While I am glad that Smallsteps is studying math, it annoys me a bit that in order to do so, she has to play a game on a computer for her class. She enjoys math without the game, and while many think that "learning should be fun", there are more studies coming out that gamifying education results in lower skills, not higher. In my view, if we teach kids that only things that are entertaining are worth doing, they are never going to excel or build deep skills, because in order to be very good at something, it takes repetition, and that means...
Boredom.
If a person can't learn to be bored while doing something over and over again, they are not going to build the foundation, let alone the higher level skills required for excellence. For instance, my wife used to ballroom dance in competitions, and from the age of seven to when she stopped a decade later, they practiced basic step in every session. Drilling, over and over and over, making slight variations and and drilling again, because it has to become mindless, it has to be held in the backbone, like breathing.
As a young kid, my wife didn't really understand it, but as she got a little older and she was able to pay attention to more than her own feelings and observe others, she could see the difference clearly in those who could breath the foundational positions, and those who could not. When able to "forget" the basics, there is energy and attention that can be spent on the more advance, complex components and getting those right.
I don't know when the war on boredom started and it got labelled harmful, but I see it as somewhat of a superpower in humans, as it forces us to reflect on our experience, and gets us to turn our attention toward the world around us and look for something to do. When we are constantly fed things to do, we both don't learn how to do for ourselves, and then become products of what we consume, which ends up not being our own choice, but that of the hand that feeds us.
There is something unsettling for me when people have so much content to fill their lives, so much entertainment and "busy" that they just don't have the time to be bored. I think that in the last few decades, the stream of attention-grabbing has increased exponentially, which is increasingly impacting on our lives. The landscape of content has changed considerably, as has the ability to target and get it into our hands on demand, but we as humans haven't actually evolved. Yet, we feel that because we aren't bored, we must be doing something right.
I think the opposite.
When we make everything a fun game, we set the expectation that this is the way life is, or should be. Ultimately, reality is going to set in to prove that incorrect, but by then it is too late, because we feel that we are entitled to certain conditions, entitled to have what we want, when we want it and for it to be enjoyable. Yet, the more of that life we have lived, the less capable we are of building the kind of life where we are able to look after ourselves. So we feel entitled to have a good life, but we *expect it to be delivered to us by others.
My daughter often complains about being bored, even though she has a thousand things she could be doing, a million games she could be inventing. I have actively been telling her to "find something to do" over the last couple years and she has been, but both my wife and I see the changes in here too, as she is socialized with the habits of her friends in the school.
We know the parents of one of her classmates, and the parent is complaining at times about how "all he does is play games on the phone" as if the parent has no control of this. Maybe they don't, but it isn't because they couldn't, it is because they won't take responsibility. It is easier to have kids play on a phone or tablet instead of spending time with them or encouraging them to find more constructive pursuits.
Kids are quiet when they are staring at the screen, they don't move, they concentrate, and they don't break anything. A parent can know where they are, no they are safe from being physically injured. But in my opinion, this is unnatural, as children should be moving, exploring, and have enough curiosity in the world that at least occasionally, they fail. And when I say fail, I mean fail at something that matters, not failing to beat the level boss in a game.
I might be wrong and these kids that grow up scaring at the screens and playing games, always entertained, will be highly valuable to society, the ones that build a better world in the future. But, from what I have observed in my own life so far, I don't think I am wrong. It is the creators that will reign, those with skill, those who have the skills to build. And to get those skills, it will be the ones who are able to be bored for long enough to not only repeat to mastery, but then innovate to evolve it further.
Sounds dull.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]