Thanks to 'internet explorer encountering a problem', I will attempt this post again.
Children play as a mean of learning about and inderstanding the world they live in.
To learn to fulfill adult roles later in life.
I found it quite interesting reading through a book on the history of New Zealand toys to see that in the earlier days, toys consisted mostly of things like pull along carts, simple wooden blocks, steam trains, dolls, little irons and stoves and tea sets, spades, rocking horses. The most common mode of transport from these days was by horse and cart, girls grew up to become mothers and fulfill domestic tasks, boys grew up to farm land, work in the post office, work in a mine. This was the reality of their adult roles and so toys were designed to equip and prepare them for this. They were miniaturised versions of what one was to own in adulthood, what they needed to posess to live their lives.
So, if the kids of today are going to grow up to be part of a heavily technologically influenced world, carrying out technologically influenced roles in adulthood, then isnt it fair for them to have toys that teach the skills to survive in such a society?
Would these children be deprived if we started to take away the technological toys they currently have?
I could now slip in a bit about consumerism. It is true that adults design and make the toys that children play with. So are we programming them to BECOME technologically dependent?
I feel uneasy about the loss of interaction with the physical real world that not only children, but adults as well, are experiencing today.
Everything exists in the real physical world, nothing exists outside of the physical reality of the world. We still live IN the real world, regardless of how heavily technology influences our lives. Everything we make is based upon what we know, and what we know is what we experience through our senses.
Yet, how many senses need to be engaged and activated for something to be deemed 'real'?
Is seeing something enough to be deemed 'real'? Or just hearing something?
What happens when what we can experience sensually is constructed, mediated, digitalised?
Some sort of 4-D experience?
Think of the Motion Master at Rainbows End. Imagine that but combining and including elements of hot and cold air/water, textures, to the already heightened experience of viewing images while sitting in a moving seat.
Humans have a fundamental need to find out how the world around us works, so what is it then, when we figure it out, alter it, and present it as something else?
Is this still real?
Why do we feel the need to constanly remake, improve, and better everything?
To constanly be looking for an easier, faster way of doing something.
Is this just part of being human?
To seek ways of making living a comfortable and stable life more easily achievable?
Technological advancements of the Industrial Revolution meant precious leisure time became available to all classes. So tasks that are 'neccessary' to do are done faster and faster to maximise this valued leisure time, and thus become seen as chores; unenjoyable and non-desirable ways to spend time.
I feel that as we become more and more dependent on technology to carry out tasks in our lives, we lose essential life skills. We become dependent on objects to carry out functions that one used to have to learn a certain skill set to perform. Think of how many instruments now clutter a kitchen. The omelette pan, the pie maker, the popcorn popper, the egg poacher, the pancake pan, the 8 slice toaster with crumpet option. Needs are created to replace skills. Often these do make tasks easier, but is it neccessary? What happens when one of these objects fails to fulfill its purpose?
Will you refrain from making an omelette until you get another omelette pan? Because you certainly can't use the pancake pan or the fat-eliminating grill pan for an omelette.
Perhaps this is just another case of 'the world is flat isnt it?'
Perhaps I am being a technology snob. Resisting change for what I know and what is familiar.
But what else so I have to go by?
I do not deny that technology doesn’t have a place in our world and in our lives. It has done more good for us than it has done bad; so far. But I dont think we should let it influence our lives to the point where we are incapable of functioning without a device that we have become dependent on.
I have this horrible image of the teenager at school who cannot be consoled because he/she has left their beloved mobile phone at home.
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