Some years ago, an anthropologist was doing field work with a tribe in Africa which lived exclusively in the deep jungle. He lived among them for some time, and became a trusted friend. At one point during the sojourn, the anthropologist needed to make a journey to visit another tribe which lived not far away, a few days trek out of the jungle and onto the plains. He invited one of the young tribesmen – a teenage boy on the cusp of manhood – to join him on the trip, thinking it would be a great experience for him to travel beyond his known horizon and see a bit of the world. And so they set off.
A couple of days later, the two emerged from the jungle and stood on a slight ridge looking out at a vast expanse of African plain. In the distance were herds of antelope, wildebeest and other fauna of the region. The boy gazed at them in speechless wonder.
What is the matter? The anthropologist asked.
The animals, the boy replied, why are they so small?
They’re not small, said the anthropologist, they’re just far away. To which the boy looked at him in utter confusion.
What is far away? he asked.
The anthropologist came to a startling realization. Having lived his entire life in the close environment of the jungle, the boy had never had his vision reach more than a few dozen yards. Accordingly, he had no concept of distance. In his world, things were close, or not so close. Things that appeared small were small. It was as if he’d lived his life looking through a particular lens. With that lens removed, he struggled to make sense of what his unimpeded vision was showing him.
This anecdote occurred to me recently as I watched a television spot for some new SUV. The focus of the ad was the fact that the vehicle now came with Wifi, the great benefit of which was that children could be pacified with streaming video during car journeys, thereby saving their parents from the grief of having to deal with them.
In the ad, a brace of adorably matched and appropriately car-seated toddlers were shown Before Wifi, bickering and complaining and bugging Mum and Dad with endless questions, and After Wifi, earbudded and tablet equipped, docilely engrossed in their private media worlds.
Now, I understand the attraction of this stratagem for exhausted, overburdened young parents; pacification by video is by no means new and it’s better than a lot of the alternatives. But it used to be confined mostly to the home. The ubiquity of mobile devices and Wifi has allowed kids to be plugged into a video-dummy anytime, anywhere, and it’s quickly moving from a short-term coping mechanism to a way of life. Many kids, it seems, are spending an awful lot of their waking hours in front of a screen of some kind.
To be fair, we elders aren’t exactly setting a sterling example of responsible media consumption. And if a single ride on public transit or visit to the local food court isn’t enough to confirm that, just look at the ads pushed out by ISPs that encourage us to keep our eyes glued to the screen no matter what’s going on around us: kids’ pageants, family dinners, boring business meetings, walks in the park, even weddings, for Chrissake … whatever you do, don’t let real life intrude upon your viewing. Stay connected.
Faced with such role models, is it any wonder our kids can’t stop watching?
But at what point, I wonder, do our tuned in, dropped out children look up from their screens and not understand what they’re seeing because it doesn’t fit neatly into a 16×9 viewfinder? When do they lose the ability to judge real from recorded? When do they ask their distracted parent:
Why doesn’t it look like my screen?
Because it’s real life.
What is ‘real life’?