might walk to get to work. We look at what monuments or tourist attractions he might see on his way.
Their favorite part is when we switch from the regular map to the satellite hybrid image. The hybrid is an aerial photo of the city with the streets and important buildings labeled. We can actually see the basketball courts on top of the Associated Press’s headquarters in New York City. They love thinking about their Daddy playing ball on a roof with his colleagues.
Our daily communication also has been affected by technology. Whether it’s cell phone, IM and email, we check in throughout the day. My husband knows how Rose did at school, whether Walsh got in trouble and if the baby ate her smashed up bananas long before he walks in the door.
My husband uses IMs all day long with his colleagues and has added me to his buddy list. I like the IM because he can respond immediately even if he’s on a conference call or on his cell phone. It seems a slightly odd way to communicate with your spouse, but I guess wives thought it was weird when husbands started calling them on the phone too.
He emails me, as do a lot of couples. But, lately he’s started CCing me on things — mainly his flight and hotel reservations. You would think we could just have a conversation to coordinate plans, but when we tried to review his schedule at night he would only roughly remember the dates of his trips and that just aggravated me. The CCing struck me as impersonal and business-like at first, but now I have dates, times, airlines and the locations for all his trips in an easy-to-search format.
My husband has been pushing me to share an online calendar with him as well, but I haven’t evolved that far yet. He could conveniently check it on his Treo. I could not so conveniently drag around a lap top. It’s not practical for our family - at least not yet.
Even when we’re doing something old-fashioned, the computer comes into play. A few weeks ago, my husband was reading one of his favorite childhood books to our son. He was finishing up “Scuffy the Tugboat” when our son asked, “What cartoon is this guy from?”
His understanding of the world is that there are crossovers - book characters appear on TV and on computer games.
My husband tried to explain it’s just a story. It’s not based on a cartoon. Our son thought about that answer and then said, “Well does it have a dot.com?”
