You know what else all the high tech communication is killing these days? Santa Claus. Kids can video chat with Santa, follow him on Twitter or use the NORAD system to" track" his sleigh movements on Christmas night his every move online. Juts imagine what a young Santa believer would feel if he googled Santa and was taken to a web site that, for instance, advertised how the parent could order a phone call from Santa, Santa evidence kits and official good list certificates or that said :"make your child's fantasy in Santa real". It could instantly kill Santa for the child.
So the question is, does technology make it harder for parents to keep their children believing in Santa? I think so, because the overall influence of all the cell phones and other electronics has been to make kids "grow up faster". This is a pity, for everyone needs a childhood of innocence. Santa represents innocence about as well as anything.
A few internet Google searches of "Santa" by little Johnny and the fat man is turned from a real toy giver into a marketing myth. Jane grew up before the google syndrome and internet availability was much of an influence on kids, but if I had a child today who was under 8 or 9 years old I would drastically limit Internet usage to not make he or she "grow up" too fast.
It goes beyond the idea of keeping a world available for kids that includes such joys as the belief in Santa. The totality of separating small kids from being "connected' is that thrusting kids into the world too quickly steals their childhood and hinders their psychological health. Children need to believe in the magical and the impossible or they become more cynical than they should be in adulthood.
Now, with the technology available to even the smallest children, whether or not Santa exists is more readily available to children beyond asking their parents. It's just another way in which the modern world tell us that parenting is being taken out of the hands of parents. I refuse to say "Ho Ho Ho" to that!
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