The Last Generation of Kids That Played Outside

[mfcorey1]

A scary thought hit me while eating breakfast the other day: We're slowly killing the future of innovation.

Let me explain.

Consider the iPad -- The iPad was invented and built by grownups who had to play outside when they were kids. Fast forward to this current generation where the majority of kids sit inside staring at... an iPad.

It sounds funny, but the iPad may actually cause future "iPads" from being dreamed, invented and built.

From the moment we all held an iPad, we knew it was a remarkable piece of technology and art. To build it, a team of brilliant people had to solve crucial problems, invent countless components and continually choose to not give up.

I remember a story one Apple executive told of his team receiving all the parts for the new iPad and then having to figure out how to fit them all into the smallest shell possible. It had to be thin, light and beautiful. How did they do it?

Not only that, but how did they think to create something like an iPad in the first place?

Then I remembered growing up in the small town of West Linn, Oregon. Many days were spent running around in the backyard, hooking up hoses, sprinklers and water-switches to create cool water shows. I remembered building forts with tarps and wood. I even remembered creating little ant houses with small twigs for walls, ramps and furniture

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nate-hanson/the-last-generation-of-ki_b_6139504.html?ir=Technology

[UglyGreed]

1. When I was a child I would go

exploring with a friend of mine. We would go all over the area on our bikes or walking. This started at the age of 10 years old. We would catch goldfish in the sumps, explore abandon buildings, go to the local agriculture college and feed the chickens and other farm animals. It was a blast. Now in the same area I only allow my 12 year son ride his bike a few blocks away. Never allow him to "disappear" for a long time. These days we live in a constant state of fear, I think that is the plan.

[Javaman]

25. I wouldn't come home all day long, except maybe lunch. but then I would be out again.

and my mom or the other moms, never worried.

not only were those other kids my best friends, we also looked out for each other.

that's what's also missing, that comradery.

[UglyGreed]

45. Yes I did the same

I had a couple of good close friends, but we were a part of larger crowd that played softball, baseball, football, kick the can and of course kill the guy with the ball. Man we had some fun!!!!

[Javaman]

46. when you said, "kill the guy with the ball" I had to look where you were from...

And I was right NY. I'm originally from Long Island and that's what we called it there. Since moving around the country, no one else calls it that. LOL Small world.

I miss kick the can, I would play that now if I could...probably drop dead running as much as I did as a kid, though LOL

[UglyGreed]

48. So you know what I was

tawking bout. Born and raised here ON long Island hehee. Still here but it's a bit different than is was in the 70s and much, much more expensive. Yeah kicking a can now will kill this guy here. Do you remember the bug man truck?

[Javaman]

57. Bug man truck?

is that like skitching? (which was the really stupid practice of holding on to the rear bumper of a school bus, when the streets were iced over to "slide" as the bus drove)

I was originally from Hicksville. How about you?

[UglyGreed]

59. Oh I skitched also

forgot about that one. The bug man drove around in the summertime and they would spray for mosquitoes. I guess it was DDT. The truck would shoot poison out of the back and many kids would jump on their bikes and follow him around in the fog of poison for blocks and blocks. IMO this is just one of the reasons I'm so messed up these days.

[Javaman]

60. oh yeah, I forgot about that!

And our parents were just fine with it LOL

Did you have that truck that would drive around the neighborhoods to sharpen knives?

it would have this mechanical bang/bell that would ring like the sound of doom.

[UglyGreed]

61. Yes!!!!

and a pizza man truck too. Ahh the memories.

[Javaman]

62. okay this is an odd one...

for a shot while, I think maybe a couple of summers when I was between 7 and 9 yrs old, we had this guy come around and give wagon rides with his miniature ponies. I didn't see him often but I thought, even as a kid, that it was pretty neat.

[UglyGreed]

63. I do

have a picture of my oldest brother when he was about 5 or 6 on a pony. He would of been 64 now. My parents did live in Hicksville for short period of time, but I always thought it may have been Queens. I could be wrong.

[deaniac21]

51. We called it 'Run Around'

[BeyondGeography]

52. Lol...kill the ball carrier

That was fun until about 11 or 12, IIRC. Then kids started getting bigger and stronger. The last game I played was next to a rock garden. The coolest thing was to blast someone into the rocks. Fun until it was your turn...

[philosslayer]

64. It was "smear the queer" when I grew up

Yes, probably not PC, but we were 10

[hifiguy]

47. Yup. I'd head out after breakfast

and my buddies and I would go exploring, bike-riding, play baseball, play games, hang out and do regular kid stuff. Check in for lunch, then out again 'til supper. Being inside in the summertime was for watching TV or eating and sleeping.

[avebury]

2. On top of that, the educational process is being

dumbed down as well. Science is not valued by the far right (Republicans and Tea Party) which will make the US less competitive in the long term. Schools books are being rewritten to focus on Conservative beliefs which will produce more and more ignorant people over time. The 1%ers and PTB are more concerned with creating a nation of Serfs then a nation of innovators so as to keep the status quo on their side.

[djean111]

3. I hear you about playing outside.

Out in the morning (in summer), had to be home for meals and/or before the street lights came on, got in and out of some very precarious situations, learned to think on my feet. If I had a granddaughter who disappeared all day, I would be frantic.

But cheer up - the guy who is responsible for the Oculus Rift seems to have gotten his expertise fixing iphones when he was a kid - he is all of 21 now, I think!

http://www.wired.com/2014/05/oculus-rift-4/

the expectations surrounding the Oculus Rift have always been huge, ever since an 18-year-old named Palmer Luckey hacked together a rough proto­type in his parents’ garage in Long Beach, California, in 2011.

I have found that reading magazines like Wired cheer me up considerably - all of that innovation, I don't have to think about politics. Same with TED. Yeah, mostly a bunch of privileged folks, but makes me happy to read about viewpoints not predicated on politics, even if politics will eventually rear its ugly and money-driven head.

[Frustratedlady]

4. Since the 1990s or so, I don't know how many times I've commented...

that you rarely hear children playing and laughing outside. About the only time I see the neighborhood children is at Halloween...and, that is very few.

We had to all but threaten our kids to come in for supper and they couldn't wait to get back outside to their games. Getting them back in for baths and bed was even more difficult until the mosquitoes made their decision for them.

They walked to/from school, rain or shine, and loved it since they had extra time to catch up with their friends on the latest news. Of course, they had only been apart overnight, but they always found something new to talk about.

Winter snow found them on the neighbor's hillside. They would come in periodically to drink hot cocoa and get their snowpants dried out, then back to the hillside until supper was ready. They certainly slept well with all that fresh air.

After they graduated from high school was about the time the pedophiles started driving the neighborhoods. They had a couple flashers, but the police caught them before they did any damage. Gradually, I noticed there were no kids walking by the house on their way to school. They were being delivered and picked up. That continues to this day.

How sad.

[d_r]

5. my kids play outside

and they have ipads. Go figure.

ETA what was the last generation that could write a sentence?

It sounds funny, but the iPad may actually cause future "iPads" from being dreamed, invented and built.

[Eleanors38]

6. "Last Child in the Woods" by Richard Louv...

should be on ones shortlist of required reading.

There is such an atmosphere of fear, truly stemming from our fear of nature, that even if a parent wanted to get their kids outside more they have themselves lost the range of knowledges with which to instruct their kids. Except for some distorted, romanticized and urbanized recognition that it is there, the outdoors is losing its human constituency.

[Brickbat]

21. I second it. It's an excellent book.

It didn't start with iPads -- it started with the "stranger danger" scare stemming from high-profile abductions in the 1980s.

[Eleanors38]

26. I tend to agree. Even so, abductions have always been with us...

The measures to protect kids from this seem to have been forgotten. Ironically, good cell phone practices are an actual aid in protection.

[Brickbat]

28. Yep. It was just a new style of reporting at the time that suddenly magnified the fear.

It also misplaced it, as children who are in danger of abuse and abduction tend to be endangered by people they know, not strangers.

[Odin2005]

39. People because more concerned about the well-being of kids in the 80s.

It's a big generational divide between Gen-Xers and Millennials, we Millennials were the "precious babies on board" everyone started being concerned about in the 80s. I think a few high-profile child abduction and sexual abuse cases caused people to think that Gen-X kids were neglected and that things needed to change.

[SamKnause]

7. All of my nieces and nephews played outside.

All of my great nieces and nephews play outside.

The majority of my great nieces and nephews also play sports, participate in spelling bees, participate in plays, etc.

Even the parents play outside.

They love playing cornhole, tossing around the football, and pitching horseshoes.

We all play outside at every gathering, weather permitting.

All of my nieces and nephews have iphones, ipads, computers, games, etc.

All of my great nieces and nephews have iphones, ipads, computers, games, etc.

I am glad they mix the indoor and outdoor learning experiences.

P.S. I left out fishing. All of them go fishing and camping.

[pipoman]

8. Yeah....no

Rock music destroys kids! TeeVee destroys kids! Etc., etc.


No, humans are inquisitive, problem solvers by nature and ipads didn't change that.

[awoke_in_2003]

53. Don't forget Dungeons and Dragons. nt

[pipoman]

54. That one just sends kids to hell....

[awoke_in_2003]

70. ...

My grandfather was a Methodist minister, and he had one couple in the church who would fit the fundie mold. They tried to get my grandfather to stop me from playing- he ignored them. He always warned me to watch out for the hyper christians- they usually have a lot of skeletons.

[uppityperson]

66. Magic card game. Once when my son was sorting his cards on a train, a woman approached us and

told us she just had to talk with us about the satanism in those cards. My kid looked at her blankly, after picking my eyeballs up off the floor where they fell after rolling them so hard, I said "thank you for your concern but we have no worries".

[awoke_in_2003]

71. Some people take stuff...

way too seriously. I heard a lot about the backward masking my favorite band (Led Zeppelin) supposedly did. I remember when ELO put out a song where they purposely backward masked a message saying, basically, that people who believe this crap are idiots.

on edit: I once had people tell me that Santa was just Satan spelled a little differently

[Hoppy]

9. My cousin is a luddite. More scared of technology than against it.

He refused to get a cell phone. I told him, remember Dick Tracy comics? Remember the wrist watch radio? Didn't you always want one?

What do you think a cell phone is? Only better, because you can call everyone and not just Sam Katchum because everyone has a cell phone (but you).

He got one.

[abelenkpe]

10. Jaysus

My kids play outside everyday. They also have iPads, computers and wii. They suffer no lack of imagination or free time.

[MineralMan]

11. My neighborhood in St. Paul, MN is always

full of kids playing outdoors when weather allows. Maybe it's just suburban communities where children don't play outdoors. I don't know, but they sure do here.

[TheSarcastinator]

12. did you tell them to get off your lawn?

The same thing has been said about every American generation since the invention of radio. It's as hyperbolic and foolish now as it was then.

[gollygee]

13. My kids play outside and have iPads

Kids seem to prefer outside play to iPads, from what I've seen with my kids and in my neighborhood. The iPad is a back-up plan for when friends have to go home or it's raining or whatever. The issue is that a lot of parents are afraid to let their kids play outside, and think they're safer in the house (with an iPad or in front of the TV or whatever.) The problem isn't with the kids - you have to get parents to relax and let the kids out.

[JNelson6563]

23. This.

Too many parents want to put their kids in a bubble.

Julie

[GusBob]

14. I get a kick out of these types of generational discussions

because they have been going on FOREVER

1. back when I was a child, things were perfect!

2. today THINGS SUCK, especially when you at look at the children of nowadays and compare them to me rosy childhood

3. In the future, THINGS ARE GONNA SUCK EVEN WORSE, because you see my childhood was perfect and todays children are defective

[Ezlivin]

15. Actually we're medicating them out of creativity

As soon as little Johnny becomes too active, he's medicated. Is little Gloria a little too outspoken? Medication, stat!

We're actually raising a new generation of medicated zombies who have no idea of what privacy is and will be willing to accept any amount of surveillance as they go about their drone lives.

[seabeyond]

16. My kids played outside and as upper teens, still play outside

Teach kids moderation, instill healthy exercise, combine in fun and it becomes lifestyle and they take it into adulthood. On the parent

[SoCalDem]

34. Our feral/free-range sons grew into feral /free-range adults

One even got himself a feral/free-range wife One remains unmarried and the other one married a girlie-girl who happily sends him on his way for his adventures

[seabeyond]

35. i do not turn on the tv during the day. and i do not mostly at night either.

when they were very little, there were a small handful we liked. so it was on for a couple hours in the morning. but.... was off from there on out. now, i never watch tv. for a good decade.

that was just our preferences for nothing else. but. here they are 17 and 20 and both do not watch much tv at all.

never have.

i agree with you socal.

personally, i like going. and i like the comfortable hotel with shower and cafes, ect.... and ya boys, go do.

[SoCalDem]

36. They were far too busy to watch tv most of the time..

They did watch 3,2,1 Contact, The Electric Company & Sesame Street...but they had an absolute love-affair devotion to their bikes, skateboards and then cars ..

Of course they do explore more comfortably now that they are adults, but they are never fearful travelers/explorers

[Dawgs]

17. Uh, my street is filled with kids that play outside until dark.

[Blue_Tires]

49. and even well past dark...

the burgeoning curmudgeon in me wants to yell at them "Don't you kids know tonight is a school night???!!?!?!?!!?!"

[treestar]

56. +1. Kids in my family who are only 18 now

Their neighborhood was playing outside, even at night. We had to come in after dark, yet there were times when these kids were out long after dark. They were lucky, there were a lot of kids their age in the neighborhood. That had a capture the flag game that went on all over the development. They also knew the areas right outside the development and how to get to the next one by a back way.

[mopinko]

18. i think the factory school system is doing more harm than ipads.

we homeschooled, and took a field trip every friday. sometimes it was a "walk in the woods" trip. we just went to a good birding spot, and i watched the birds while they watched the ground.
and we did it together. i blame the schools for much of the selfishness in our society today. "dont worry about what johnny is doing, just worry about yourself"

that said, i had a deliciously feral childhood. benign neglect. dont try that these days.

[Coventina]

19. Relatively few kids play outside here in Phoenix.

Especially May - September.

We moved here from Seattle when I was 11.

I went from an outdoor life to an indoor life almost immediately.

[kairos12]

20. I used to tunnel into the side of hills playing the Great Escape.

[ladjf]

22. My wife and I live in a 1,000 home subdivision were hundreds of children of all ages live.

In the afternoon when I walk my dog, after school is out, I rarely see a child outdoors. It seems odd to me. The same is true during the summer when there is no school. The neighborhood swimming pool gets a good bit of use.

[ileus]

24. I bought my son a 1000 dollar Kayak instead.

[TBF]

27. My kids play outside

here in TX. We also have scouts so they do weekend camping trips etc. Maybe they aren't outside in the middle of Manhattan but I think in most areas they are still playing outside.

[Ikonoklast]

29. What nonsense.

[surrealAmerican]

30. Then again, playing outside is no guarantee that a child will grow up to be creative.

Your generation (which is probably the same one as mine) is full of people who lack creativity. The creative, inventive individuals are the exception - not the rule.

It's not the same thing that fosters creativity for every child: for some, playing outside will do - for others, staying in and reading or learning to play a musical instrument. Children are individuals - there is no quick-fix to creativity for all children.

That said, your youthful water shows sound awesome. My parents would never have let us do that - they would have been upset about getting the yard too muddy. That's what ended the "slip-and-slide" for us.

[yawnmaster]

31. if this were fully true, profession sports would be waning, but they are not. kids still get out...

to play, basketball, football, hockey, soccer.
And some stay in to watch tv, play video games, and play on their ipad.
It is a diverse country. success will come from all sectors.

[GreatGazoo]

32. The iPad wasn't created by a generation or by collective experience but rather

by a fairly elite team of uber geeks.

For all we know the creators of the iPad WERE inside, watching Spock use a Tri-Corder on Star Trek while Kirk called Scotty on his flip cell phone (which looks remarkably like the 2004 Motorola Razr btw).

I love being outdoors but it isn't the only place that creativity happens or is fostered.

[ReRe]

33. You forgot the tunnels

Tunnels in dirt, in sand, in SAWDUST. With little matchbox cars. Electric trains in the closed-in back porch atop 3/4" thick plywood perched atop wooden horses. Igloos and forts in the snow. Popeye after school. Cartoons on Saturday mornings. American Bandstand on Saturday and Soul Train too. Soc Hops after basketball games. Bowling League in GAA (Girls Athletic Assoc) after school. 4-H. Summer camp. Babysitting. Ed Sullivan. The British invasion (of rock bands) starting with The Beatles. Piano lessons. Marching Band. Hayrides. Summer jobs starting in summers after reaching age 16 & getting a worker's permit. And the biggest joy and escape in my life: learning from the books I checked out at the Library from age 6 on. All this I did with my little sister, who now has stuff in outer space circling the earth, an aerospace engineer.

I don't know if I can go as far as saying we are killing the future of innovation. Example. I have sons who had the habit of dragging home worn out microwaves, radios, TVs, appliances of all kinds, or anything with a motor, like old lawn mowers, etc. They would take them apart and tinker around with them and eventually I would have to get on them to throw it all away. They grew up with mechanical minds, one of them went to the Air Force and took every electronics class that was available. When he exited the AF he could do anything electronic, not to mention mechanical. He has a very challenging career now. The other son is a college graduate with a highly mechanical mind. The important thing is: They are happy and challenged in their careers, with work ethics that corps dream of.

Will they invent something as innovative as an iPod? I don't know. If they ever got their heads together, they might. But they live far apart and don't get together often enough to come up with an invention. Had my sister and the sons I mentioned worked under Steve jobs back in the day, I guarantee you they would have figured it out.

I don't think we have seen the end of innovation.

[jeff47]

37. Replace "iPad" with "TV" and you get exactly what they said about us.

This "technology is ruining childhood" argument happens every single generation.

[Blue_Tires]

50. In my case it was "Atari"

that and video game arcades were supposed to be the complete Armageddon of traditional childhoods...I can still hear the hand wringing 30+ years later...

[treestar]

55. True and the new stuff at least involves the person

They are inter-acting. TV was passive.

[ileus]

68. Except now we all have AC and you can sit inside 365 days a year.

[jeff47]

69. Believe it or not, it was quite possible to sit inside 365 days a year without AC.

Additionally, AC was widely available when people were claiming TV would destroy my childhood.

[Odin2005]

38. LOL, typical "Kids These Days" tripe.

[LeftishBrit]

40. I don't think iPads are the main cause of kids not playing outside...

Outdoor play for children declined long before the iPad.

The main reasons include the increase in amount of traffic, making outdoor play more unsafe for children; and the increased parental fear about paedophiles (although a child is far more likely to be molested by a family member or trusted adult such as a teacher or priest than by a stranger that they meet while playing outdoors).

Also, it becomes self-fulfilling: why play outside if there are no other children there to play with?

[RobinA]

41. I Live in a Philadelphia

suburb and no kids are outside ever. My old neighborhood where we ran the yards all day is empty. My cousins and my sister and I played outside all day every day. Their kids played organized sports all day every day. My sister tried, but she had only limited success getting her kids outside. Problem was there was do one to play with like we had. Building that treehouse and go-cart taught us a lot.

[jwirr]

42. Building tree houses, feeding the animals with dad, play "farmer" with my brother and his toys

under the trees (actually had the whole grove turned into a village), etc. But there were also inside things we did: playing house, creating a store, cutting dolls out of the old catalog, doing jigsaw puzzles, and playing games like monopoly.

Much of what I am talking about required space - something many urban children do not have.

[Threedifferentones]

43. What utter hogwash.

Why on Earth would someone believe that kids who grow up building things out of twigs will be better at designing hardware and software than kids who grow up building things out of hardware and software?

The people who invented portable computing grew up playing outside, so the people who grow up playing with portable computers won't be able to invent any more?

Look, I think people should spend more time in natural environments, and more time being physically active. When I have kids I will certainly make an effort to get them off the couch and into the woods.

But the idea that not playing outside is going to stymy future innovation is really just plain dumb. If anything it will hasten development, because the opposite conclusion seems much more logical: kids that grow up playing with computers will on average be more computer literate than kids who did not, and thus more capable of designing the next generation of computers.

This author's nostalgia has gone way too far IMO.

[H. Cromwell]

44. PA Small town

life long (almost) resident. I did leave the hard coal region for about 6 years to reside in Northern VA. Growing up in my small town..everybody knew most of the kids. I'd disappear summer mornings and reappear at supper time. Maybe pop in to grandma's house for lunch or scrounge up some ingredients and a pot and make bum soup in the woods somewhere. 9 times out of 10, IF I was doing something bad/wrong my deeds were reported to my mom, grandmother, or my grandfather before I got home for supper. On the flip side, good behavior, good deeds were also reported via the same network. There is still a portion of that behavior in the town but with "city folks" discovering the cheap housing/cost of living in this area the close knit community era is dying quickly.

[Vinca]

58. Just yesterday I was wondering what kind of childhood memories today's kids would have.

Would it be camping in the backyard or parked on the couch texting? Something is being lost.

[LP2K12]

65. It really depends on the parenting.

All three of my children have iPads. Each is set with a time limit. The same goes for any gaming unit we own. They love playing outside. We have a trampoline (netted for safety) and a big back yard. We just purchased our home so we're getting them one of those big wooden swing set/play areas for Christmas.

We allow the neighborhood kids over to play as long as their parents are aware. We live in a neighborhood with a very low crime rate, active crime watch and alert homeowners so I allow them to ride their bikes, walk and play as long as they check in. My oldest does have a cheap Tracphone in the event something major happens.

The boys are also enrolled in the local little league. The ball park is walking distance from our home, so that's a pretty nice advantage as well.

Could I let the iPad babysit them? Sure. Do I? No.

Sometimes you gotta fight the fear and let kids be kids.

[DemocraticWing]

67. Kids still play outside.

I think people panic over this with every generation, but I think kids will be OK.