Why Are You Always on the Phone?: Smart Skills With the Smartphone Generation

Why Are You Always on the Phone? SMART Skills with the Smartphone Generation is a revelation and an actual depiction of what goes on in the everyday lives of youth who are connected and are online most of the time either via their smartphone or their iPad. Many a time, parents of tweens and teenagers from the age of 10 onwards to 18, are curious and are even "tearing their hair out"; frustrated with their child/children's obsession with texting and chatting online 24/7. The challenge then is how we can seek to understand the complexities and nuances of our youth and their connection in the 21st-century technologically driven globalized society. Unraveling this challenge, this book provides powerful insights into the lives of individuals as they grapple with the rise of being connected at any time at any place via their smartphone. Voices from parents, tweens and teens sharing their online experiences and opinions have been weaved and compiled into the text for an honest and interesting read for all.With stories and anecdotes, Why Are You Always on the Phone? serves to answer the questions "Why are you always online?", "What are you doing online?" and a list of queries that most parents, educators and even tweens and teenagers themselves seek to know and are curious about. It is hoped that by answering these, it will prompt deeper, more empathetic, and layered connections between parents, tweens, teenagers and educators for more fulfilling parent-child and teacher-student relationships and thus highlight the importance of practising effective and safe uses of the smartphone and other devices.

Dr Michelle Yeo is an Associate Lecturer/Course Chair with SIM University (UniSIM) School of the Arts and Social Sciences, teaching and facilitating Communication Management modules and Social Sciences subjects. She lectures adult students on the following modules: 1. Principles and Practice of Communication; 2. Multimedia Public Affairs Reporting; 3. Technology, Globalization and Change; 4. Cross-Cultural Intelligence; 5. Visual Texts and Communication; 6. Media Communication in a Changing World; 7. Media, Politics and the Citizen; 8. Strategic Communication and Management in a Social Media World; and 9. Feature Writing.

As a Course Chair with UniSIM, she specializes in coordinating and leading a team of associate lecturers for curriculum development, designing and writing course book materials, and developing assignments and examination papers.

She has also set up her own management and training consulting firm, MY Connexion LLP, conducting seminars and workshops on public affair relations and on team dynamism and management. Others include customer/guest relations and communication workshop for front line staff, Mutual Holdings. She looks forward to continuing her professional experience and knowledge in communication with a focus on effective intercultural communication and an emphasis on the use of new media in the 21st Century.