Xfinitysends a strong message, but it isn't the one they planned on....

Message Xfinity wants you to hear:  Your kids need high-speed internet available at all times, because their ability to do anything that has to do with school absolutely depends on it.   No schoolwork is possible without a tablet or a smartphone.  Paper no longer exists.  And all this means that if the internet connection gets cut off or is slow, well, it's basically the equivalent of cutting holes in their parachutes.  Want your kid to crash in front of everyone as they attempt to bleat their reports from their electronic devices?  Then I guess crappy connectivity is just fine.  Just be prepared to be hated- and for your estranged kids to fail miserably at school in their competition with the Kids Whose Parents Get It.

Message I hear:  Xfinity just assumes that kids are absolutely incapable of doing anything that doesn't involve a glowing screen.  Never mind that NONE of the kids in this ad are doing ANYTHING that kids weren't doing a hundred freaking years ago by spending an hour or so at a freaking library with a notebook and a pencil.  I mean, they aren't showing even showing power points or graphs- they are just reading text.  But even that is not possible unless that text is on a screen (because as we all know, there are no PRINTED versions of FDR's Second Inaugural Address available anywhere*.)

Personally, I think this is a really good advertisement for breaking your kids' dependence on electronic homework "help."  But that's a bit much to expect from an ad which celebrates a situation in which everyone in the family is online, at the same time, on their own devices.**  Yuck.

*Holy crap, she couldn't even be bothered to print a hard copy?  Come On!  Not to mention, why is the ability to read someone else's speech impressive to anybody?  What is the kid learning with this "assignment?"  What the hell?

**I wish I had a dime for every one of these commercials that showed "Dad" needing a tablet to tell him how to chop up vegetables or sprinkle seasonings on steaks.  I swear, 90% of the time adult males are shown "enjoying connectivity," that's what they are using it for.  Bizarre.