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Today’s teens live in both a real and virtual community, and the latter has infinite libraries and schools, radio stations, shopping malls, game arcades and much more. Their time in that community can’t be quantified, because it’s entirely integrated into their lives. It shapes and reflects their identities.

I believe that our interactions with technology have become so instinctual and embedded that we can’t accurately answer a “how many minutes” question.

Would we ever discuss limiting book time? Would we ever tell children they’re spending too much time learning? Would we say think critically, but only in moderation

What’s important is that we stop judging screens and start looking at and guiding young people in their use of screens

competitors will now face a new iteration of the iPad, one that's faster, smaller, and lighter than the model introduced a year ago--all while retaining the $499 entry price that has proven all but impossible for Apple's competitors to match.

company is offering 18 different versions of the iPad 2

original iPad came in six different variations

You hear two opinions from experts on the topic of what happens when kids are perpetually exposed to technology. One: Constant multitasking makes teens work harder, reduces their focus, and screws up their sleep. Two: Using technology as a youth helps students adapt to a changing world in a way that will benefit them when they eventually have to live and work in it. Either of these might be true. More likely, they both are. But it is certainly the case that these kids are different—fundamentally and permanently different—from previous generations in ways that are sometimes surreal, as if you'd walked into a room where everyone is eating with his feet.

It's as if Beatlemania junkies in 1966 had had the ability to demand "Rain" be given as much radio time as "Paperback Writer," and John Lennon thought to tell everyone what a good idea that was. The fan–celebrity relationship has been so radically transformed that even sending reams of obsessive fan mail seems impersonal.

The teens' brains move just as quickly as teenage brains have always moved, constructing real human personalities, managing them, reaching out to meet others who might feel the same way or want the same things. Only, and here's the part that starts to seem very strange—they do all this virtually. Sitting next to friends, staring at screens, waiting for the return on investment. Everyone so together that they're actually all apart.

Change isn’t just about technology, of course. Those things that a screen cannot offer – community, tuition, interpersonal dialogue, shared space and time – are only going to feel more precious amid the increasingly rich educational pickings online

Adults are as addicted—if not more addicted—to technology as teenagers.  

adults’ smartphone addiction telepressure: “the combination of a strong urge to be responsive to people at work through message-based [information and communications technologies and] a preoccupation with quick response times.”

It’s worth considering: When we criticize teens who are glued to their screens, are we offering wise advice? Or are we projecting our own mixed feelings onto them?