What does it mean to be linked in and hooked into our computers… online … through games… texting… tweeting?  Digital Nation, the new documentary from PBS,  promises to be a series worth following and perhaps participating in.  Its producers will investigate how technology changes how we live and work.  The current topics explore digital impact on family life, the military use of simulated games, and video game addiction in South Korea.

I got to see, first hand, the digital environment in South Korea – the most wired country in the world. The upside was that through wireless technology and your cell phone, information is available anywhere, anytime, anyplace. The downside was how to keep the real world and the digital world in balance.  The unbalance world is video game addiction or people walking down the street always looking down at their computer and never seeing the real people who pass them by or a family at home, but not ever together.

A PBS producer comments in Digital Nation that he hopes that our impulse to be human is so intrinsic to who we are that we will never loose our core human values and that we will be able to cope and manage this new world.  At the National Institute on Media and the Family we believe that who we are is wired into our brains a great deal from our experiences.  The parent’s job has never been more important.  From birth our children are wiring in the people they will become. The digital world is intrinsically powerful and enticing – our brains are hard wired to seek novelty, stimulation and to learn.  It’s what’s kept us going as a species for thousands of years.

We can control our environment in the digital world, the real world is harder to control.  In this era of “disruptive technology”  – an era where technology profoundly changes everything, we must learn, and teach our children, to live in both worlds.  Core human values, core character traits and how to balance the digital and real world  have to be learned.  The media are powerful.  Our work with   Say Yes to No and MediaWise gives parents and those who love and work with children the  practical strategies to succeed.

How is digital technology changing or challenging your life?

-Dr. Dave