Today I heard a very sad story. A little girl had received one of those stuffed animals that kids “play with” by registering them online on the Internet, after which their toy can “interact” with those of their friends. If I understand the concept correctly, kids then play on computer screens with representations of their toys (which are, as David points out, already representations of real animals, taking abstraction pretty far out, one would think). What happened in this particular case was that the mother had endless trouble registering the toy online, blocked at various levels after putting in information. Well, not “endless,” because eventually, after trying two or three computers and two or three web browsers, she finally achieved the goal, but before it was reached, she said her daughter was standing next to her, quite forlorn, holding her stuffed animal and waiting and waiting until she could “play” with it. This is where I can’t help thinking how it was “back in my day,” when we just sat down on the floor (or on our beds) with our friends and our stuffed animals. We played with the toys directly. Same with games. When we wanted to play a game, we got out the box and took out the board and game pieces, and we were in business. To play baseball or hide-and-seek, we ran around outdoors.
Reading was simple, too, back in my Dark Age childhood. We didn’t have to download texts or go screen-blind or didn’t worry about power sources or program glitches. We just opened a book and dove into the story! In bed, on the bus, under the living room desk, up in the apple tree—the book could go anywhere. Dinosaur that I am, I still read that way most of the time. Human-readable text! What a fabulous concept! It’s so darned easy (not to mention cozy, a top criterion in our household)!
Okay, sorry! Can’t blog any more tonight. Gotta curl up with a book! CUTTINGS FROM A ROCK GARDEN calls!
9 comments:
Exactly how I feel! I want my child to be able to stretch his imagination. How does that happen when the toy does all the playing for you? That's why my son, who's only a year and a half old, has stacks of books already. And he loves them!
Thanks for visiting my site and linking! I'll get you listed on mine once I get a blogroll up and going!
Good to have you aboard, Diane. I'm glad I found your site, too. And I'm happy to be able to say that our little grandsons, 6 and 9 years old, have plenty of books, physical activity, open imaginative play and outdoor life.
Besides, if I relied on technological doodads and gizmos for my lierary nourishment, I would be setting in my den by the "warmth" of empty bookshelves.
And THAT would be sad, z!
Amen to all that! Diane, keep those stacks of books coming for your little one. As the mother of Pamela's aforementioned grandsons, 6 and 9 years old, I can say unequivocably that books are among their very favorite diversions. I could go on all day about my feelings against too much computerized entertainment. One thing I will mention is that I object to the use of video devices in the car on road trips, on the premise that being "bored out of your mind" during those long hours can, quite to the contrary, bring amazing things INTO your mind!
Amen and a big hug to you, Maiya!
Great observation Maiya, I've always hated "bored out of my mind." Riding in a car is an excellent opportunity to connect, video diversions only get in th eway.
Oh, Maiya and z! One of the pleasures of the time-consuming commute I'll have for the next four months (semester) will be looking out the windows, a pleasant winter addition to armchair travels.
I had the same thoughts years ago with Lego software. As cool as it looked, I wouldn't get my kids software that simulates playing with toys. In this case the live play immensely helped their fine motor skills and visualization.
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