Your Mobile Device Is Changing Your Family Life ? Did You Realize?

1) Text messaging has made moms all-powerful.

When I went off to college in the days of T9 phones, text messaging was beyond my mom. Mix that with the fact that I’m terrible at answering my phone and listening to voicemails, and you have a recipe that greatly weakened my overprotective mother’s power to monitor my life.

 But since my mom got a phone with a full keyboard and learned how to text message, she is UNSTOPPABLE. Anything she wants to know, she knows—since she’s aware that I always answer my texts. And the more she knows about my life, the more powerful she grows, like some sort of mythical creature. At this point, I’m pretty sure she can telepathically force me to only date nice, Jewish girls.

2) Babies are outperforming their elders.

This past December, I got my 3-year-old niece a Nexus 7 tablet because she’s ridiculously cute and I want to buy her love. (And also because being a tech-savvy uncle is really cool, right? Right?!)

Seven months later, she’s a total tablet pro. It’s like she was born with it attached to her hands. She navigates between apps, performs basic troubleshooting, and even waits patiently when the device just needs a second to load. Meanwhile, every time I hand my iPad to anyone in my family over 50, they start to pound on the touch screen like an enraged chimp as soon as there’s a pause.

3) Half-a-world away is nothing.

Last month, my girlfriend (see? The powers of Mom at work) flew to Israel to attend the wedding of her estranged cousin. Once reunited, they bonded like sisters immediately, even spending time at the beach together.

Since my girlfriend returned home, they’ve been messaging each other via WhatsApp like madmen. It’s as if they’re only a few miles apart, instead of a 12-hour flight. Meanwhile, my cousin lives 10 blocks away and I never go out to take Jager shots with him and his fellow Wall Street bros. How messed up is that?

4) Every embarrassment is on the record.

Get-togethers on my dad’s side of the family get notoriously wild.  (What can I say? We’re a thirsty family.) Inevitably, someone will be dressed up in a really weird costume or passed out facedown in a pie.

In the olden days, these instances would have been nothing but family legends. But now that everyone’s armed with an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy, our embarrassments are documented. Luckily, this hasn’t deterred anyone from acting like an idiot, but we have had to forge “No Facebook sharing” pacts.

5) “I’m going to put a tracking device on you” is no longer a joke.

Growing up, my mom would joke about placing a tracking device under my skin, and from the look in her eyes, I knew she wasn't completely kidding.

Now, family-finder apps like Find My Kids allow parents to turn their kids’ phones into tracking devices and follow their every move. This may be good for parents, but I worry that teenagers will miss out on the character building that comes from going to a party when you’re supposed to be sleeping over at a friend’s house. Imagine high school without the experience of having to walk home from a party without any pants. This is the technological future I worry about.