My 13-year-old son recently saved for and purchased an iPod touch. Although he rides a bus for one hour each way to school, we forbade him to bring it with him for fear of him losing or damaging it.
So now, the minute he wakes in the morning, the earplugs are in his ears. As soon as he walks in the door in the afternoon, he’s engrossed in it. The other night I found him sitting in front of a blank, turned-on TV screen on the couch listening to his iPod. I think he’s literally addicted to it. He wants to do nothing else after school these days. It’s all I can do to hold any conversation with him without him being annoyed that he has to pause his iPod.
I don’t want to squash his love of music or the rite of passage for every teen to discover himself through music, but it seems so extreme and unhealthy.
Should I address it or let it run its course?
