Consumer electronics ate my child's imagination

[shance]

Modern children resemble city traders on the brink of burn-out.

Stoked on hard drugs (Ritalin) and with imperfectly formed moral codes, they stare blankly at video screens.

Whether beating prostitutes to death with baseball bats (Grand Theft Auto) or murdering uncatalogued lifeforms by stamping on their heads (Super Mario Bros) they careen through a high-speed existence with little care for politics or history.

They think nothing of drinking a four-pack of Redbull and lying about happy-slapping strangers to their £200-an-hour psychotherapist.

They cannot adjust to the ever accelerating pace of modern life, where the branded totems of their demographic (Nike, Sony, Apple) are worn like tribal markings.

The corporate endorsement of their t-shirts can be the critical bridge to social acceptance in the eyes of their peers.

So, is modern life too fast for the supple human mind?

Does the young human brain have an upper limit for information intake?

Do children have a rev counter we're red-lining by exposing them to so much input?

An open letter published today in The Daily Telegraph, from 110 teachers, psychologists, children's authors (including Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials) and experts, says yes.

It calls on the government to act to prevent the "death of childhood".

The letter argues that real play has given way to hours spent staring at the television screen.

Accusing the entertainment and consumer electronics industry of complicity, the letter says that children need "real play (as opposed to sedentary, screen-based entertainment), first-hand experience of the world they live in". The letter also says that "children's brains are still developing, they cannot adjust... to the effects of ever more rapid technological and cultural change".

"They are pushed by market forces to act and dress like mini-adults and exposed via the electronic media to material which would have been considered unsuitable for children even in the very recent past."

Another signatory, author Jacqueline Wilson, told The Daily Telegraph, "I don't think children use their imaginations any more."

It's easy to see why parents, assaulted by the constant barrage of news items on paedophile attacks, terrorism and murder, encourage their children's seclusion in the hermetically sealed confines of a softly carpeted room with a plasma TV and Xbox 360.

Modern life has put children in first gear and slammed its foot to the floor.

Will their pliant minds adapt to this unprecedented level of exposure to information and experience, or are rising incidents of childhood depression the first signs of a playground apocalypse? Let us know what you think by adding a comment below. -Chris Stevens

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/0,39029552,49283485,00.htm

[AuntPatsy]

1. Funny my daughter and I were just discussing this very issue, your so on the mark here.

[shance]

4. I was just listening to Alex Jones show this morning, and he had

a man by the name John Taylor Gatto who discussed this subject on his show. It was a great show and Mr. Gatto was a lovely person and very schooled (no pun intended) on the subject.

I actually don't have children (*a dog*), but I do recognize the importance of this issue.

Thanks for posting.

[truedelphi]

2. The classics used to be taught to the young (circa mid 1800's)

And they received instruction in poetics, dialectics and rhetoric by the time they were in high school

The educational system has slowly given way to the pervalence of remedial math and remedial reading.

I tutor fifteen year olds who don't know that one half equals fifty per cent. These are the children of affluence, BTW.


And imagination is merely figuring out which "kuhl" new text phone will best suit your adolescent needs.

How do we ever go back from here?

[shance]

5. That's not good news.

I guess perhaps a start would be starting to educating parents about what the television and all these video games are actually doing to their kids.

I'm sure a lot of people would say getting rid of televisions would be a GREAT start.

or at least reducing the time spent in front of it.

However that doesnt address all the intentional loud music, overstimulation/ advertising and constant stimulation in malls, shopping centers where ever people congragate.

Its as if "they"/the corporateers want us to have no silence whatsoever.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. I don't have kids, but I have neighbors who do

they live out in the boondocks, using solar power, where they do organic gardening. No tv, except videos. No radio. I think they use computers, but not all that much (not as much as me). Kids work on craft work, ecological stuff, things like that. They aren't fundies, but are home-schooled, with one or two days a week at a school building that is ecologically friendly.

[End Of The Road]

6. Is there a critical age for forming "imagination"?

Does anyone know of any research on this? I've wondered if the brain's capacity/ability to "imagine" is formed at an early age (similar to language skills).

Regarding Jacqueline Wilson's comment "I don't think children use their imaginations any more", I don't think some kids have a fully formed ability TO imagine and visualize. A close friend of mine has been an educator for 40+ years and claims that his students (middle-school), through the years, have demonstrated increased inability to form mental pictures. For instance, remember those "story" problems in math class based on two cars travelling at different speeds or in different directions (or similar)? He claims many of his students cannot form a mental picture of the problem to aid in solving. He blames it on video games, but I wonder?

[shance]

7. What a good question. I don't really know.

Would seem like there probably is.

[Odin2005]

8. *Yawn* Smacks of "THINK OF THE CHINLDREN" scaremongering to me.

:boring:

[bryant69]

9. Given human nature, I'm not sure I want kids getting smarter

Smarter kids mean smarter adults and smarter adults mean smarter bastards.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[DarkTirade]

10. There's a fairly simple solution to this.

Turn of the (*&%ing TV.

I grew up in this same technology based world. I had internet access when I was in middle school. Hell, I started programming in BASIC in 3rd grade. But I never had any of these problems. Why? Because my parents didn't have cable. They only let us watch a very small amount of TV. They didn't let us play video games all the time. Sure, we had a computer and we had games for it. But they didn't let us waste all our time doing that. Instead, they filled the house with books and made sure we spent a reasonable amount of time playing outdoors.

I've never had a Red Bull. I've certainly never felt an urge to stick something in my mouth, light it on fire and suck in the smoke. (legal or otherwise) I never cared about brand names. Mostly because my lack of exposure to TV meant that I didn't see corporate advertisements every 10 minutes of my young life. My parents didn't keep caffeine-spiked sugar water in the house very often, so I never became dependant on it.

My parents found the right balance to let us learn how to deal with technology without becoming completely dependant on it. I don't even own a TV right now. The only reason I'd think about getting one in the near future is because I'm an amateur video game designer (hence the learning how to program in 3rd grade :) ) and I may want to start developing games for consoles as well as computers.

And since they taught us how to handle ourselves from a relatively young age, that meant they could trust us once we were older. The first alcoholic beverage I ever had was poured by my parents when I was 18. They figured if I'm old enough to go to college or join the military and die for my country, I'm old enough to handle a glass of wine at Thanksgiving. By the time I went off to college I was starting to be able to appreciate a good wine... when all the other kids around me were going nuts and getting plastered on cheap beer.

I've always had a good, healthy imagination because that imagination was nurtured from a young age. I've always had a higher reading level than all the other kids in school because I read so much. I don't think that would be the case if I'd spent my childhood rotting my brain in front of the TV.

I know by now I probably sound like a bit of a snob... but the funny thing about this is: my family was poor. Not quite below the poverty line. We always managed to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. But that was about all. Most of my childhood was spent without health insurance. The only reason we had computers in the house was because my parents needed them for their jobs. We got the hand-me-downs when they upgraded. If they could have afforded to buy us a Nintendo they might have... but they wouldn't have let us waste all day sitting in front of it.