pull the plug
Back in the day, wet Easter school holidays wouldn’t have been the same without the morning’s goggle-boxing of Robinson Crusoe, The Flashing Blade, Belle and Sebastian, Noggin the Nog (no, really) and, of course, the ironic ‘Why Don’t You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go Out and Do Something Less Boring Instead?’ The format consisted of gangs of semi-feral kids responding to letters from viewers who wrote into the show suggesting games, ‘makes’, breaks and days out. Typically these were arts-and-crafts activities, adventures and magic tricks we could learn to impress our similarly short-trousered pals. More often than not they included the use of home-made glue, paraffin, small animals and a very large magnifying glass. My, the trail of destruction we left when the clouds cleared and the test-card returned.
Now I fully get that anyone who has lived their whole life without England winning the world cup in it, won’t have understood a single word I’ve said there but I do think it’s high-time we re-invent that quaint and whimsical programme, with a little twist: ‘Why Don’t You Just Put Down Your Phone, Turn Off The Tablet, Log Out Of Facebook, Stop Snapchatting and Go Out and Do Something Less Boring Instead?’
Psychologist Jean Twenge claims that today’s youff are on the brink of an unprecedented mental health crisis and something’s got to give. Studying data which goes back almost ninety years and, which consequently takes in massive structural upheavals & and generational change in attitudes such as war, depression, migration, sexual liberation, the permissive society etc., she believes the most seismic and potentially catastrophic changes are those being caused currently by our wholehearted, unbridled adoption of modern technologies.
Children and young people born this century have grown up with a smartphone in their grubby mitt and it has been part & parcel of their whole life. The device and its apps determine what, when and how. As a result, they don’t really do the face2face socialising of previous generations and the number of teenagers who actually see their friends has fallen by more than 40%. Consequently, they don’t date in the manner or proclivity that their elder siblings did, or learn to drive, or earn their own money, or exercise, or even fly the nest for a slightly malevolent escapade. Instead of being out & about and having fun with their mates, climbing trees, breaking windows and sniffing their home-made glue, they’re on their jack-jones in the bedroom on the phone worrying about their latest Instagram shot and what sepia filter to apply to their melancholic mood.
Each generation has had to contend with the corrosive anxieties of the elders concerning TV, radio, music, books, games, gangs and so on, but there is now strong evidence which highlights that social media provides few, if any, of the benefits of human contact and has a seriously detrimental impact on the health and wellbeing of the young. The argument that we need to be online and connected in order to communicate seems tenuous. All I see are people NOT interacting with each other and the sad reality is that society is becoming increasingly disconnected. Twenge’s studies highlight that young people are disconnecting the most and those who spend three hours a day online are 35% more likely to be at risk of committing suicide, a suicide rate that has almost trebled in the last decade. If that isn’t enough to make you want to sneak into your child’s room and pull the plug then I don’t know what is.
