Consumer Electronics Causing 'Death of Childhood'?

An anonymous reader writes "Top children's authors, including best-seller Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials), have written an open letter to the British Government claiming that consumer electronics have brought about the death of childhood. They say that children desperately need 'real play (as opposed to sedentary, screen-based entertainment), first-hand experience of the world they live in'. The letter writers also state that children have lost their imaginations because they are, 'pushed by market forces to act and dress like mini-adults and exposed via the electronic media to material which would have been considered unsuitable for children even in the very recent past.' The article asks, 'is modern life too fast for the supple human mind? Do children have a rev counter we're red-lining by exposing them to so much input?'" So what does Slashdot think? Are kids growing up too fast nowadays because of them new-fangled technologies?

Comments

Re:Growing up too fast?

[kfg]

. . . in a rational society the people would just legalize drugs and prostitution and the problem goes away tomorrow.

Oh, yeah, right. I know your kind. You're the kind that thinks sin is God's jurisdiction, not your neighbor's. Well, your neighbors have ways of dealing with your kind:

"Noooooobody expects. . ."

KFG

Re:Growing up too fast?

[nametaken]

You've got to be kidding... insightful?

Look, I can ALMOST see how legalizing marijuana would reduce a tiny bit of crime, but shit... nobody is really worried about "the potheads" in the woods nearby. What are they going to do, paint flowers on your kids cheeks? Worst case, maybe a grateful dead logo?

They're worried about f'ing junkies, and junkies don't become safe because their shit is legal. Likewise, making prostitution legal doesn't make the pimps and drugs go away. We know this.

You're an idiot, not insightful.

Re:Caligulazation

[14CharUsername]

I asked if you had conversations with people IN the third world, not FROM the third world. The people you spoke to have taken the tests, paid the bribes, sucked up to the right people and were allowed to join the aristocracy. They were allowed inside the walls. The really poor and downtroddden we keep outside of the walls. The people who are still in the third world and have no way of getting out have quite a different perspective.

I have no sympathy for those who choose to use violence to accomplish their goals. I'm not arguing that we should. What I am arguing is that we are ignorant of the hardships that the people who prvide us with our clothes, our shoes, our cheap little electronic gizmos, our jewelry, our oil, and a whole lot of other things. These people are working for us. And they are working in terrible conditions. We are so wealthy yet most of our stuff is made in sweatshops. Why can't we just pay an extra two dollars for those running shoes so that the poor kid making them can eat a decent meal? would it really kill us to do that?

But the system doesn't work that way does it? Well why don't we change the system? Well its just easier to leave things the way it is. Those poor pot-bellied african kids you see on tv late at night. Well just change the channel, problem solved.

But those people are still out there, and they are tired of us using them for their resources and labour. If we don't care about the lives of the people that provide us with all our stuff, why should they care about the lives of our people in some office building?

You seem pretty angry with Mohammad Attas and his comrades, but are you equally angry with the oil executive that makes a deal with a dictator that tortures and kills thousands of people a year? Or do you just pump the gas into your car and not worry about where it came from?

Are you getting what I mean by us being disconnected from those that are providing us with most of our products? Let them eat freedom, right?