Technology has overrun our everyday life. In school, we use it for quizlet and duolingo or for typing Internal Assessment long articles for peers to edit. At home, we post cute selfies or watch Netflix (because, let’s get real, no one watches television anymore). However, can you remember a time where you couldn’t press the home button on your iPhone to get Siri to find information for you? Children from the 1980s know the horror of these times because they lived it. They were the last generation to know what it was like not to have the internet all their life. This point in time is when “good old fashioned childhood” died out.
Before the internet existed, everyone read and talked to others to obtain the information they needed, then the world was introduced to the first commercial internet dial-up access provider in 1990. Anybody with the cash to spare purchased a computer and invested in dial-up internet. With the rapid increase in new products and now spoiled children, the likelihood of having an old fashioned childhood is gone. Kids these days don’t go outside and play anymore, they stay inside and tap on keyboards and iPads.
One of many things kids these days are missing out on from a good childhood is playing outside with the neighbors. I myself have few experiences in playing with my neighbors, but I’ve seen my little sister grow up and I have noticed the huge differences between her when she was five and now that she’s nine. Within four years, my sister has gone from playing outside and bugging the neighbors to staying inside and tapping on her iPad mini.
With the sudden decrease in human interaction among children, it is more difficult for them to identify human emotions. Studies have shown how kids without any electronic devices who interacted with other people had a better understanding of how someone felt. Scientists believe that the more time kids spend using any sort of electronic device, the less likely they’ll be able to interact with others properly.
Something is being done wrong if the decrease in human interaction starts in children. Children should be exploring the unlimitedness of their imagination through making new friends, making mud pies, and coloring outside the lines. They should not be worrying about what’s going on in the world and should be more worried about whether they should bike around the neighborhood or play basketball in the park. Children shouldn’t be influenced by modern society, yet they are as, they’re glued to the television and they beg their parents for the next Kidz Bop CD, or a iPad. It’s hard to visualize this as the future of generations to come, but it can change, we just have to take that step forward out of the house and influence our younger siblings to push on the pedal of that rusty old bike in the garage.
