Go to any restaurant and look around you. The place is crowded, yet silent. You see families with kids, yet you don't hear sounds of children whining and crying from the tables around you. Yup, they have been sedated by a new tranquilizer called technology. You see them holding phones and tablet PCs in their hands as they wait for the food to be served. It's not uncommon to see everyone in the family staring at their own handheld devices sending messages, playing games or surfing the Net. What has happened to family interaction? It's quite dead, actually. Mommy doesn't talk to daddy; little boy/girl is in his own world immersed in his "Plants and Zombies" game.
You'll see the same scene at home. Daddy is watching television, mommy is blogging her latest travel adventure, their teenage son is engrossed in Facebooking, oblivious to what is happening in the house. They hardly ever go to the park as a family anymore, have a picnic, talk about anything under the sun.
Ask any teen about what Merdeka is about, the contributions of former politicians to the nation, the world's population, names of capital cities, the causes of tsunami... chances are, they know nothing much, or nothing at all because all they ever do when given an assignment is copy wholesale and paste into Microsoft Word, ready to be submitted to their teacher a soon as they could. I recently gave my students a topic on how to overcome gangsterism in schools. Guess what? Even with my assistance, it took them some time to think of the points and elaborations. That's what copying and pasting does to students.
Sad, huh?
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