The Days Before Television

The sun rose as I pulled into Caruso Middle School parking lot on Friday morning to drop my eldest at Cross Country practice. Mrs. Spies warmly greeted her 30 to 40 students and their requisite drivers as she welcomed them in for their morning run. Across the screen of my phone came a group text from our friend's daughter celebrating to with my sons, my wife, her sister, and her mom, "and just like that, it's my Bar Mitzvah weekend." What followed was congratulations from the adults and memes (funny videos and pictures) that she and the children were making instantaneously to celebrate the event. Yes, I said making. As adults mostly we share them, but children, they often create them. Here were shouts of joy from a child becoming religiously a woman, and due to her family dynamics and the tools in her hand she had the capacity to share them with the world.

The other day, I took my son and his friend out kayaking. They had met at camp and it seemed like a terrific adventure. They children brought their phones with them, in nice waterproof cases, and I brought the dog. There was great fun as they tried to tandem paddle down the river. Occasional tossing of algae at each other. Occasions when paddles collided. With their phones draped around their neck, they took the occasional picture. As we pulled past the river into a lake portion of the journey, my son's friend asks Siri to FaceTime her father. Simply, she wanted to share the view and moment with her dad. While she was having a blast with her friend, that moment, that time, just like that she was able to bring her dad into an event, talk with him, show him, share, and then return to tossing algae.

From time to time I see articles shared about how children's devices and screens are the problem. I remember my uncle raving about the "idiot box" television as he listened to the dronings on of the radio. I think it's easy for each generation to cast stones at what the youth of the day are doing. I think it's harder to boil it down to the essential values of what is driving youth to make those choices and understand how the children are doing that. Gary Larsen once drew for his Far Side comic strip, the following:

A satirical commentary that families once did something when they were bored that wasted time and that during the seventies and eighties, families chose television. When my children are bored, they sometimes watch screens. From my perspective dreadfully boring expository dialogues walking them through Minecraft, Pokemon, and the best Nerf guns (don't ask why, I don't get it either). When my children are bored, they also create movies. Filming themselves making silly songs, dancing, reenacting scenes, and making their own scenes. Most importantly, when I provide my children with an experience such as kayaking, seeing a cave, walking through a museum, they are there too. Often sharing the moments with their friends, our family, and with each other both orally and digitally.

Youth has always wanted their voice to be heard for her they are. In the 50's and 60's it was ham radios. In the 70's it was the high school and camp radio stations. In the 80's films such as Pump Up the Volume and Breakfast Club, the cartoon Jem and the Holograms celebrated this theme. In the 2000's with Raise Your Voice is one example of the continued theme. And now on the Internet all across youtube, youth creating their channels and sharing their stories. The theme is we want to interact and share our perspective of the world. The tools of today are our phones, our tablets, and our Chromebooks. Yes, we can long for times when kids played stickball in the street and spent time tossing rocks across the pond. We can also see our kids for who they are and create opportunities for them to embrace their world and maximize who they can be.

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