Thumbs up for the thumb!

Last week, I listened to around 50 kids, aged 3 to 17, taking turns to name their favorite technology and why, in front of a video camera. I can say that over 90 percent of kids mentioned one of the following: cellphone, PlayStation, camera or computer. When we requested them to please think of something else, they were stomped as to what they could name. One kid tried by saying that his favorite technology was “electricity,” but when asked “why,” he replied, “so I can play with my computer.” 

Yes, a generation ago, we played tumbang preso, patintero, luksong baka and we also climbed trees and rooftops. I think we all feel sorry for kids now who generally do not get dirty from playing outside all day and smelling like pure sunlight like we did in our time.  However, these kids may not be feeling sorry for themselves because they do not know otherwise. But what about the change that may be happening to the bodies and minds of this computer generation?

A study reported in the online Guardian last May 21 that kids are getting weaker substantially in terms of muscle power. Not only that, the study, published in the journal Acta Paediatrica led by Dr. Gavin Sandercock, found that 10-year-old kids cannot even do simple physical tasks that were common skills to the previous generation. The study was conducted on British kids but I think it would be more than worth our while to look at Filipino kids, especially those living in urban areas and have easy access to computers.

The study compared 315 10-year-old kids in 2008 with kids of the same age in 1998. They found that the kids who can do sit-ups declined by 27.1 percent. Even their arm strength fell by 26 percent and their grip strength by seven percent. Even in hanging from bars, 10 percent of children could not do so compared with only five percent in 1998. What is even more alarming is their body mass index did not change which means the current generation now have more fat and less muscles.

I think we have all suspected this will happen. We just did not think it would happen so fast. We used to think that computers will free us from oppressive labor. It did. But it also gave us physically weaker children who spend more facetime through a screen than, shall we say, al fresco. We forget that the brain is carried by a body and that body has evolved through millions of years through physical activity. It was only about 70,000 years ago that the first Homo Sapiens literally walked out of Africa. Our bodies are still made to walk and move a lot. To force it to change in only a few decades by playing video games is like forcing your dog, a wolf by nature, to get used to NOT running and barking, by muffling him and caging him. He will not easily forget his nature because his body, his genes remember. Forcing our bodies to get used to a more sedentary lifestyle in only a decade or so will most likely cause dramatic health consequences.

The study limited itself to comparing physical strength between kids in 2008 and of 10 years ago but there have been studies on kids’ comparative ability to learn as well. I would like to see one specifically about the quality of learning. What makes me so wary about devoting so much to virtual life — whether games, Facebook, chats, etc. — is that we really do not risk anything by doing that. By “risk,” I mean putting something that means something to you, at stake — whether it is your person, your reputation or an old belief. I want to see evidence if these kids who grew up with the virtual world as commonplace, are as bold and responsible in actual life as they are in the virtual world because I think you only genuinely learn if you risked something. When we raise our hands in class to answer, that is a risk we take, with our name at stake. Now, you can say anything online and claim it under any name. You do not even have to see facial expressions which I think are important to recognize when you take in the world. You learn so much more because it is not only in terms of one-liners and emoticons but you see how faces and gestures receive you, even after you have interacted.

Technology is always a double-edged sword. It depends on how we use it but there are also unintended consequences. We do not want weaker bodies but it seems, they come with personal computing. One day, the only physical race we would probably be up to holding is that among our powerful fingers led by no other than the almighty thumb.

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