From Furbies, to Webkinz, the way toys are made today is just not the same as it was when we were little. You used to be able to be active and hands on with toys rather than just typing on a computer, today’s toys are designed for kids to be in front of a computer the entire time and ignore the world around them.
For those of you who don’t remember what a Furbie was, they were electronic interactive owl-like creatures. Furbies were programmed with hearing, speech, learning and motion capabilities.
Today’s version of the Furbie is Webkinz, a website that allows kids to raise pets online. They give their pet a name, design a virtual room for their pet and play with them online. To me, this is just a way to give kids an opportunity to be lazy.
Today’s generation of youngsters have toys like Leapster and the Vtech Mobi Go, which requires no movement from kids at all!
Don’t get me wrong, I think it is a good idea to have toys that promote education, but, I have a problem when majority of today’s toys involve a child sitting at a computer playing with a keyboard.
When I was younger, I had toys like Skip It, and other toys that actually force you to get up off the couch and be active.
While all of these toys provided a great opportunity for fun, my favorite toy, when I was younger, was my Easy Bake Oven.
I used to throw a fit whenever my mom would not let me use it to create, what I thought, were my delicious pieces of art.
Besides being extremely fun to use, Easy Bake taught basic cooking skills that are needed for life, (Which might be an exaggeration, but from a young age the Easy Bake Oven sparked an interest in cooking for me.)
The truth of the matter is, due to today’s technology, most children’s toys are too advanced.
While it is interesting to see how time has progressed with something as simple as a toy, items kids spend their time with these days are just not as awesome as the objects we spent long days playing with. We used to be able to use our imagination to play, today computers have become a child’s imagination.
