GORP Unplugged

“If parents wish to preserve childhood for their own children, they must conceive of parenting as an act of rebellion against culture.” – Neil Postman, Building a Bridge to the 18^th Century

 

Parenting is a kind of rebellion of course – against common sense. Had evolution not equipped us with an excellent capacity for forgetfulness, not to mention a strong disinclination to learn from the mistakes of others, it is unlikely our species would have made it much past Mitochondrial Eve.

Postman, who elsewhere has written that, “One way of looking at the history of the human group is that it has been a continuing struggle against the veneration of "crap,” was particularly critical of television, the principal crap-dispenser of the modern age. His work has had a profound influence on the GORP leadership team, thereby ensuring, no doubt, that having children won’t be the last rebellion against common sense in which we partake.

Whether GORP itself will be added to our already impressive catalog of half-baked enterprises remains to be seen, but if you share our concern that our culture is too plugged in, perhaps you’ll consider engaging in the token act of technological disobedience that is the National Day of Unplugging, which takes place this year starting on March 1^st. This 24-hour tech detox runs from sun-up on Friday to sun-up on Saturday. Unplug your computer, unplug your television, unplug all the devices that we can’t seem to be without.

Postman would approve anyway, though I suspect he would approve of Screen-Free Week ­– April 29-May 5 – even more.

If you don’t share our concern – actually, if you don’t share our concern, you are not one of the two people who reads this blog – if “you” don’t share our concern, perhaps the following statistics will change “your” mind:

· The Kaiser Family Foundation reported in 2010 that 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week).

· That 7 hours and 38 minutes of daily media consumption is up from 6:21 just five years earlier, and the number is sure to be higher today.

Television remains the dominant mode of media consumption – by far. A 2012 Nielsen study found that the average American over the age of 2 spends more than 34 hours a week watching traditional television – almost five hours a day (or more than six days a month). The study also found that:

 

· Children age 2-11 watch an average of 24 hours of TV a week, or 3½ hours a day.

· That number dips to 22 hours for teens, ages 12-17 – a drop more than offset by video games – then goes back up to 25 for 18-24s.

· After that it rises steadily until people over 65 average 48 hours a week, or nearly seven hours a day. (A high percentage of whom vote – in case you were wondering why politicians and interest groups pour so much money into TV advertising.)

To state the obvious, this can’t be good.

And it’s a big part of the reason why children spend so little time outside – less than one percent of their time, on average, a figure that includes adult-led activities like youth sports. What kind of childhood is that?

“The costs of America’s “indoor childhood” run deep. They include increased child obesity, diabetes, and asthma, reduced ability to relate to other children and adults, less realistic life expectations, inability to concentrate, more aggressive behavior and a higher likelihood of personal isolation. Even a child’s eyesight and vitamin D levels are affected by too much electronic screen time and too little time spend indoors. Public health professionals are now saying that today’s children may have life spans that are three-to-five years shorter than their parents’ due to their inactive, indoor lifestyles.” – National Wildlife Federation special report

 

G.O.R.P.