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chaz47
Joined: 22 Apr 2005
Posts: 157
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 Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 8:13 am Post subject: |
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| Glenski wrote: |
As for Americans who don't believe in Internet connections at home, did you know that computer sales in Japan are falling due to the fact that many Japanese prefer to use their cell phone Internet connections instead? |
That's spooky. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 9:14 pm Post subject: |
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What's spooky is that many kids here today have terrible social skills with each other, partly because they use their cell phones so much to just send text messages or surf the Net. Kids will stand around in a group, but it is not uncommon to see half or more of them thumbing through their cell phones instead of having a conversation with each other.
Social skills are a real problem here these days. The government canceled Saturday classes for schools at one point because of some publicized juvenile crimes, in the hopes that having more free time with Mom and Dad would give them a better social life. Problem is, the gov didn't count on parents revolting against this, telling the gov that their kids still needed the education to prepare for college exams, so now they are back in schools on Saturdays.
People in Japan live by their cell phones. Handy as they may be, they also handicap people from regular life, IMO. People have dozens or hundreds of names & numbers on them, and they will thumb through them at anytime just to see who those people are. Cell phone makers are capitalizing on the usefulness of a versatile cell phone, adding features like TV connections, swivel screens, etc., and many web sites are made just for cell phone screen sizes. Heck, my wife flips hers open whenever we go to Mcdonalds or the DVD rental shop just so she can get a discount coupon. |
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GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 11:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Glenski wrote: |
Social skills are a real problem here these days. The government canceled Saturday classes for schools at one point because of some publicized juvenile crimes, in the hopes that having more free time with Mom and Dad would give them a better social life. Problem is, the gov didn't count on parents revolting against this, telling the gov that their kids still needed the education to prepare for college exams, so now they are back in schools on Saturdays.
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I think the real reason why parents revolted against it was because it meant the parents may actually have to parent.
Elementary schools do no disciplining at all and that leads kids, especially the boys, to have terrible behaviour (a lot of their school sports and tha adult males sports that are shown on TV seems to suggest that for sports for boys in this country are designed to creat sociopaths instead of teaching kids about teamwork). Then they try to correct that in the JHS public system by the teachers being absolutely awful to the first year kids (to instill the value of the heirarchy- that he with the most power is the winner), and for major infractions (like breaking a kids arm) the same type of thing is done in private JHSs, but generally there isn't any discipining done here, either.
Kids have their cell phones. They have highly organized planning from 6am until 11pm. They have video games and manga to replace parents the rest of the time.
This is not just a sudden issue. Parents in this country are often very young. They grew up in a similar way, but the kids now are just a little but worse than they were. The parents just don't really know what to do with their kids, so they do nothing. So when these kids are older, then they'll get married due to some set up between friends (gender relations that have kids self segregating between genders in class even up to the end of SHS is common) and their kids will likely be even worse, because then not only will the parents replace parenting with video games, but then these new parents will likely continue to replace their own lives with video games as well. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 1:40 am Post subject: |
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| Parents in this country are often very young. |
How do you figure? Isn't the average age for women to get married (and usually have their first kids) about 28, and for men about 30? http://www.stat.go.jp/English/data/handbook/c02cont.htm#cha2_4 (You can see the ages over the past 60 years, too.)
The mean age for mothers having a first child is 29.
Add 5-7 years to those ages to get parent ages when kids are in elementary school. That's not young in my mind. |
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Quibby84
Joined: 10 Aug 2006
Posts: 643
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 2:30 am Post subject: |
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Yeah, young is 21 (which is super common where I am from)...28/29 seems old compared to that...
I have noticed that parents ignore their kids..the kid will be practically pulling the pants off their mom to get their attention but the parent just keep talking....sort of sad... |
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GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 2:52 am Post subject: |
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| I arrived in rural Japan when I was 31. The parents of quite a lot of my elementary school students- including kids up to the later grades, were younger than me. When I left Canada only one of my friends was married. My friends are all around my age, give or take a couple of years. |
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southofreality
Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Posts: 579
Location: Tokyo
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| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 3:57 am Post subject: |
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| Glenski wrote: |
People in Japan live by their cell phones. Handy as they may be, they also handicap people from regular life, IMO. People have dozens or hundreds of names & numbers on them, and they will thumb through them at anytime just to see who those people are. |
| Glenski wrote: |
People in Japan live by their cell phones. Handy as they may be, they also handicap people from regular life, IMO. People have dozens or hundreds of names & numbers on them, and they will thumb through them at anytime just to see who those people are. |
It is getting pretty sick. I don't remember it being this bad even a few years ago. Kids, 20,30, and even 40-somethings will walk through shopping malls with their heads down, focused in on their cell phones, and completely oblivious to everything going on around them. You have to look out for them and get out of their way most of the time because they sure aren't looking out for anybody else. Sometimes, I just let a person walk right into me and then softly say: 気をつけた方がいいぞ as if I were talking to a child. Yeah, it's childish of me, but it makes me feel better. |
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Apsara
Joined: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 2142
Location: Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 6:15 am Post subject: |
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| Guilty of the above! I don't do it in crowded places and do try to keep an eye on what's going on around me though, and I definitely don't send phone emails while riding my bicycle, which I often see people here doing- I saw a woman recently riding her bike while looking at her phone and listening to her iPod- talk about an accident waiting to happen... |
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