Raúl Santos
An interesting point of view, on which I’ve been pondering for some time. I no longer see kids playing catch or hide-and-seek these days. They don’t play with marbles, they don’t fall and hurt their knees when running from the old lady they stole those juicy apples from. They don’t know what it is to be a kid. Did we kill childhood?
I saw this one on Slashdot:
Top children's authors, including best-seller Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials), have written an open letter to the British Government claiming that consumer electronics have brought about the death of childhood. They say that children desperately need 'real play (as opposed to sedentary, screen-based entertainment), first-hand experience of the world they live in'. The letter writers also state that children have lost their imaginations because 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.' The article asks, 'is modern life too fast for the supple human mind? Do children have a rev counter we're red-lining by exposing them to so much input?