Our parents said it to us and we will soon be saying it ourselves; times are changing.
When I was a kid I played outside along with at least 15 others on my street. We rode our bikes, played in mud, went to the park and invented games. When I look around my neighbourhood any day of the week I usually see a ghost town.
Kids are starting from a very young age to prefer to be inside. They want to play video games, watch TV or surf the net. When they want to talk to their friends they use MSN, Facebook, text, phone or Skype. A child has never knocked on my door asking for the kids to play outside. Even when they get together with their closest friends the activity they wish to engage in above all others is video games. Times are changing.
With children growing up with this mindset, I wonder, if when they are older, they will engage in many activities outside of the house. In the world we have created they have little need to step foot outside. Lets look at the following list of typical basic needs and wants:
-Food
-Paying bills/taxes
-Getting an Education
-Working
-Social interaction
-Reproducing
-Exercise
-Entertainment
All of these can be done without ever leaving the house.
We can buy food online and have it delivered by companies like Grocery Gateway. We can do our banking online, receive bills and pay them online, as well as process our tax returns online.
Children can be home schooled, Teens can get their GED online and we can attend many college and university programs online (and this will grow more and more every year). We can get a work from home job either through another company or by starting our own company and we can conduct our business meetings, File sharing or ship a parcel by using various types of technology, all while remaining in our pajamas.
We can fulfill the human need to socialize by using Facebook, Twitter, blogs and various target groups all found online. We can watch TV, movies and play video games as we've always done from home but now we can also shop from home, play a multitude of games online or simply surf the net for hours of entertainment. With a few clicks of a mouse we can see anyplace in the world without having to endure excessive security searches or full body scans. We can also buy home exercise equipment to replace an outdoor run.
We can use technology such as Skype to 'attend' weddings and funerals. Or, we can even deliver a baby at home (depending on the circumstance of course) and then raise that baby in an at home, online world.
The future of our children is going to be very different than the world we once knew. As social norms change to allow for more people to 'connect' or to 'save time' we will see a much more isolated world as time goes on. Change isn't always a good thing.
It's so sad! Have you ever seen that movie Wall-E? It's a really cute movie and alot of it, you can see happening now. I refuse to let my kids get caught up in that crap. So far, so good. They get on the computer maybe 5 times a year, at home, and thats only a math game or something I offer. They do learn computer skills at school, though. We limit them to 2 hours of tv or movies a day, and the boys rarely watch that much. We are lucky in our neighborhood, when its nice out there are usually kids to play with out. They don't have cell phones or tv's in their rooms. And they have to earn video game time with sticker charts. It is nice to save time sometimes, etc. but people really need to stop and realize the small everyday moments they are missing out on. And learn to see the "inconveniences" as adventures.
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