[News] Children in England growing up ‘sedentary, scrolling and alone’, say experts

[1066familyman]

Yeah I’m confused by this as well. My kids are in football, cricket and tennis clubs. Yes the clubs are a pain to deal with sometimes but I don’t see how it is hard to get them into them? It’s a million times easier than it was when I was a kid, there are so many more options.

Maybe the poster that wrote that doesn't have ready access to local sports clubs. I know for a fact that Sunday morning men's pub football hasn't been a thing locally now for years where we live, for example.

When our lad finished playing kids / youth football, that seemed to be on the decline, too. I think those that play in teams now tend to travel further to do so. Our team ended up joining the Sussex Sunday League for example as they got older as the local Rother League was in decline.

Here's a thing, though. When we grew up, we certainly had less adult run clubs. At least us working class kids didn't have many clubs, that's for sure. I grew up on a council estate and we just played out all the time. Football, cricket, on our bikes and the usual kids games like false alarm, fox and hounds, kick the can etc etc. In this environment we flourished and had bloody lovely childhoods! That was because WE made the rules! No ridiculous scorelines in our jumpers for goalposts football for example. If it got too one sided, we just picked sides up again, or the game would just collapse and we'd do something else.

As much as I'm all for kids joining organised clubs (all ours did) there's something to be said for kids running their own games and making their own decisions. Yes, they fvck up from time to time. Yes, there was bullying to some degree, but nothing we couldn't eventually sort out for ourselves and just get on with it.

For me, the 70's were both the best of times and the worst of times. However, I'm not entirely convinced things have improved for kids in general today.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

I am going to say this once.
Blame the parents.
Docile and screen-fixed kids means the parents can get on with their own business.
I'm sorry to say mea culpa in that regard.

So my parents, who were perfectly happy for me to be doing god knows what all summer, whilst they got on with their own business, were better parents?

I did not know that.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

Oh, quite. I accept that, as long as we treat them well, what they are will govern how they turn out.

But on average any imperative to let the kids do what they want is more likely to have a bad outcome than not.

But, yes, as a parent I tend to blame myself for any problems my son may have.
Perhaps this part of the entry fee.

yep that's the truth.

I have the same with mine.
He's perfectly happy to let me take the blame too.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

I'm currently reading Transcendence by Gaia Vince, which offers some insight into this. In the chapter about language she mentions a study in which young American children were taught Mandarin Chinese in 3 groups; one had a real teacher, one video, one audio. Only those with a human teacher learned anything, which demonstrates the need for reciprocity.

Kids don't learn to speak individually but need engagement. Hence those spending hours a day glued to a screen are going to lack conversation skills. Aside from the language they'll be missing the socialisation that comes from human interaction.

Another study mentioned found that the number of conversational turns (back and forths of interaction) a young child hears is a strong predictor of their language development. This starts before they can even speak, with the repetition of gestures and babble. The more limited these interactions are, the worse their communication skills in later life.


(Good book by the way if you're into grand narratives on human history a la Sapiens or Guns, Germs and Steel)

Sounds like a good book. I like the sentence addressing reciprocity. Today a staff member told me about a training programme that we've participated in for years. Since Covid everything has gone online, and with the exception of very talented lecturers, this has the effect that people on the recieving end of training just generally tune out. I've seen this myself as well and am sure it's replicated in other industries. We need human interaction with approval from peers and teachers in order to learn effectively. Especially in the case of social skills as opposed to mere academic accretion of knowledge.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

Gone the same way in universities, where we're not allowed to direct questions to individual students ("Peteinblack, how would you explain...?") in seminars in case they suffer from anxiety, chronic shyness, or have a panic attack. They also tend to avoid eye contact in the seminar room or Lecture theatre; they always stare down.

I always wonder how they are going to cope when they enter the modern corporate workplace,

I fear a whole generation has been lost to excessive use of screens and addiction to social media.

I'm not a Luddite, I think a lot of IT and online sources are brilliant, but so many young people seem to be totally reliant on their phones and screens - and their total dependency and inability to think for themselves is now being compounded by AI and ChatGPT.

I think this is right. We have done a huge disservice to this current new generation. And obviously that's a generalisation, but on the whole. And humanity will most probably pay.