Blogger Spotlight on Michael Sheehan of HighTechDad

No man can serve two masters, or so the biblical adage goes, but can a dad truly devote himself to technology and to his family? Blogger Michael Sheehan says yes—not that it’s always easy.

The father of three daughters and an avowed gadget junkie, Michael admits he sometimes feels “two things tugging me in different directions: family and technology.” But, he says, “instead of trying to battle these two potentially opposing forces, I made the effort to combine the two.”

One product of this endeavor was Michael’s blog, HighTechDad, where—as his tagline aptly states— “technology and fatherhood collide.” His writing focuses on analyzing, reviewing, and making sense of the latest technology for dads like him and other parents navigating today’s world (which seems to see a daily increase in collisions between families and tech).

Michael acknowledges the importance of minimizing technology’s potentially disruptive impact on the household, while deriving as much benefit from it as possible. But, he adds, it’s equally important not to use technology as a substitute for good, old-fashioned parenting.

“Connecting with your children does not happen through technology. It is merely a tool to get your work done,” he says. “It cannot replace face-to-face interaction or ‘floor time,’ This has actually been a bit difficult for me to grasp at times since the attraction of new technology is very strong, and I frequently look for ways for tech to work better in the family (and subsequently write about it).”

Michael’s readers aren’t the only ones getting the run-down on technology and its applications from the HighTechDad; his daughters are also beneficiaries, not that he plans to rush them into the wide-open, sometimes dangerous world of tech, without proper guidance and pacing.

“Honestly, kids probably could live without immediate access to tech, however, they need to know how to use it in educational ways,” Michael says. “I believe it is critical that our children understand it and are not afraid of it. But it is a difficult balancing act, especially as everyone becomes even more networked. Not only do you have to pay close attention to what your children do online in terms of predators or social bullying, you have to be sure that your children do not get sucked into technology and distracted from learning.”

Michael says he’s still perfecting parenting techniques to ensure his children have a positive relationship with high-tech devices, and he gets plenty of practice on a regular basis.

“My oldest daughter, for example, has become quite good at researching particular topics for projects,” he said. “However, I have had to teach her that she must read whatever she finds and then formulate her own opinions and write what she has learned in her own words, instead of simply copying what she reads.”

Michael’s desire to teach people about technology’s applications, and more recently about its ethical and social implications, has deep roots. As a child, he began experimenting with an IBM PC his father got in the mid ’80s while taking part in a two-week training session for Stanford professors.

“As my father went through the course, I tried to teach myself the same thing that he was learning, however, I quickly picked it up and was starting to write simple basic programs, all completely self-taught,” Michael said. “By the time that his course had finished, I had already mastered everything and was teaching him tips and tricks.”

Michael pursued this “self-taught geeky-ness” through high school and beyond—to this day he has never taken a programming, engineering, or computer course—earning an English and comparative literature studies degree from Occidental College, but realizing meanwhile that his primary interest lay in explaining technology to people.

“I had always had a dream to write some type of ‘How To’ book, but never had the time to do so. When blogging started to become more popular, it got my interest mainly because it was a medium to write and publish but one could do so in bursts in the form of articles,” he said. “As I continued to be the ‘go-to’ person of my friends and family whenever they had hardware or software problems, I started to write down the solutions that I came across in the form of blog articles. Thus my blogging started back in 2005. For me, helping people understand technology was paramount and since I had a background in writing, it was a creative way for me to help people beyond my typical circle of friends and family.”

When it comes to technology inside the family, Michael says one of the best, fun products is the Nintendo Wii.

“It gets people off of the couch and gets them active and working together,” he notes. “However, that being said, it should not be a crutch when engaging with your children… more as a treat from time to time.”

While technology can provide entertainment for a family, it can also create parenting challenges; one of the biggest Michael sees is that posed by the recent explosion of social media, which he appreciates from a business and personal perspective, but worries about as a parent.

“Being a father of three girls, my eyes have been opened early on to social bullying. While boys tend to be physically competitive, girls do it all through the mind. Unfortunately social bullying starts at an early age with simple “snubbing” and friends “flip flopping” (a phrase that my wife uses to explain how friends can be great one day and horrible the next). As social media becomes embedded on more and more devices (phone, TV, video games), the dangers therein increase as well.”

“Unfortunately it is a two-edged sword. If you restrict your children from it, they will still do it behind your back, if you don’t restrict it at all, your child could be either the bully or the one being bullied. Finding that careful balance is difficult and the only way to even start is by ensuring that you always have an open dialog with your kids, be ready to talk whenever they want to talk, and know that you often have to drop everything when they need you,” he says.

Communication also plays an important role in the physical safety of children in a world of hyper-connectivity, and Michael says he couldn’t live without the parental controls built into the Macs his daughters use.

But, he adds, “managing your children’s safety is both an online and offline process. Computer access must be limited and filtered, texting and social media must be restricted until the very latest possible point and simply talking to your children over and over about strangers or even known people about what physical limits are is critical. Unfortunately predators are becoming much more creative in their entrapment techniques, which means parents have to think outside the box even more. This starts at the dinner table and continues whenever you have uninterrupted time with your children where you can ask questions and repeat things over and over until they fully understand the dangers out there and have tools to know how to combat them.”

It’s not an easy task, but for many it’s become an integral part of the full-time job known as parenting.

Apart from his responsibilities to his family and his readers in the blogosphere, Michael serves as the Technology Evangelist for GoGrid, a tech company that does Cloud Infrastructure Hosting, where he handles social media, blogging, marketing, public and media relations, multimedia, event planning, product positioning and a host of other duties.

When he’s not doting on his daughters or his wife, he’s still trying to get his hands on the latest gadget.

Tagged as: blogs, dads, technology

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William Kennedy

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