Technology is omnipresent. Nowadays you can go to a Dallas Cowboys football game and watch some of the greatest television in the world, instantly download a new song from iTunes to your computer, or Google some fun facts about your favorite TV show via your new smartphone. People like to do things the fastest and most efficiently; technology allows everyone to do both at the same time. The world needs to look beyond these positive and attractive attributes of technology and delve into the effects that are not so attractive. Children are born into a society that relies on technology for professional and personal reasons and legitimately never know a time without it. Technology is causing problems in their social skills and behaviors, as well as facilitating a drastic increase in childhood obesity rates. Are parents and people of the older generation neglecting their ethical duties? Want to update your friends about the movie you just saw? A few taps on any keyboard or phone and a click of a button can make this happen; overall the process only takes about thirty seconds. What if you want to download Jennifer Lopez's new song to your iPod? Don't worry, the process is just as quick as the first one. Events like these are very common in the lives of children aged eight to eighteen today. Technology has provided them with the ability to do these types of things very quickly, but this is proving to develop a vicious cycle among young users. Leigh Goessl, an online writer for Helium with an MBA in technology, explains that technology encourages instant gratification (Goessl 2). As illustrated above, children are accustomed to getting what they want instantly with technology, and that... middle of paper... all problems plague children everywhere; help a child be independent today and avoid future dependence on these machines. Works cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). April 21, 2011. Facts and Statistics – obesity rate among all children in the United States. National Health and Nutrition Examination. Goessl, Leigh. February 21, 2010. Pros and cons of technology for children. Helium: where knowledge rules. 1-2.Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). 20 January 2010. M2 – The media in the lives of children aged 8 to 18. Program for the study of media and health. 2-39. Skeele, R., & Stefankiewicz, G. 2002. Blackbox in the sandbox: The decision to use technology with young children with annotated bibliography of Internet resources for teachers of young children. Educational Technology Review, [online serial], 10(2), 79 - 86.