Praying for the Youth
Young people have been on my heart this week. And I’ve been praying that the decisions we make that affect them will really be for their betterment and not for ours. What set me off has been the articles I have been reading on Interactive & Digital Media. The buzz here at work has to do with how IDM is the next big thing – or as my more savvy colleagues would say, the big thing that is happening while other dinosaurs like me are sleeping…
So why does it worry me? Because if it is true that more than half our children are plugged into the world of gaming and that the way they learn is very different from the way the adults do, then I worry about its implications; not on economics, which is where all the attention seems to be, but on human relationships. I wonder what would be the effect on the youngster who is no longer watching violence on TV or the movies but actually participating in wreaking destruction as a player? I remember how Owen’s War Poems didn’t touch some of my students - because they had seen worse on TV or the movies. Words on a page did not move them for they had seen worse graphic images. But now, the young are no longer passive viewers, but perpetrators, the ones doing the virtual killing and maiming and being rewarded for it. What kind of emotional distancing would result from this?
And the thrill of young people being able to multi-task at what is called ‘twitch speed’ (personally speaking that sounds rather epileptic J). What of it? What impact would that have, if we cater to it in the classroom? Would the young then come to expect that the classroom must offer them multi-sensory experiences? That any experience that does not give them an answer or response immediately would be abandoned while they go in search of another? Then what of the value of ‘delayed gratification’ that Goleman was talking of? And what about the ones who are slow to talk? Would anyone have patience to listen? What about the value of reflection? The pleasure that comes out of teasing meaning out of the written word?
I feel I am on the cusp of the passing away of a way of life and the beginning of another. I wonder if all soon-to-be-50s feel this. Perhaps I am an alarmist. But I worry for the young who would be swept away by the speed, for the young who would not feel the pleasure of being immersed in a book, the solitude of being with one’s own thoughts, the ease of relationships built out of long hours of conversations. Yes, they will be having virtual conversations with young people all over the world but what will they learn that would make this person a friend? Yes, they will be quick-minded and analytical but will they know themselves better? Buying land on Second Life is fine; but we need to teach our young people to live this life well first.
So why does it worry me? Because if it is true that more than half our children are plugged into the world of gaming and that the way they learn is very different from the way the adults do, then I worry about its implications; not on economics, which is where all the attention seems to be, but on human relationships. I wonder what would be the effect on the youngster who is no longer watching violence on TV or the movies but actually participating in wreaking destruction as a player? I remember how Owen’s War Poems didn’t touch some of my students - because they had seen worse on TV or the movies. Words on a page did not move them for they had seen worse graphic images. But now, the young are no longer passive viewers, but perpetrators, the ones doing the virtual killing and maiming and being rewarded for it. What kind of emotional distancing would result from this?
And the thrill of young people being able to multi-task at what is called ‘twitch speed’ (personally speaking that sounds rather epileptic J). What of it? What impact would that have, if we cater to it in the classroom? Would the young then come to expect that the classroom must offer them multi-sensory experiences? That any experience that does not give them an answer or response immediately would be abandoned while they go in search of another? Then what of the value of ‘delayed gratification’ that Goleman was talking of? And what about the ones who are slow to talk? Would anyone have patience to listen? What about the value of reflection? The pleasure that comes out of teasing meaning out of the written word?
I feel I am on the cusp of the passing away of a way of life and the beginning of another. I wonder if all soon-to-be-50s feel this. Perhaps I am an alarmist. But I worry for the young who would be swept away by the speed, for the young who would not feel the pleasure of being immersed in a book, the solitude of being with one’s own thoughts, the ease of relationships built out of long hours of conversations. Yes, they will be having virtual conversations with young people all over the world but what will they learn that would make this person a friend? Yes, they will be quick-minded and analytical but will they know themselves better? Buying land on Second Life is fine; but we need to teach our young people to live this life well first.
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