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>I think fostering that creativity without the distraction of television and devices is the key with ample praise for effort. A thousand times, yes! It would b

>I think fostering that creativity without the distraction of television and devices is the key with ample praise for effort. A thousand times, yes! It would be impossible for me to agree with you more. We are "Entertained to Death" (to steal a title of a book on this very subject). Children need time to sit and think. To be bored and learn that boredom is okay, and what to do about it. These days, television is actively hostile in its level of interruption and intrusion. And I don't mean just the obnoxious advertisements; the deliberate "shaky" camera angles, the change of viewpoint every 3 seconds, the thumping soundtracks, whooshing graphics crossing the screen, all are designed to stimulate, attract, addict, yet hypnotize and sedate. Not to mention the low-value content for the most part. This is not good for anyone. Fools are afraid of being alone with themselves. Was it always this way? I think it plays a part in that many (dare I say most?) adults are simply horrified at the idea of sitting alone, quietly, without a device to distract them with internet/facebook or whatever. The skill/art of just sitting and occupying oneself in our own heads is being lost, but it is essential to happiness (and I think, sanity). This used to be learned by children, but now every kid is handed a dose of electronic crack, lest they fail to be distracted for a single precious moment. Then when it does happen they fall apart. I wonder if asked to choose, whether the average person would choose to skip a meal or go four hours without internet/phone.

musage 9y ago
> It is very sad then that so many children are hurried along and not given time to think about themselves. People say to them when they think that they have been playing long enough: "You are no longer a child. You must begin to do something." But although playing is doing nothing, you are really doing something when you play; you are thinking about yourself. Many children play in the wrong way. They make work out of play. They not only seem to be doing something, they really are doing something. They are imitating the grown-ups around them who are always doing as much instead of as little as possible. And they are often encouraged to play in this way by the grown-ups. And they are not learning to be themselves. and > People who for some reason find it impossible to think about themselves, and so really be themselves, try to make up for not thinking with doing. They try to pretend that doing is thinking. -- Laura Riding > Most of us are unable to sort out reality - we can't distinguish between a thing and a symbol for that thing . This springs from several causes. One cause is that we are isolated from the natural world, where the distinction between a thing and a symbol is more obvious. Another cause is our educational system, which simply reflects the intellectual laziness of the society in which it is embedded. A third cause is resistance on the part of vested interests - if we could think creatively, we would be difficult to govern, and advertisers would have to appeal to reason instead of emotion. -- Paul Lutus > I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... -- Carl Sagan > Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it, and by the same token save it from that ruin which except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and the young, would be inevitable. And education, too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their chance of undertaking something new, something unforeseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world. -- Hannah Arendt I think critical thinking are important. Autonomy. So sure, teach your children to customize and program the devices they probably end up using to some capacity either way. But also allow for the fact that "technology", unqualified like that, might be kool-aid, and that following the trajectory of previous generations is not necessarily the best possible direction to go in. Imagine having children that are less alienated than yourself, wouldn't that be cool? People that can hold eye contact longer, that fidget less when they have to wait in line for 3 minutes? Who can bear their own company? Who can let their inner eye stray across their past, their surroundings, their self, at the speed they chose, without any compulsion to ignore or distort things? For as long as they want, instead of not at all? Yes, absolutely cue parodies of spoken word diatribes here, and whatever else. I'm just virtue signalling, and so on. At any rate, the question isn't "technology or not", the question is what technology and what people use it for, rather than what it uses people for (on the behest of others who are on the run from themselves).

musage 9y ago

> It is very sad then that so many children are hurried along and not given time to think about themselves. People say to them when they think that they have been playing long enough: "You are no longer a child. You must begin to do something." But although playing is doing nothing, you are really doing something when you play; you are thinking about yourself. Many children play in the wrong way. They make work out of play. They not only seem to be doing something, they really are doing something. They are imitating the grown-ups around them who are always doing as much instead of as little as possible. And they are often encouraged to play in this way by the grown-ups. And they are not learning to be themselves. and > People who for some reason find it impossible to think about themselves, and so really be themselves, try to make up for not thinking with doing. They try to pretend that doing is thinking. -- Laura Riding > Most of us are unable to sort out reality - we can't distinguish between a thing and a symbol for that thing . This springs from several causes. One cause is that we are isolated from the natural world, where the distinction between a thing and a symbol is more obvious. Another cause is our educational system, which simply reflects the intellectual laziness of the society in which it is embedded. A third cause is resistance on the part of vested interests - if we could think creatively, we would be difficult to govern, and advertisers would have to appeal to reason instead of emotion. -- Paul Lutus > I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... -- Carl Sagan > Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it, and by the same token save it from that ruin which except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and the young, would be inevitable. And education, too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their chance of undertaking something new, something unforeseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world. -- Hannah Arendt I think critical thinking are important. Autonomy. So sure, teach your children to customize and program the devices they probably end up using to some capacity either way. But also allow for the fact that "technology", unqualified like that, might be kool-aid, and that following the trajectory of previous generations is not necessarily the best possible direction to go in. Imagine having children that are less alienated than yourself, wouldn't that be cool? People that can hold eye contact longer, that fidget less when they have to wait in line for 3 minutes? Who can bear their own company? Who can let their inner eye stray across their past, their surroundings, their self, at the speed they chose, without any compulsion to ignore or distort things? For as long as they want, instead of not at all? Yes, absolutely cue parodies of spoken word diatribes here, and whatever else. I'm just virtue signalling, and so on. At any rate, the question isn't "technology or not", the question is what technology and what people use it for, rather than what it uses people for (on the behest of others who are on the run from themselves).