{"id":2409,"date":"2021-08-31T14:21:42","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T20:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:10043\/?p=2409"},"modified":"2021-09-09T10:39:55","modified_gmt":"2021-09-09T16:39:55","slug":"as-much-as-we-disparage-it-technology-brings-us-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/as-much-as-we-disparage-it-technology-brings-us-together\/","title":{"rendered":"As much as we disparage it, technology brings us together"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>This article originally appeared in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennessean.com\/story\/money\/tech\/2021\/08\/28\/much-we-disparage-it-technology-bring-us-together\/5579150001\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Tennessean<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">I\u2019ve spent years telling my kids to put their phones down.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">I\u2019m always lecturing them about the dangers of too much screen time, too much social media, and too much time playing video games. No matter what I say I always get the same response that every parent dreads,\u00a0\u201cYou just don\u2019t understand my generation!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">It was not until the past few days that I finally understood.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Like thousands of other parents, last week we dropped our oldest kid off at college.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">We spent days preparing.\u00a0Packing everything from laundry detergent to ramen noodles, pillows to pencils, and in our case an entire drum set (his roommate is very lucky),\u00a0we ended up with a total of nine bags to carry with us to Miami\u00a0where our son would set off on a new adventure as a college freshman.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Upon arrival, we waited for two hours in the August Florida sun to check in before we finally made it to our kid\u2019s new home, which is a classic cinder-block dorm room that was about the size of our rental car. It was time for the parents to go to work. Game on.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Trying not to overdo it, we told our new college student to step aside, Mom and Dad would transform this plain room into a cool new home.\u00a0 Our 18-year-old tried to convince us that he\u2019s \u201cgot it,\u201d and we were free to just leave.\u00a0 But we knew he was just being polite, so we stayed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Like any (self-proclaimed) cool Dad, my role was to optimize all the technology components in his new home away from home. \u00a0Although both my wife and son rolled their eyes a bit, I went all out.\u00a0By the end of the night, I had set up:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"gnt_ar_b_ul\">\n<li class=\"gnt_ar_b_ul_li\">A wireless booster to make sure the signal in the room was as good as possible.<\/li>\n<li class=\"gnt_ar_b_ul_li\">A TV mounted on a swingable bracket with a Roku stick and a video game connection.<\/li>\n<li class=\"gnt_ar_b_ul_li\">Seven tracking Tiles that were strategically placed in our kid&#8217;s wallet, backpack, drum bags, glasses case, and just for good measure, his laundry bag (so we could see if he ever used it.)<\/li>\n<li class=\"gnt_ar_b_ul_li\">A desktop computer and a laptop so he would have a backup if either broke.<\/li>\n<li class=\"gnt_ar_b_ul_li\">Uber and Lyft apps on his phone.<\/li>\n<li class=\"gnt_ar_b_ul_li\">A webcam and a headset (in case he ever wanted to communicate with his hovering parents.)<\/li>\n<li class=\"gnt_ar_b_ul_li\">An electric toothbrush and electric razor.<\/li>\n<li class=\"gnt_ar_b_ul_li\">An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to provide him with backup power in case the lights ever went out.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">But I wasn\u2019t quite done.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Knowing he was often on Instagram for social media and Discord (an online chat platform popular with gamers), I loaded both apps on my phone giving me a few more ways to track what he was up to and communicate with him day and night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The next day, after putting some finishing touches on the d\u00e9cor, it was time for us to say goodbye.\u00a0 We each gave him a hug and told him to call, text, or email us if he needed anything.\u00a0 He patted us each on the back and said, \u201cDon\u2019t worry guys, I think I will do better with this than you all.\u00a0I\u2019ll be fine.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0And with that we were gone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">As a tech consultant, I spend so many hours on my computer and phone during the day that I rarely look at my screens at night. I\u2019m not a huge social media person, and other than playing my Atari as a kid, I have never been much of a gamer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">It only took three days for all of that to change.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">After not hearing a word from our newly independent teenager, I couldn\u2019t take it anymore.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">I loaded up my Tile app to check in on his location, I signed on to Instagram to check for any posts he\u2019d made over the past few days.\u00a0I fired up Discord to see if he was online and could chat, and I even sent him a \u201cWords With Friends\u201d invite so we could start gaming together.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">I went from years of constantly telling my kids to get off their screens to being constantly on screens myself.\u00a0 Suddenly, I could chat with my firstborn anytime, I could see the highlights of his day, and I could have fun with him from a distance playing an online game. I was all in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Sending our kid off to school reminded me that the good and bad of technology just depends on what you use it for.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">It was at dinner that our younger kid (still at home with us) finally said, \u201cDad, I don\u2019t think you should stare at your phone so much.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0I responded by telling him he just doesn\u2019t understand my generation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article originally appeared in\u00a0The Tennessean. I\u2019ve spent years telling my kids to put their phones down. I\u2019m always lecturing them about the dangers of too much screen time, too much social media, and too much time playing video games. No matter what I say I always get the same response that every parent dreads,\u00a0\u201cYou [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":2410,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atiba-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}