Brandon Solomon on his trip at a stop in Bryce Canyon National Park

what life can be like away from a
screen.
"I realize now that playing video
games is not a very productive
hobby, and I'm going to try very
hard to cut back on that," Solomon
said. "This coming school year, I
will try to be more in touch with my
friends by getting out, taking a walk
and riding bikes. It would also help
to be more in touch and on top of
my homework?'

TOO MUCH TEXTING?

A few weeks into the trip, the teen
tour stopped in St. Louis, Mo. Solo-
mon noticed a group of local teens
who texted and stared down at their
smart phones screens as they shuffled
down the street.
"They looked like a bunch of
zombies!" Solomon said. "It made me
realize: That is how I look most of
the year when I have my phone?'
Indeed, teens prefer texting over
talking on the phone or in person.
According to a 2012 Pew Research
Center study, half of children aged
12-17 send or receive 60 or more texts
a day on average, and researchers at
the JFK Medical Center in New York
found that teenagers send an average
of 34 texts from bed.
Does all this texting and the abbre-
viations that go along with it signal
the downfall of the written English
language?
Kim Lifton, president of Wow

Writing Workshop LLC, says not so.
Lifton teaches college-bound
students how to be
reflective as they
approach their
college essay and
application. She said
with training, teens
have no problems
creatively expressing
their
thoughts in
Kim Lifton
their writing.
Abbreviations
commonly used in texting do not
find their way to the essays she
edits. However, if you are her
student, do not text that essay to
Lifton to edit. She embraces texting,
but she has her limits.
As far as texting, this GenXer sees
it as a communication tool just as
her generation used the phone to
keep in touch with her United Syna-
gogue Youth pals in various cities
across the Midwest when she was in
high school.
"I remember my mom scolding
me that I would never develop good
communication skills because I
spent so much time talking on the
phone," Lifton said. "Today, I keep
up with these same USY friends on
Facebook. It is the evolution of com-
munication, but these tools must be
used in moderation?'
What concerns Lifton and other
professionals who work with teens
is not their grammar but interacting

rip it Afi

with people in real-time. Some local
therapists say that when both teens
and adults are overly reliant on
texting, they are just venting their
feelings and frustrations and are not
necessarily having a quality two-way
conversation.
In seeking immediacy in respons-
es from others, teens are also having
difficulty with working things out
on their own.
Abby Segal, LCSW, does not
always have her cell phone with her.
When she sees
patients — often
teens coming to see
her to work through
anxieties associated
with overuse of
technology — her
phone is off.
Abby Segal
According to Se-
gal, the digital age is
causing us not only to lose our abil-
ity to be present with others without
distraction; we are also losing the
comfort of solitude.
Many of her young clients fear
they feel excluded from their
friends if they do not immediately
answer their texts. Several have
been so sleep-deprived from late-
night texting or video game ses-
sions that they overslept through
their appointments.
"Young people need to use their
imagination and play outside
more," Segal said. "Getting out in

"Young people
need to use their
imagination
and play outside
more."

- Social worker Abby Segal

the neighborhood on a walk with a
friend — that is the kind of commu-
nicating kids need the most?'

A NOVEL EXPERIMENT

Jen Lovy of West Bloomfield made
national news on Good Morning
America this summer when the show
learned how in March of 2014 she and
her family decided to avoid screens for
an entire week.
Lovy was "fed up" with the amount
of time her three sons, then ages 8, 9,
and 11, spent with their technology. So,
they kicked the habit for a week. Doing
homework, however, on a computer
was OK.
During the experiment, there was
a snow day, plus one of her children
caught a late-winter bug that left him
home sick for a few days. Still, they

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