Digital Dementia

I'd never heard of digital dementia until I was listening to a recent Focus on the Family broadcast that featured the authors of this book designed to help parents, pastors, and other leaders in understanding the ramifications of over-interaction in the digital world, especially as it relates to children and teens.

This article refers to South Korea's over-use of digital media, but U.S. teens spend around 7 1/2 hours daily engaged in digital media, so we aren't too far behind them.

While all of us that work and volunteer at Aim Right aren't necessarily "digital natives," (I'm dating myself here) we certainly teach, mentor, and reach out to 100% natives. It's easy to complain, "Oh, he's just a hyper child," or "Why can't she pay attention and sit still?" or "I don't understand why they can't remember what I talked about last week!" Literally, today's youth's brains may have decreased capacity to sit still, think, remember, and process information. Perhaps that's why Teen Camp week is so refreshing for so many teens; there, they must "unplug" for several days, and in the quietness and serenity of the mountains, they run and play, paint, have real conversations with others and with God, surrender, repent, worship, and make lasting memories.