Technology meets magical thinking and enhances it by making it real. This type of experience is further facilitated by doting parents, who are awed by what their children hear and repeat to them. Parents provide increasingly more elaborate video games, TV's and entertainment centers in their children's rooms, where the kids can cocoon themselves in their multimedia environment. Those same kids go to the ATM with the parent and sees real money emerge from a machine with the use of a plastic card and the touch of some buttons. While most children cannot appreciate the fact that many work hours are needed to provide the money so easily retrieved from the ATM, the easy availability and accessibility of cash distance them even further from that concept.
Many children are now on the Internet receiving almost instant responses to queries.
This indeed captures the sense that he no longer has to tolerate whatever discomfort and frustration he experienced with his family. The instant solution is available through the capability of technology to readily substitute a new social entity and gratify his perceived needs. The ubiquitous cell phone can provide instant communication with each other. I recall that as a child, I would wait about one month with heightened anticipation to receive a reply from my pen pal in England. Now E-mail and instant messaging have created an expectation of rapid communication.