The growing reality of unreality    056

Elsewhere I have written at length on the dangers of children spending too much time with video games and similar types of computer applications. I’m sure that most parents realise that this needs to be restricted. In talking to a student today however it was forcibly brought home to me the changes in reality that are occurring because of these video games.

This particular student spends a great deal of time playing a popular video game in which castles and other buildings are constructed out of imaginary stone blocks and other material. These blocks are not subject to the force of gravity and simply can be joining anywhere by tapping them. There is no need for any type of supporting structure, that is to say, the child is learning a type of building construction and architecture does not exist, not on this planet anyway. Although in the game there are simulations of a number of real things, such as anvils and the like, the way they are used in the game completely distorts their function. For example, anvils are not used as a platform against which the blacksmith hammers metal. Instead anvils do their work apparently through magic.

So could this student be learning anything about building or construction, after spending hours with these 3-D simulations? I don’t think so. This high school student, when shown a perfectly ordinary internal gyprock wall, declared it was constructed of real brick. This is hard to imagine, isn’t it, but then perhaps imagination is the problem. And this was just one student at one point in time.

I was with another student, a few years ago now, when Queen Mary 2 was docked at Woolloomooloo. It was I believe the very first visit and enthusiastic Sydneysiders brought traffic in that area of the city to a standstill. This student, living less than 20 minutes walk from the ship, chose to view it on television rather than see it in real life. Now of course not everyone is interested in ships but it does illustrate what I think is a discernible trend—the disengagement of young people from aspects of real life and the substitution of virtual reality. This disengagement can take many forms.

Sorry, but one more negative example. Some years ago there was an exhibition at the NSW Art Gallery of the Chinese terracotta warriors, and other artefacts. I visited that exhibition and as luck would have it so did a group of high school children, on a school excursion. The behaviour of these children around the exhibition was most striking. Although it was possible to stand very close to the warriors all these children did the exact opposite. They squashed themselves into corners and recesses, as far away from the exhibition as possible. Then, hunched over, they began a jabbing and swiping marathon on their mobile phones. Collectively they became an exhibition themselves. You might wonder why they bothered to go on this excursion. Perhaps it was to get extra screen time.

I commented on this behaviour to one of the security guards who gave me the disappointing news that it was quite normal, and children from nearly every school that visited the Terracotta Warriors which he saw, did the same thing. Strangely over a period of 30 minutes I did not see any of the teachers. I suspected they were in the coffee shop, leaving the children under the supervision and care of their phones. Perhaps the teachers too were pounding on their mobile phones, which brings me, fortunately, to the last example, which illustrates what can happen when grown-ups do provide support and guidance for children.

This happened at a senior girls’ college in Western Australia a few years ago. Apparently the principal was in the habit of strolling out onto the playground at lunchtime and mingling with the students. Hopefully they were running about, but no, they were just sitting under the trees, doing you-know-what. This principal felt that these Year 11 and 12 girls needed to be developing the skills of conversation, which might just be useful for scholarship applications and traineeship program placements. She took what was a highly unusual step at that time, taking each girl’s phone at 9 am in the morning, and returning it at the end of the school day.

What happens at your children’s school? These days too many children are spending their school lunch times playing video games, or playing with their phone, instead of being outdoors, exercising, and getting some sunlight onto their eyes, which we now know is a developmental need of children. You may find that children at your school are spending precious learning and exercise time pounding on mobile phones. You may find that when the children at your school board coaches for a long distance school excursion the first thing they do is close the curtains so their phone screens will be brighter. Closing the curtains also shuts out the real world—the world parents pay money for their children to see and learn about.

So then, if this is what is happening, then say something. School principals and teachers should be providing guidance and support for the children, and protecting them from what can become an obsessive world of cyber unreality fuelled by mental laziness and boredom. Students should be out in the sunshine, benefiting from a healthy dose of reality, doing things and getting thoroughly dirty. Children who return from a school lunch time with spotless uniforms and hands need correction, and this should be written into school policy.

All content copyright—Mark Thackray—Australian Educational Services