I remember after school or on weekends I would go out with my friends all the time to play. We'd either ride bikes, play sports, invent our own games, but there was always something to do. On occasions we would be inside as well finding ways to occupy ourselves, which included watching TV or playing video games. Overall the bulk of our time, weather permitting, was spent outside. Eventually, we all grew up and moved on, but one would think the trend would continue as we followed the kids before us, and those kids followed the kids before them.
As we left our childhoods, there were replacements for us for a short while, but each year kids kept disappearing to the point where today, there's nobody out at all. Other than a few patches here and there, no kids are out playing with eachother(Parental induced groups like Little League or the Boy Scouts doesn't count). We used slow down traffic and have cars backed up while we played football or wiffleball on the street. Sometimes we would connect with another small group of kids our age and all ride bikes together like a mini-biker gang. Each time we went to one of our houses there were always 5-8 bikes scattered all over the front of the house which caused our parents to complain. Even if we weren't friends with other groups of kids, they would still be out there doing some of the same stuff we were doing.
Families are still producing children, so there has to be some other explanation of why there aren't kids any outside anymore. We had the videos games in Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and Super Nintendo, so it can't be that. We also had access to TV and Cable TV, so although there weren't as many channels as there is today, I don't see that as the anchor keeping them inside and away from eachother. Kids are no more in danger today being outside than they were nearly 20 years ago, and I seriously doubt parents are keeping them locked indoors to do homework and study constantly. The only item left that it can be has to be the internet. We never had this as an option and it was only in our teenage years that AOL dialup came into play, but that time we weren't going to be playing hide-and-go seek anymore.
On a bright and warm afternoon after school lets out are kids simply spending the whole day in front of a computer? If one kid goes over to another kid's house, do they both share the same computer or perhaps sit on the couch and stare at each of their iPhones for a few hours? Do they spend all their time making fun of someone else's Facebook page? What can be so interesting to keep them away from playing like normal children should?
Saturday mornings used to be dominated by cartoons from the early morning hours all the way to mid-day. Most of the broadcast channels were airing these cartoons, which contained storylines, detailed animation, good quality theme music, and they were there to teach us lessons. I still flip around the channels on Saturday morning just to get a sense of what passes as cartoon these days, and its quite sad. About one, maybe two 'broadcast' stations show a few cartoons, not nearly on as many channels and not nearly the entire morning which I used to get. Even when I came home from school on weekends, towards the afternoon into early evening there were some stations airing cartoons. These days those same stations are airing adult talk shows and other content not geared towards children. The animation of these cartoons is all computerized and looks cheaply put together, nowhere near the craftmanship that went into the cartoons we had in the 80's and early 90's. In addition to playing, have kids abandoned cartoons as well which has caused the networks to air other programing instead during those timeslots? I know there are multiple channels dedicated to cartoon programing on cable/satillite TV, but I find it hard to believe that's the only reason the networks cut back on them. If kids were watching it on the network, it would be making money for them and they wouldn't be willing to dump it in favor of adult content.
Toys have taken a gigantic step back as well. In addition to scanning Saturday morning cartoon, I also pass by toy aisles now and then just to see what is being offered to kids, and the current options are awful. I try my best to put my kid hat back to evaluate them on and I can't see any way to have interest with most of the items on the shelves. The action figures are too big, nearly a foot tall, you can't handle that. An action figure should be about the size of a kid's hand, perhaps a few inches more, but that's it. The toy guns are also a joke. When we had toy guns they looked like real guns and made for a better playing experience, the toy guns today aren't shaped like actual guns, plus are painted in bright orange or neon green...quite boring. When we were kids and had our toy guns, we knew to not aim it at a cop, I can't see why kids today wouldn't be able to follow suit. Has being born into the cell phone and internet age made them that dumb?
Having high-quality cartoons after school and on Saturday mornings, having good toys to play with, and finally having friends to go outside to play with is all what made being a kid great. Especially the playing with friends part, those were probably some the best times of my life with a long list of memories to look back upon. What are kids today going to look back on twenty years from now, "Hey, remember the time you came over my house and we went online?". It's also the interaction with friends at a young age which helps us socialize and shape our personalities moving forward, can an iPhone do better? Is it alright to go from kindergarden to adulthood with nothing in between? What kind of mindless-soulless drones are going to be running the world and what kind of lame future do we have to look forward to? It's seems my age group was about the last to experience a childhood before the long ringing tone of AOL Dialup came into existence, so with that I'm happy I was born just in the nick of time...
As we left our childhoods, there were replacements for us for a short while, but each year kids kept disappearing to the point where today, there's nobody out at all. Other than a few patches here and there, no kids are out playing with eachother(Parental induced groups like Little League or the Boy Scouts doesn't count). We used slow down traffic and have cars backed up while we played football or wiffleball on the street. Sometimes we would connect with another small group of kids our age and all ride bikes together like a mini-biker gang. Each time we went to one of our houses there were always 5-8 bikes scattered all over the front of the house which caused our parents to complain. Even if we weren't friends with other groups of kids, they would still be out there doing some of the same stuff we were doing.
Families are still producing children, so there has to be some other explanation of why there aren't kids any outside anymore. We had the videos games in Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and Super Nintendo, so it can't be that. We also had access to TV and Cable TV, so although there weren't as many channels as there is today, I don't see that as the anchor keeping them inside and away from eachother. Kids are no more in danger today being outside than they were nearly 20 years ago, and I seriously doubt parents are keeping them locked indoors to do homework and study constantly. The only item left that it can be has to be the internet. We never had this as an option and it was only in our teenage years that AOL dialup came into play, but that time we weren't going to be playing hide-and-go seek anymore.
On a bright and warm afternoon after school lets out are kids simply spending the whole day in front of a computer? If one kid goes over to another kid's house, do they both share the same computer or perhaps sit on the couch and stare at each of their iPhones for a few hours? Do they spend all their time making fun of someone else's Facebook page? What can be so interesting to keep them away from playing like normal children should?
Saturday mornings used to be dominated by cartoons from the early morning hours all the way to mid-day. Most of the broadcast channels were airing these cartoons, which contained storylines, detailed animation, good quality theme music, and they were there to teach us lessons. I still flip around the channels on Saturday morning just to get a sense of what passes as cartoon these days, and its quite sad. About one, maybe two 'broadcast' stations show a few cartoons, not nearly on as many channels and not nearly the entire morning which I used to get. Even when I came home from school on weekends, towards the afternoon into early evening there were some stations airing cartoons. These days those same stations are airing adult talk shows and other content not geared towards children. The animation of these cartoons is all computerized and looks cheaply put together, nowhere near the craftmanship that went into the cartoons we had in the 80's and early 90's. In addition to playing, have kids abandoned cartoons as well which has caused the networks to air other programing instead during those timeslots? I know there are multiple channels dedicated to cartoon programing on cable/satillite TV, but I find it hard to believe that's the only reason the networks cut back on them. If kids were watching it on the network, it would be making money for them and they wouldn't be willing to dump it in favor of adult content.
Toys have taken a gigantic step back as well. In addition to scanning Saturday morning cartoon, I also pass by toy aisles now and then just to see what is being offered to kids, and the current options are awful. I try my best to put my kid hat back to evaluate them on and I can't see any way to have interest with most of the items on the shelves. The action figures are too big, nearly a foot tall, you can't handle that. An action figure should be about the size of a kid's hand, perhaps a few inches more, but that's it. The toy guns are also a joke. When we had toy guns they looked like real guns and made for a better playing experience, the toy guns today aren't shaped like actual guns, plus are painted in bright orange or neon green...quite boring. When we were kids and had our toy guns, we knew to not aim it at a cop, I can't see why kids today wouldn't be able to follow suit. Has being born into the cell phone and internet age made them that dumb?
Having high-quality cartoons after school and on Saturday mornings, having good toys to play with, and finally having friends to go outside to play with is all what made being a kid great. Especially the playing with friends part, those were probably some the best times of my life with a long list of memories to look back upon. What are kids today going to look back on twenty years from now, "Hey, remember the time you came over my house and we went online?". It's also the interaction with friends at a young age which helps us socialize and shape our personalities moving forward, can an iPhone do better? Is it alright to go from kindergarden to adulthood with nothing in between? What kind of mindless-soulless drones are going to be running the world and what kind of lame future do we have to look forward to? It's seems my age group was about the last to experience a childhood before the long ringing tone of AOL Dialup came into existence, so with that I'm happy I was born just in the nick of time...
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