Opinion: Ditch the screens and let kids be kids

JUST when you think the modern world can’t get any more dystopian, you discover something that plunges you into even deeper depression.

Bombarded with disjointed images and sounds from an early age, is it any wonder that kids these days have teeny attention spans?

JUST when you think the modern world can’t get any more dystopian, you discover something that plunges you into even deeper depression.

In a large shopping complex recently, I spied “toddler tablet strollers” for hire. My audible groan stopped shoppers and raised the eyebrows of a nearby paramedic. These prams have small screens at baby eye level to distract the toddler from the already distracting environmental nightmare that is a modern shopping centre.

OPINION: Reduce kids’ screen time or cop the consequences

The only tablet I wanted at that moment was a wee valium to counter my sudden-onset apoplexy.

And we wonder why so many kids these days have the attention span of a gnat?

Our every waking moment is shattered by unbidden interruptions. It’s exhausting and potentially dangerous.

In the information age there is no off switch. Remember the TV test pattern? This was in the days when television hibernated overnight. All that remained was the test pattern and a synthesised string rendition of Spanish Harlem.

Today, there’s no test pattern for frantic lives, no hibernation allowing us to reflect on our experiences. Everything is always on, with no hope of de-fragging, recalibrating and rebooting tired minds. Personal devices conspire to fill all the spaces with unaggregated information, interruption and distraction.

This bombardment of the mind – loud music and video in shops; mobile phones beeping, demanding to be recognised and responded to; television ad screens in public places, on buses and ferries – is constant. The colour and movement never stops. And it now starts in the stroller!

For adults and children alike, there’s a multi-dimensional element to these information inputs, leading to constant distraction and overload.

Too many technological distractions hinder our ability to smell the roses.

Television news, for example, is no longer a simple affair – one presenter delivering the day’s news with a few carefully chosen images. No. Each newscast is fraught with frenetic, flying graphics and dramatic sound effects to accompany cartoonish transitions.

Along with two presenters telling us the bad news, and the ubiquitous live cross to our on-the-spot correspondent who tells us again, the lower screen text crawl announces the latest terror attack, tsunami, ebola epidemic or the weather forecast for Bhutan. Ah, when too much news is just not enough.

Our every waking moment is fragmented, shattered by unbidden interruptions. Devices distract. Visual pollution vexes.

I’m old-fashioned but here’s my plea to parents. Don’t give your babies devices until they can pay for them. Let your toddlers relax; allow them to daydream, to blissfully suck their toes in the car seat and pram.

Encourage your children to inhale the natural world around them slowly and at their leisure.

Let your teens be beautifully bored sometimes and experience real life in all its glory.

Toddler tablets be damned. Take a chill pill instead.

Sue Wighton is a Brisbane freelance writer