Are we depriving our children of the joy of real life by forcing them into a virtual reality?

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Are we depriving our children of the joy of real life by forcing them into a virtual reality?

I just spent a few hours watching a PBS Frontline special “Growing Up Online.” It is a documentary about the wired society of today and how children have adapted to it.

The point was repeatedly made that the contemporary kids have no life experience in a non-connected world. Their ONLY reality is one that exists in a virtual universe.

I feel that we are depriving this generation by not curtaining their online activities to a reasonable percentage of time.

Those of us in our 50’s and older that were raised without most of the technology at least have the ability to differentiate between the grand and glorious real world around us and the contrived realm of cyberspace.

Because they have never known life without a “device” in hand, the children of today are unable to make that critical distinction.

As a child, I used to love to “go for a ride” with the family. I marveled at everything outside the windshield of our 1960 Ford Station Wagon.

Now kids are “entertained” in the car with DVD’s, texting, and the Internet.

I fear that if we don’t “pull the plug” soon, an entire generation will be lost.

The connected world should supplement real life, and not replace it. It should enrich our experiences rather than provide an inferior substitution for genuine life experience.

The future of our species may depend on it!

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Originally posted at: Coweta Fayette Real Estate & Newnan Homes for sale blog by Richard Weisser of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Metro Brokers: Are we depriving our children of the joy of real life by forcing them into a virtual reality?

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61 Comments on Are we depriving our children of the joy of real life by forcing them into a virtual reality?

SEP

2010

Very interesting - I don't know if this generation will have the social skills to interact with others when they get older. Unfortunately these devices are here to stay and parents need to control their use.

Laurie

Richard, It's a totally different world... between safety concerns with letting your kids play unsupervised in the neighborhood, to the wired world, to more structured sports and activities that I could ever conceive of as a kid...it's just a matter of time until Star Trek's Holodecks are standard equipment for a home at the rate technology is advancing!

Richard, i've read a number of blogs where the parents or grand parents are 'shutting' the tech & connected world down for the day so kids can understand what it's like to participate in a world without it. It's mandatory if you're a parent & trying to give your kids exposure to true living without the extensions...i'm all for it. They especially need to learn to socialize and interact without their devices- a lack of social skills seems to be more prevalent now...is it attributed to the entertainment connected world?

I suspect today's kids will be fine * I was NOT damaged by Rock n Roll and parents thought ELVIS was the end of civilization!!

Laurie...

Or are the social skills of the future actually those that deal with online interaction? The use of devices is likely to become more pervasive as time goes on/ I'm no Luddite but it's scary. Thanks so much.

Liz and Bill...

The Internet is a dangerous place to. Graphic sex and violence at the push of a button and most parents do not supervise online activities. It's hard to know what is best, I;m glad my kids are grown! Thank you very much for jumping in so early!

But Richard, go back 50 years before the 50's and what do you see...no Ford station wagons. .just horses and you were limited to most likely stay within a 10 mile radius all your life.

We are evolving as time passes. . what you may consider a generation lost, I see it as evolving and having the world literally on your hands.

and 100 years from now?.. our children's children

The world maybe too small for them and they will develop new habits that maybe considered to radical in the surface but...like I said, I believe it is just a part of us going forward.

Richard, I am laughing here. In my teens I was plucked from a stuffy MA lifestyle with all the conveniences to the middle of nowhere, no power unless we generated it, no phones, 100 square miles of ranch in AZ. I managed, and believe me I was like a fish out of water in the beginning. Young people adapt I believe. But we do have to pry those devices out of their hands and get them outside.

I think it is a 2 fold issue. Convenience to cram something in their hands or in front of their face to keep them busy because.... life is way to hectic and stressful for the adults!

But then again, what do I know?

Today's children have been brought up totally different from past generations....they are technology oriented.....my seven year old granddaughter can text.....she's very literate and texting helps her develop the ability to express herself in writing at a very early age....some children are just learning to read in the first and second grade....all of my grandchildren are very well versed on computers and dsi and other electonic devices....I think it's terrific....it doesn't interfere with our family interaction.

Richard, I'm beginning to think that we are plugged in way too much. Kinda reminiscent of Seager & Evan's "In the Year 2525"...

Good morning Richard,

I feel there are some kids too dependent on their hand held devices but I look at my grandchildren and marvel at their active lifestyles and rich love for experiencing everything and anything! Their social skills are amazing and their depth of understanding of their world around them is far greater than when I was that age. My two biggest fears are: the debt our country is leaving for them to deal with and will we strip their entrepreneural spirit to survive in the process of redistributing the wealth!

Richard, the older generation has been complaining about the younger generation since history has been recorded. I don't know whether today's kids need more socialization or not. They are certainly ahead of us in being connected.

Richard, we have won a small battle by insisting on dinner at the table together phones off , no TV just time to re-connect after a day at school & work.

Richard - this is so true. I see young children mastering their parents cell phone with the games and totally lost in the device instead of interacting with others. I am not sure if we can have a solution for this but certainly it is something we should be awared of....

Very thought provoking Richard. I still try to get my 15 year old out of the house, off the computer, and go for a bike ride. But these days, I'm facing a lot more resistance. I fear that's the case with a lot of kids these days.

I have the pleasure of watching my nine year old neighbor from time to time. She's a bright kid, but completely addicted to games, computers and anything else that can occupy her. I've been introducing her to board games like Monopoly and enjoying the conversations with her while we play. She's awkward at conversation, but then again, she's practically living behind a computer screen.

Richard: The point of your blog is very important to me as the mother of 13 and 9 year old boys. I am amazed by the lack of parental control over their children's online lives. There is nothing wrong with setting limits and the kids flourish for it. Unfortunately, for many parents, it is far easier to have their kids absorbed in cyber space. I heard recently that most kids prefer texting to phone calls because talking on the phone is "too confrontational".

Are we depriving our children of the joy of real life by forcing them into a virtual reality?

YES! Time to spend face/talk time with our families. REALITY is more appealing than virtual.

Not only deprived... but actually hurt by the fact thay have lost the art of communicationa and dreaming. They are given everything and are not given the chance to learn and explore. I would NOT trade today's world for yesterday's!

Richard - As a parent this seems to be something that's out of control. My boys are involved with soccer and love playing outside, so their game and computer time are very limited.

My children range in age from 3 to 17. I don't "let" them have cell phones for anything more than an emergency use until they can pay for it themselves. This is partly due to budget reasons, but also because I don't think its good for kids to walk around with their nose stuck to their phone texting away. So far my 17 year old is the only one to have a cell phone, but he also has a job at a fast food place.

They don't have their own computers (well they have the cast off computer that I used for work a few years ago, but its hardly worthy of being called a computer anymore) but they are allowed to use ours when available (which is not very often) and they use them at school and the library. I think its a pretty good balance of time. They are active, ride bikes, hang out with friends, etc.

I also refuse to put a DVD player in the car. Music, books or something to write with is sufficient, IMO.

Now my 3 year old...that boy is probably pretty representative of how tech savy his generation is going to be. The only thing preventing him from fully navigating the computer and internet is his inablity to read! Given half a chance he turns it on, pulls up firefox, mangages to get to my Facebook account and clicks on games and is then content to play computer games. He can't quite figure some of them out, his hands aren't big enough or coordinated enough to do it on my laptop, and my friends think its quite funny that my high score on such and such game is "10." LOL

Richard the title or your post could be Are we depriving our children deprived of the joy of real life by forcing them into living in a virtual reality? The question does not only apply to kids. I imagine the number of adults glued to technological devices is just as astronomical. Look at us. We're prime examples.

Featured @ Club Chaos

you are correct! the kids actually know how to work this stuff better than we do alot of times. my friend's 4 yr old is a total techie right along with her 2yr old. unbelievable. spend quality time. no pc's phones and video games.

Hey Richard,

There are many days where I feel like this is taking over my life. I thought the internet was supposed to make our lives easier?

Richard - We limit our kids to a specific amount of time each day for "screens" of all kinds (internet, video games, etc.). I don't want them to be ruled by virtual reality.

HI RICHARD! I just read a similiar article in Women's Day magazine .. they said part of the reason was too much electronic time - and the other part - too much structure. Children really are deprived and parents don't even know it! I grew up knowing playgrounds inside and out, digging tunnels in sand for hours, and just playing and being a free-spirited kid with no worries. I'm passing that on to my daughter - and I'm thrilled when I ask, "What do you want to do?" and she says, "Anything outside"! Thanks for writing about this! -- Gabrielle

Oh, Richard. I grew up with an out-house. Please don't take my flusher away.

I agree that children need experiences that don't involve being "plugged in" but I also think they'll adapt and be fine, just as I have adapted to flushers.

I usually manage a sleep-over for my 3 grandsons, ages 5 and 7 about every other week. They are not allowed to bring their games and Grandpa and me refuse to have Wii's and all that "stuff" in our home. We take long walks, search for ghost crabs on the beach after dark, have craft time, talk to each other, eat out on the porch no matter how cold or hot it is, build forts, climb trees, and they go to bed exhausted and beg for another sleep-over the next week.

They'll be OK.

Richard, kids will survive ok, but you are not putting that game or wireless device idea genie back in the bottle.

Richard, I work with the teenagers at our church. This is definitely a "wired" generation. Their ability to relate to one another and to adults is...sad.

Great post!

It's not 50 and older. It's 40 and older. I got online when I was 31 and I'm now 45. But you are right. I am seeing kids not socializing with each other as they did years ago. I would be out in the summertime from after breakfast until lunch then it was back out until dinner. After dinner I was told to come home when it gets dark. I would make mud pies for hours and climb trees with my friends. Riding bikes all day and skateboarding. The good 'ol days.

And I also find that adults would rather socialize by chatting, email and texting. God forbid you pick up a phone and "touch" someone these days.

Years ago I read a quote that said "TV is to the mind what potato chips are to the body".

Today we can insert more electronic devices to that statement.

Jason

Hi Richard,

Parenting is key.

I read a great article when my kids were little, stating that kids NEED boredom. Without boredom they have zero incentive to develop their own ideas. I agreed, and made my kids play outside for at least two hours per day if the weather was not intolerable. I also made and doled out "TV tokens" good for two hours' worth of 1/2 hours of TV for the week. Once they "spent" the tokens, no more TV until next "payday." Once they got older and into the electronics, I never limited their use except for reason of cost. Other than that, the kids self-regulate. Do I reserve the right to reduce or remove the electronics? Of course, and they know it. Never had to do that. Results so far are great: my kids are "high honors" students, involved in sports, work on weekends and all summer and save up for the things they want. Parenting is key.

~ Lin

Nice to have realtors watching thoughtful, PBS programming. Great post.

There are so many different ways to view this "problem." On one hand, they won't experience riding bikes, playing baseball and tag with their friends, and will never learn to "just rub dirt in it", meaning if you scrape up your knee or elbow, just rub some dirt in it to stop the bleeding (or maybe it was just me and my friends doing that so we didn't have to go home and have mom put Bactine in it). On the other hand, they'll be good at video games, won't have to worry about sunburns or mosquitos, and will be able to communicate solely over the internet. Obviously 2 extremes, but I'm sure you know what I mean. I have one daughter that doesn't like video games (she's not good at them, doesn't want to practice), wants to go for walks and bike rides, and loves to read. Another daughter reads only when forced, is a whiz at video games, and wants to stay home alone and watch tv when the family goes for walks. This daughter is 7. lol. We do have to limit her tv, internet and video game time, or that's all she'll do. The question is... what's too much, what's not enough, and what's just right? Too much and social skills (the kind that most of us know and love) could disappear. Not enough and it could jeopardize their skill at interacting with others, however we'll be interacting in the future. Maybe we should start a new generation? We'll call it the Everything In Moderation Generation.

"I fear that if we don’t “pull the plug” soon, an entire generation will be lost."

Technology, change, scientific advancement, wars, and many other things all have one thing in common: we don't realize the long-term impact until it's mostly too late to do anything substantial about it, and I think the same is true with your post. I am fortunate that my two kids are in love with sports and the real world, and spend a ton of time outside in the natural world and it dwarfs their online time. This seems to be the exception to the rule, but I look back at my unstructured upbringing where things weren't organized and planned for me, we just went out and figured it out, made up our own rules, and figured out how to get along <and sometimes not>, and I wish my kids could have that kind of childhood, plus some of the benefits or a smattering of online, but overall, so far so good.

I just read a piece on yahoo about teachers and what challenges their profession has. One of the tasks being a mediator, when kids have frustrations and hurt feelings because of each other's behavior in a conflict. Children seem to be less able to deal with their feelings, especially negative ones, because of lack of socializing. This is sad...

One of the interesting facts that came out was that scientific testing demonstrated the the subjects were not as adept at multi-tasking as they though. The brain can only do one thing at a time, and the distraction led to a decrease in overall performance.

While I see the 'up' side to all the new technology, I also see the 'down' side.

Kids don't know how to spell because everything is abbreviate. Kids wan and get "instant" satisfaction. Just some of the down side. They don't want to or know how to interact with people. I think it should be used in moderation, like everything else.

Patricia

I too have this concern and feel a bit of sadness (and some misgiving) for what the virtual world is robbing the current generation. My 3 nieces ( 16, 15, 14) all text incessantly and even when they are hanging out together, they are texting other friends and surfing the web. I wonder if the 3 are really relating to each other or are they just sitting next to each other. I have young nephews who play video games when they come together. I haven't seen them go outside and play traditional sports. of course they play sports on Wii. But I imagine playing baseball on Wii is not the same as playing real baseball. I feel that the life lessons and education that youngsters learn from participating in "real" life activities are missed. Very concerning.

I don't believe there's a substitute for face to face, human contact where people are talking in real conversations versus texting or emailing. There's so much facial expression and body language that emotion icons can't convey. There's a sixth sense, intuition, and gut feeling that we humans have that are so critical to use in relationships.

I wonder what the next generation will be like? Less relating and more cybergistically (I don't believe this is a real word but I'm sure everyone know what I mean) "connected" like the Borgs in Star Trek?

Richard: As with anything, there are pros and cons to all the technology. Too much of almost anything is not good. In my kids' day, it was Nintendo or Atari. We were mean parents and said "no" to playing on it often. They got more than enough of it when they visited other homes. They found other things to do when at home. Legos. Reading. Model airplane building. Music. Sports. All sorts of things. Now they're 26 and 31, and they've both thanked us for not letting them veg out in front of the game sets and TV. I take that as a thumbs-up for how we handled it. Kids can be exposed to the technology and know how to use it. That's good. They just shouldn't be addicted or incapable of living without it. Just my opinion ... but parents need to know when to say NO ... and then say it and mean it.

Gene

Gene,

I think you are the model parent. Kudos to you!

Leanna

Richard,

Is the world that we live in real? Or is it only a construct of our subconscious minds woven by the machines that control our virtual reality?

Have we arrived in the age of the Matrix?

When I read your post i think of the movie Goodwill Hunting when Robin Williams sits down and tells Matt Damon "Sure you can recite a book written about the Sistine chapel but you cant tell me what it smell like or tell me you stood there and looked up at the ceiling.

No doubt, the information age has a lot of benefits. I have connected to old lost friends and been able to keep in close contact with relatives who live far away. The Internet allows me to be a part of their daily lives. However, you are right about kids not having experiences except those derived from technology.

My plan is to take my girls to see the world when they aren't in school. And not just tourist destinations but third world countries so they can learn first hand how other people live and that not everybody has comforts in their lives. I hope that this along with parental control of "TV or Internet" time will keep balance in their lives.

What a great post!

Richard, right you are. What's apalling to me is the fact that kids today don't have to figure out math problems with a pencil and paper and haven't had to for a lot of years now. My kids several years ago came home with a calculator and it freaked me out. What do they do if they need to figure out something and there's no calculator or computer and only them and their brain and some paper and a pen/pencil.....?? They will just sit there and drool and go OH Woe is Me! They are screwed.

Ever notice how few kids are out playing - I'm actually SURPRISED when I see a few kids playing outside... It is a culture change that I'm not sure most are totally aware of what the repercussions might be...

While I have been known to sit with the kids and watch a few videos on YouTube, they are quite disconnected from the virtual world. There is no time for them to be fully imersed between school and sports and Cub Scouts... Kids need to run and play.

My first career was in nursing. As an RN I saw a lot of changes in what is now known as the health care field. Granted, technology has allowed us to do marvelous things but let me share something with you that happened in the 90's. Working in the cardiac unit one evening, a younger RN came to get me in a panic. The machine was giving her an extremely low reading of the patient's blood pressure (fresh heart) but the rest of the signs and symptoms did not match. She did not know what to do. (She had been prepared to titrate the IV medicine up to raise the blood pressure which would have been a very bad thing for the patient as he did not need it.) I took the patient's blood pressure manually and told her the machine was malfunctioning.

This is only one of many, many examples of the younger generation being dependent upon machines. Someone, in an earlier comment, mentioned calculators. Most of the RN's and MD's coming out of school now don't even remember the formulas because they don't use them; they plug numbers into machines. When the power goes out, and it does; they don't know what to do. When the machines malfunction, and they do; the new generation does not know what to do.

The other part to this very long comment has to do with the way we use our brains to think. I have noticed that many of the people who have grown up with our modern technology tend to not think creatively when problem solving. They tend to stop pursuing a solution sooner than people who did not grow up with technology. Our brains need to be exercised to function and grow. If we don't use the parts that multiply numbers and spell words, what will happen to those parts of the brain?

I have a 6 year old grandchild that I was thinking just this weekend how nice it was that she was sitting quietly and entertaining herself with her learning computer. Then stopped myself and analyzed what I was just thinking ... and realized I needed to rethink that!

SEP

2010

Richard,

Well said. I limit my childrens (9 and 12) time on all electronics and I am constantly telling them to play outside. Its so ironic, the other parents in the neighborhood give their children everything; all the electronics / newest gadgets on the store shelves but with all the gadgets the neighbor kids still come over and hang out with my kids when they are outside playing. At times its difficult to force them all outside to play but its nice having our home as the hang out place when they all talk .... out load not via text messages to eachother.

huge concern for good parenting! Kids need to go out and play and just be kids. Our 'plugged in' society leaves little room for breathing deeply!

Political Commentary:

When the anti-drilling, anti-nuclear power plants, anti-river dams, anti-coal radicals get their way, and when the foreign oil powers cut off the oil supply to the United States, there will be not be enough electricity in America to power all these Tech Devices.

What will this generation y or x or z do then?

Hmmmm. I was on-line in my mid to late twenties. I think I was about 28 when I first started getting email and surfing for journal articles on-line. By the time I was about 33 years of age - the library at Columbia and Albert Einstein was no longer the be- all and end-all. But in those early days - being online was primarily for WORK. I got hooked up at home ( I didn't live on-campus) because it became essential for me to access my email - from the principle investigator of my lab and access to the library 24/7 by the time I was 34.

But the odd thing is this: for me it was all for my work until well after the year 2000. The social stuff started in about 2001-2002. So for the most part - it really is about 9-10 years old.

The fact is that I do see kids more disengaged from the world. I teach a class and I have to tell them "cell phones off, computers OFF-LINE - if you want to take notes on your laptop fine - but nothing on-line." I have to ask "should I have to tell them this?" It's like agony for them to be away from it for a 3 hour lecture. A bit scary.

Richard: I can make the data on this subject stand up and dance to everything from the Viennese Waltz (scandalous) to Kansas City Rag (scandalous) to whatever it is that my kids listen to today (really scandalous). Human brains and their capabilities change and develop over time and in response to different conditions. Can you track a deer through the forest? Decide when to plant winter wheat? Find water in a desert? No, but you can write a blog and make phone calls. The kid who spent hundreds of hours tinkering with a car engine in the 1950s is no different from my kid upstairs who is debugging Linux partitions or whatever it is he does. It's the overemphasis on intense social involvement that is worrisome, but certain teens (not mine) would be doing that anyways in a different way...

I think that one of the big differences between some of the previous fad behaviors is that we didn't play Elvis, the Beatles, or other rock music in the classroom.

There was a very clear distinction between learning and entertainment. I don't necessarily subscribe to the theory of learning while being entertained, and the research seems to back me up.

I took my nephew to a college campus visit at my alma matter a few years ago and the campus, which I recalled as an oasis of pretty young co eds, frisbee games and thousands of us socializing, was now a ghost town. All those pretty co eds and frisbee players were online in their dorms.

They are missing out.

You make some good points although some of them sound like they come from fear of change. People probably felt the same way when telephones came out and you didnt have to see people face to face or when email became popular and you didnt have to talk them on the phone. Evolution will continue whether we like it or not and right now technology is the main shift.

Some parents limit tv, maybe some will have internet off days also as a thought.

I couldn't agree with you more! There's a time & place for everything and when I started hearing that teenagers nowadays go to bed with their cell phones in their hands because their friends text them in the middle of the night... well, that's just way overboard. I'd be confiscating the phone after 10 PM. If parents don't start setting limits, I can't help but wonder what the next generation will be like. Oh, and giving ribbons to the losing team is another thing I take issue with. That's just setting up kids to fail as adults.

Richard, I didn't comment on this initially because I felt that the premise was simply that we have become our parents and we're all going to gripe and complain about what the next generation is doing to "damn their-selves to hell" (so to speak).

But a comment on my last post to my blog about disappearing buyers made me think of this post and how it relates.

Before, if a buyer whom you had been working with decided that now wasn't really the time for them to buy, they would sit down with you (or call, etc) and let you know. Now, it's becoming all too common for them to simply stop responding to anything from you, instead. When this happens, almost exclusively, it is a younger buyer.

There may be some correlation there.

SEP

2010

Richard, I'm a "Digital Native" and I don't think you're being a grumpy old guy at all. I think there's real neurological damage being done at a level we're not even aware of yet. Most of my friends complain about this a lot, especially in terms of automatic and compulsive use of Facebook and/or Twitter.

Personally, I hate phones so I'm fine with the fact that Facebook has become the primary means of communication among my friends.

I am much less fine with the fact it's replaced "Real Life," too.

FEB

i think learning the technology is extremely important because this is where the world is heading. however parents do need to control the time that is spent on games/computers...etc. AND Deeply express how important socializing and spending time with family really is. Family time should come first.

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