Where the iThings Aren't

I watched Terrence Malick's film The Tree of Life for a second time the other night. One of the things that struck me was the way the boys played . . . outdoors. Climbing trees, running, kicking, jumping, swimming, wrestling, shooting BB guns, riding bikes with cards on the spokes, playing kick the can, lighting firecrackers, even breaking windows. My older brother and I did them all . . . for years. If you were a boy in the 50s or 60s, you did too.

So when I read David Gelernter's op-ed Make it a Summer without iStuff in today's Wall Street Journal, the generational differences about playing and letting the mind wander were stark, and saddening. Some excerpts:

"Minds need rest and work. They rest when you let them wander freely—go where they please, perch where they like. They work when there is a dangling mental rope for them to grasp hard and climb. But the iWorld fails to supply the child-mind with either of these basic needs. These fancy digital toys create a new kind of mental purgatory instead.

"Consider Web browsing, which is like flipping the pages of an endless picture book or watching million-channel TV. The Web is the perfect anti-concentration weapon. The instant you get bored, just click or tap and you are someplace else.

"In ancient times, you could at least count on children to prefer tearing around outside to sitting still. But ever since television made passive, thought-free entertainment as cheap and plentiful as low-grade gin, running around has been losing ground.

"The Web and videogames and online gossip, with their endless servings of colorful and seductive mental mush, never make children grip hard, pull hard, and climb a dangling mental rope. The ability to click themselves clear of all obstacles turns children with computers into little digital Henry VIIIs, sending plates clattering to the palace floor the moment their majesties are displeased.

"And so, yes to the Internet, yes to the cybersphere! Yes to modern iMachines and pads, pods, smartphones—and to liquor, fast cars and sleeping pills when you need them. But not for children."

Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, has made similar observations. As has essayist Tim Kreider, as reported in this earlier blog post Not Knowing.