And I'm just going to take that as an opportunity to say that human nature is to give negative events preferential attention over positive events, and this directly drives the kind of stories that get on the news, and this fuels the impression that the world is getting worse and worse when really all that's happening is the increasing rate of reporting of negative events to drive TV ratings even higher. And on that note I'd like to put up a song that deals with that aspect of human nature, and fuck it, just because it's a good song.
Exactly. Crime rates overall have plummeted over the years, but the way the media sells it, the world is a biiiig, scaaary place that's not fit to have Billy, Bobby, Joey and Johnny out playing by themselves, and getting worse by the day. They prey on the overreaction of the masses.
Let me just summarize this thread... "Back in my day kids didn't have any fancy -insert current technology-. They had to -insert things you did as a kid-." Look, you guys are having the same argument your parents had, their parents had and most likely every other set of grandparents before them had as well. Just because your child is the bestest lego builder ever(!) doesn't mean he's going to turn out to be a well adjusted contributing member of society. It will, however, mean he is mocked by his friends for having an uptight asshole parent.
To a certain extent, you're correct. The whole "In my day, we were lucky if there were rocks to play with and only five miles to walk to school," has been happening forever. However, I think two things are different about this particular generation, say those born after 1985 or so. First, there is a level of hysteria with parenting that has never before been seen. That Time article posted earlier addressed it nicely. Second, child health studies are reporting that a drastic shift has occurred within this generation. Obesity rates have quadrupled in twenty years - that's insane. With obesity comes illnesses never before seen in young children (diabetes, heart disease, etc.). Clearly, something is different with this generation, and I suspect it has a great deal to do with technology and the level of physical activity kids are exposed to at a young age.
I clearly remember a friend of my parents saying that I should grow up to be a great engineer just because I built a cool thing out of K'nex. That was the one of my first memories of realizing how stupid people can be. I wonder if this person went outside and played a lot... for the record he makes falafels now. As for the physical activity and technology issue, I used to be chunky as a kid even though I was outside a lot. Then I found my inner Madden athlete.
I'm in graduate school, but still do some work at my old job in the toy department at Australia's equivalent of WalMart from time to time. I can tell you that this last Christmas - like every other one before it - we got cleaned the fuck out. You want an Ultimate Bumblebee for Jimmy? Too bad, he'll be lucky to get a copy of hungry hippos. The new Barbie for Sarah? Nope, she gets a plastic shovel. R/C cars or Legos? You're up shit creek. People are still buying shitloads of toys, but that just may be because of the area where I work - it seems everyone around here pops out a kid or six by the age of 20 which drives up the demand for toys. My experience with the typical parent here is that they have good intentions but are generally lazy and/or unintelligent. A lot just can't be bothered and will buy whatever will placate their kid. I think that the increased pace and busyness of people (parents) lives is at least partially responsible for the rise in using the screen as a babysitter. A lot of people seem to not be bothered with actually spending time with their children teaching them things, or having them ask questions. Video games solve this problem quite well by keeping kids occupied. That being said, I played video games from the age of 7, when I got a secondhand Atari 2600 (I'm 24 now). It was awesome. Since then I've played games semi-regularly and always owned a console or two and I consider myself to be a reasonably well adjusted person. However I also spent heaps of time playing with Legos, playing sports, taking shit apart and reading. Lack of kids/people in general reading for fun is another separate but related issue to all this, and once again I think parental influence plays a big role here. And whoever said that there still are ads on TV for toys is dead right - surprise surprise they're on during cartoons on saturday morning. We just don't see them as now we're generally passed out or hung over at 7am on saturday morning.
Come on, you can't be serious. What's the half assed logic we're going by here, that if there are no sounds in the toys kids will have to "imagine" them and thereby working that "imagination" area in the brain? I'm planning on giving my future children plain bricks to play with, they'll have to imagine the wheels, the paintjob, the engine, the works. They'll probably walk lopsidedly from those abnormally large imagination areas in the brain but it's so going to be worth it when they beat the other kids in imagination. And yeah, you caught me. My frequent and sarcastic usage of 'imagination' is intended to imply that you are working with a severely limited notion of what imagination and play actually is. Then again, what the fuck do I know, I played with He-Man and GI Joes growing up which obviously impaired me since they came with pre set universes for me to act out my games in. With fixed limiters on the worlds the toys are from there's really nothing left for the imagination, right? So toys are games, not the scenarios you script and act out with them.
As others have already posted, this debate is the same as the one every other generation has had. I have a 10 year old son and a 13 year old daughter. They have a wii, they have a DS each and they have a computer. They don't have to be timed on how long they spend on these 'inside' games because I've taught them about balance. Also because, you know, they have brains and know that being outside is FUN. That you can do shit outside that you can't do inside. We live in a court, so the kids can play fairly safely on the street without fear of being mowed down.... except for the fuckwit in the bright orange rice mobile that flies down the street doing 100kms p/h. But you can hear his doof-doof music 5 minutes before he gets to the street and all the kids know that the idiot is coming and make a game out of getting off the road. Yes, my 13 yr old daughter has a cell phone. It's convenient to communicate with each other in the event that one of us is running late. But she doesn't spend hours texting or talking on it. My son would love an iPod touch for his birthday, and I will probably get him one. To my way of thinking, it's the 2010 equivalent of getting that ghetto blaster I wanted as a kid. That's the new technology for playing music. It doesn't make him spoiled, or maladjusted, it makes him a kid. And despite all the new-fangled toys and electronic gadgetry that they have, they STILL prefer normal kid type fun. We just returned from a holiday that did not include a wii, a DS, a TV or an internet connection, and my kids had NO problem using imagination to amuse themselves.
The kids I know have a lot of toys. They are obviously much more technologically advanced than the toys I had. What I have noticed is that kids don't play outside anymore. When I was a kid I came home to eat meals and sleep. The rest of the time was spent on my bike, playing sports, building forts, etc. In the summer, all I see is pasty fat kids in wal mart begging their mom to buy them a video game.
You wanna see a kid entertain themselves for hours on end? Give them a few empty boxes, some sticks, rocks and send them outside.
Well, duh. All children should be forced to imagine everything or they'll die of lethal levels of mental understimulation. That's why when I have kids the first thing I'm going to do is put them in a giant sealed wooden crate. Oh, yes yes, the crate will have a one-inch diameter hole in it for air, I'm not an idiot, but we wouldn't want the child using that hole as a crutch to forgo their imagination in favor of actually looking at the world, would we? That's why I'm going to put that crate in an even bigger crate with a one-inch hole on the opposite side, so no matter where the child looks, he is forced to rely upon his imagination! My kid's mental faculties will be so intensely worked that he'll probably be a fucking telepath. And then I can use him to get laid. Fuck I love capitalism.