Children these days Aren't the same

international | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis Friday April 17, 2009 01:14 by Philip O' Rourke - None phish20007 at hotmail dot com 6 Ridgewood Avenue, Swords Co. Dublin

Some things have changed that will never be the same.

When I was young we used to be out from 10 o'clock in the morning til 10 o' clock at night. The boys would be playing football while the girls would be making up dance routines or talking about the boys they fancied. Times have changed? But what has changed them?

Think back 15 years ago, there was no such thing as a Playstation, a Nintendo Wii, a Xbox 60. Kids had to use their imagination to have fun. They wern't stuck in the house living thier lifethrew a televsion screen. They wern't scoring goals on an imaginary football field. Instead they were out in the fields, the greens in thier estates kicking a real football around, out in the real fresh air, making thier local green or park their theatre of dreams.

It sad that most kids these would now rather sit in their bedrooms and use their hands with a controller to play the 'Beautiful game'. Its a sign that maybe the creative minds of the children today are disappearing and the virtual world takes over.

When I was young we used to build go-carts out of blanks of wood, we used to build base's in the forrest, we used to have water fights on the hot summer days, although them hot summer days were rare.

As well as limiting childrens creativity it limits their, what I like to call, 'Street eduacation'. Every kid has to learn how to live their life on thier own, learn their own mistakes, and lets face it no computer or Ps3 can ever teach them that.

My point is that these virtual games and computers are changing the way kids should be living. More of them are going to become obese, unhealthy, short-sighted and not 'street educated' which will have bad implications for their futures. It will also harm their social skills. If they are in their bedrooms playing games on their own and not out playing with their friends their social skills are going to be harmed and maybe never ully developed by the time they grow up. What is the saying, You can't teach a dog new tricks.

I think we should be urguing the kids today to be as creative as they can be, not stuck in playing in a unrealistic world where violence rules and shooting people dead gets reward. Because this is going to become a real problem in the future.