Is the Digital Age Making Our Kids Depressed?
While many of the changes and challenges that tweens and teens face are timeless - insecurity, body changes, new and, often unpleasant, kids body odor ; others are brand new thanks to the digital developments. Our children are the first generation to grow up always having a smartphone in their lives with easy access to the Internet, social media and digital entertainment. Researcher Jean Twenge has dubbed the generation of children born between 1995 and 2012 as iGen. As parents we are facing new and unforeseen parenting challenges that most of us cannot understand. When we were kids, if someone at school was bothering us, you were most likely, able to forget about them once you were home but now with social media and text groups, school bullies can reach your child at anytime anywhere they are. If we were bored, we read a book or went outside, thought up a new game or learned an old one. We didn’t turn to a litt...