The first signs of what we are doing to our children are beginning to emerge. People are reporting seeing children stand in front of windows with their fingers pointed at the glass, waving their hands about as if they are trying to do a magic spell. What are they up to, you ask? They are trying to make real life objects behind the window move… you know… the way things move on those little screens we all see them staring into for hours and hours everywhere they go.
Teachers are seeing very young children who have no ability to relate to other human beings on any level. And when they take their electronic gadgets away and replace them with wooden blocks to try to facilitate some actual play… you know… like kids are supposed to be able to do… with imagination… the kids have been seen to hold the blocks in one hand while desperately swiping at the front of the block with the pointer finger of their other hand.
Seriously, people. If you think this is okay, you sort of deserve whatever we as a society end up with in twenty years.
Pouring My Art Out 
I’ve been saying we’re raising a generation of children without imaginations for a long time!
you are just that smart
I think about this a lot, because I see it a lot. I think I am from one of the last generations who benefitted from a bit of technology but it never owned us. I’m still in awe of my Ipod and I didn’t know they are a faux pas now as I am supposed to put music on my phone. But I have all 800 odd albums I have on there and I love recalling how I used to have this massive unit where I had CD’s stored alphabetically and chronologically and used to pick 10 CD’s a day to carry around with me, and this was a daily ritual, putting them back at night and starting again the next day, took me ages to leave the house. So I still cannot believe I have my whole collection on me with the Ipod. I commute with me and my music observing others. I find it quite odd to see everyone on a train on their smartphones. I only use mine for texting, I should probably get a cheaper tariff…. Anyway, I wonder constantly that they are just looking at photos of cats or rubbish on Facebook and never looking around to see the world around them. And then they stop dead on the stairwell or in the exit looking at their phones when they get out of the underground, oblivious to the world trying to move around them. I’ve seen so many near misses with buses, tube trains from people just walking along looking at phones. I’ve sat with friends in the pub and everyone has been on their phone texting other people instead of talking to the people with them, that is infuriating.
We’ve gone too far
If I could go back to my teenage self in 1977 when I was 17, with my phone… I would be a god.
You rarely see them playing outside anymore. We have about 5 feet of snow here and I haven’t seen any forts or tunnels or sleds or snowmen. We would have igloo forts with piles of snowball munitions, tunnels and wars. There would have been arguments and fights over whose driveways were the territory of what enterprising shoveler. Our mothers would have had to drag us inside kicking and screaming to eat and have hot cocoa.
If they don’t know how to interact how will they ever learn to make out. In Japan sex has lost its allure among young people. Maybe we’re on our way to extinction.
well, you don’t pop in often, but when you do, you drop the big, stinky bomb… ha!!!!!
I never related to other kids either. I only had an Atari.
well that is wrong on more than one level then
It was the ’70’s. But still.
I miss the 70’s so much…
The squirrels are bitchy today i see.
it happens now and then
Bad voodoo, Art. We gotta get the kids into the real world.
but electronic babysitters make life so easy… for the parents
You and I were lucky. Our babysitters were a ball and a bike and the other kids in the neighborhood. It seemed so simple, really. If we all hung out in a pack we were safe and knew how to have fun, too.
I miss those days
Kids would probaby argue that they are more connected now than ever with their electronic devices, tweets, text message, Facebook entries, etc. But where they are disconnected is from a reality other than a virtual reality. They are forgetting (or not learning) how to interact with other human beings in a face-to-face, group, or social setting. It’s so much easier for them to be whoever they want to be in the absence of real-world interaction.
they learn no language skills and then become more withdrawn… a vicious cycle.
Oh yes they do. LOL. Ur comment was gr8.
sigh
I am really very happy I dodged this bullet.
the point is that there are millions of these bullets being created as we speak
You mean society can get worse?
count on it
Shit.
where?
Sold it. Never mind.
what did you get for it
Jack shit.
HA!!!!!
mine is currently creatively unpacking the laundry basket behind me…. I don’t think she learned that from a Gadget… so let me go pack it up again… 😉
ha
This is most definitely not ok.
that is what I think
It’s difficult. Technology is clearly fucking kids up in the social ways, but technology does have its benefits – like, increased problem-solving skills, increased creativity and so on.
So where do we draw the line, I don’t know.
Punchin’ out! 😉
I think a small percentage of things available electronically increase creativity… and I doubt most kids are playing those.
Things like Minecraft, Little Big Planet and other puzzle games help pretty directly with creativity, but some studies have even shown that violent, shooting, war games are just as beneficial in terms of children’s thinking.
Too bad they will be unable to express this creativity directly to other human beings
Yeah, but they could come up with the cure for cancer, by folding 3d protein strings in certain ways.
Have a look at – fold.it/
I will just have to take your word for it