When I was a kid my fashion sense was impeccable. I had a pair of purple jeans, some pink, purple, and orange keds, a tie-dyed Mickey Mouse dress, and cowboy boots. I used to play games outside that involved running, jumping, climbing, and crawling. I sang kid songs like nursery rhymes,Disney songs, and christmas carols.I used to play with dolls for hours on end and I used to pretend pieces of sliced white bread was the mushroom from Alice in Wonderland. My sister and I used to make up our own games using our imaginations. We made up goofy names and characters and had a bunch of inside jokes that only we could understand. If we didn't have something our characters wanted guess what we did? We pretended we had it! I used to color outside the lines. I used to use crazy colors for ordinary objects to give them more pizzazz. What has happened to the imaginations and childhood of kids these days?
The other day I passed by a Children's Place store and all of the kid-sized mannequins in the window were wearing hoodies, loose fitting jeans, and baseball caps. My first thought was, when did being a kid become so gangster? Remember that YouTube video of those little girls gyrating suggestively in hookerish clothes to Beyonce's Single Ladies? What's happening to childhood today? If six year olds are already wearing mini-skirts with hair extensions and make-up, what's going to happen when they turn 16? 18? Why are parents letting the media and technology steal their children's childhood?
Kids these days have access to a plethora of unnecessary technology. Books that read to them, video games that talk to them, toys that walk and talk,narkers that only work on certain surfacesm and there are even chidren's book apps on the iPad. What's next? Virtual mommy and daddy apps? Why would a parent let a child even hold a $600 iPad? much less play with one? All of these interactive technological advances are definitely cool to see and use but what about personal interaction? Kids need to physically play with other kids. They need their parents to read to them and play games with them that don't involve gaming consoles. They need to be able to use their own imaginations.
I'm a marketing major. People often say that marketing is the creative side of business. In one of my classes, Creative Marketing, the class defined creativity as something that we are born with but through the educational system and the focus on critical thinking, we are slowly molded into a mass of like-minded people. Our creativity and ability to use our imaginations are slowly beaten out of us by pick the best answer and choose only one option choices on tests. We are programmed to believe that there is only one right answer. When brainstorming for new ideas aren't the first ideas of the group members scary similar? We've been programmed into thinking alike. My question is this. If my generation, who didn't have nearly as much technology involved in our childhood as kids these days, are so like-minded what does that mean for the generation of kids today? What does that mean for the future of creativity?
I understand that technology is always changing and evolving and improving. I understand that it's important to stay up-to-date with all of the advances but is it more important than preserving imagination, creativity, and childhood? But you know those people who make their own eclectic clothes and frequent the thrift stores just looking for something they can transform into something new and cool? Those people probably weren't inundated with technology as a child. That kind of creativity is what is lacking from the world of business today. And we need to get it back.
Parents. Don't give in to your child's every whim. Don't shut your kids up by plopping them down in front of a computer or video games. Let them play with other kids. Let them use their imaginations to come up with new games. Give them dolls that don't require batteries. Let them color outide the lines and with crazy colors.
I appreciate the fact that we now have computers we can carry around and even fit into our pockets. I like that we have portable music players that are smaller than my palm. Technology is amazing and I'm not knocking it. Just saying that it's important to take a step back and realize that it's creativity and innovation that brings these kind of advances to life. Don't lose track of your own creativity. Don't kill your own ideas before you even consider them because you think someone else might think it's dumb. I mean hey if everyone did that we wouldn't have inventions out there like the Snuggie, and let's admit it, it may not be the most stylish option but it definitely sells. So next time you think of something creative and cool nurture it. Don't shove it under the rug. And next time you see a kid reading on an iPad, for God's sake, give em a box a crayons and a coloring book.
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