Media+In+My+Childhood

= Media In My Childhood = In Sonia Livingstone's “Young People and New Media,” Livingstone (2002) stated, “In many countries children no longer walk to school or play in the streets as freely as they used to..., they are simultaneously becoming global citizens, increasingly in touch with other places and people in the world” (p. 16). Growing up as part of a media and technology user, I think there are both advantages and disadvantages. The media and the technology helped us gain information and knowledge of the world we are living in but at the same time disconnected us from the social world of face to face communication. However, the media and technology also helped build my childhood memories of reading Harry Potter and seeing it on the big screen. In today's society, most children no longer play outside with other kids like they used to. They are surrounded with computers, television, video games, and even cell phones. With these media technologies, they could play online games, connect with other people from around the world, watch cartoons, and text message to the kid from next door. They no longer need to socially interact with one another because media technologies enable them to do this in the comfort of their homes. Parents may even think this is a benefit for their kids because they could keep an eye on them but they don't really know what their kids are doing on the Internet. When I was growing up, I didn't have a chance to go online until I was in high school and that was when I first got my own desktop computer at home. I remembered how I would spent most of my time watching television as soon as I got home from elementary school. When I got home from school, I would turn on the television and watch any shows while I ate my snacks. It really didn't matter what show it was on as long as there were something to watch. My parents didn't really care because they both had to work and so me and my brother were pretty much on our own. This means we did what we wanted until my parents come home late at night. I remembered when Harry Potter was first published. After I borrowed the book from the free library, I would go straight home from school and started reading Harry Potter until I finished the book. At first, I didn't know anything about this book until my best friend recommended it to me after she read it. After we finished the first book of Harry Potter, we both waited patiently for the second one to come out because we were really looking forward to it. After that, we knew the Harry Potter movie was coming out and I asked my best friend, “Do you want to see the Harry Potter movie together at the theater?” Then she said, “but we never went to the theater before so how do we get there?” Then I said, “let's take the bus there together.” Since me and my best friend hang out a lot together, we decided to take the bus to see the Harry Potter movie at the theater. That was when I was old enough to take the bus to the movie theater with my best friend. We were only twelve or thirteen years old at the time and we managed to find the bus route to the movie theater. We were so thrilled to see how big the screen was for the first time in the theater. Seeing the movie at the theater was fascinating because it was a totally different experience for me compared to watching Blockbuster movies at home. When I was growing up, I loved reading books particularly children's novels with some love stories. I spent most of my time after school in the free library to borrow books to read until the beginning of high school. Not too long after starting high school that I spent most of my time on the Internet and chatting with friends and meeting other strangers online. Sometimes later in the high school years when the blogs from different websites got popular and many people were obsessed with it. After one or two years, a few a my friends started adding me to facebook and that is how it got to be today's facebook networking site. With video games, I pretty much grew up with it since my cousin own some Nintendo games and I was always at their house playing during elementary school. Then Playstations came out along with Gameboys and now the NDS and the Wii. When I first got my own Gameboy, I was obsessed with it to the point I played with it everyday after school until I realized my visions became blurry and that is when I started wearing glasses. After that, I stopped playing games for awhile because I was afraid I would get poor vision. So that was the consequence of playing too many video games. After all, it is crucial to know what is important and how to make good use of media and technology. Also, know the advantages and disadvantages of media technologies so the media wouldn't become blames or scapegoats. As Livingstone mentioned how children nowadays would meet people on the Internet rather than interact with other children face to face like they are supposed to. In fact, parents should limit the amount of time their children spent on the Internet because children need to socially interact with other kids their age in order for them to go through a normal and healthy learning process. Despite the disadvantages of media and technology, it made my childhood filled with special memories that I couldn't help but cherish it forever.

By Sarah Wen Edited by Kurt Zimmerman

Reference: Livingstone, S. (2002). Young People and New Media. London: Sage.