If you’re around my age, late teens, then you have definitely heard your parents (probably mostly your dad) talk about how their childhoods were better. They probably tell you to get off your phone and go play a game of pick up basketball in the street. What they neglect to understand is how different times are now.
The 80’s and 90’s
Pick up basketball, street hockey, music, cards, and outside games occupied the lives of kids. My dad always told me he’d just run down the street knocking on kids doors to get them to play a game of street hockey or pick up basketball with him each day.
The ways kids behave increase civic engagement by a ton! Due to the kids on the block always playing together, parents were forced to get to know each other. They helped each other, got to know each other, and increased civic engagement in return.
Word of mouth about bake sales, school events, church events, etc. spread so much faster due to the fact that these parents were always together watching the games or picking up their kids. This made civic engagement much easier, for if you have connections with people you will be happy to do them a favor rather than if they were a stranger.
The 2000’s and beyond
Kids born post 2000s have had to grow up in an era that can be described as the age of technology. Kids born in the 90s were more civically engaged than those born in the 200s, and those born in the 2000s were more civically engaged than those born in the 2010s. Why is it that civic engagement is going down each generation? The answer, technology.
Don’t get me wrong, technology is great, but it has caused a great divide between us. I was born in 2003 and live in a small city in Massachusetts. When my dad was younger, he also lived there. Our experiences growing up there were fairly similar when I was younger, but as the years went on they became drastically different.
When he was younger he was always playing sports in the streets with the block. They were always outside just running around being kids. When I grew up there I too was always outside banging on my neighbors doors to have them come out and play. As the years went on, and technology increased this began to stop. My grade became more attached to their phones, but I didn’t have a phone yet. I got my first phone at the end of 6th grade- my faithful track phone. All my friends had smartphones, but I didn’t really care until facetime became the big way of communicating.
Meeting up in person each day to talk and goof around started to wane with the easiness that facetime provided. Everyone began to become obsessed with technology. Part of me is happy that I didn’t have a smartphone that could hold apps because it meant I was barely on my phone, yet when I was younger I didn’t like this divide starting to be formed between me and my friends.
We paid for minutes on my phone. Phone calls use minutes. Texts used minutes. Going on the web used a LOT of minutes. It was so much easier for me to just talk to someone in person rather than on the phone, but a lot of my friends didn’t agree.
“Kids and teens age 8 to 18 spend an average of more than seven hours a day looking at screens. The new warning from the AHA recommends parents limit screen time for kids to a maximum of just two hours per day. For younger children, age 2 to 5, the recommended limit is one hour per day.” -CBS News
Another Generation
My younger sister’s childhoods were fairly different from mine, for they grew up in the technology boom. Kids in my sister’s 3rd grade class have phones already. WHAT! Why do 8 year olds near smart phones? My youngest sister is always complaining that we don’t have video games, and it’s because that is what her whole class always talks about. Everyone in her class loves video games, and she wants to know what the hype is about.
The younger generations still play outside, but it’s less and less. Video games, smart phones, and apps are the new way of being social. I promise I am not anti-technology, I just don’t think such little kids should have access to it at any time. Without those pickup basketball games, social and civic engagement decrease rapidly! Neighbors no longer know who each other are. Parents on the same block aren’t as willing to help out a stranger.
With each new generation, we see the civic engagement decline. We have to do something about it. There is no one solution, but maybe we could start by unplugging more often and not giving our young as much access to video games or social networks.
Journalism 2.0 