How serious an issue is screen time? A study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health found that roughly ten percent of Ontario youth spend at least seven hours per day in front of a computer, TV or game console. According to a 2006 World Health Organization study cited here, Canadian youth engaged in an average of six hours of screen time per day (this rose to seven and a half hours per day on weekends; summer, of course, is essentially a two-month weekend.)

The media activity that probably raises parents’ concern the most is video games. The good news is that your child may be better off playing video games than watching TV: unlike TV viewing, for instance, playing video games is not associated with high blood pressure. As well, a recent study has shown that youth who play certain types of video games – in particular, sports-themed games – are likely to play physical sports as well. Some video game systems, most notably the Nintendo Wii, add a physical dimension to the gameplay itself by requiring the player to move her feet or swing a controller. (Most of Nintendo’s competitors are bringing similar systems to the market.)

That being said, most of the games popular among older children and teens are on systems with standard hands-only controllers (or on computers, such as World of Warcraft,) and there’s no question that long stretches of sedentary game playing are unhealthy. In fact, the negative effects go beyond the game replacing more active pursuits: research has shown that long stretches of being sedentary can cause a variety of health problems even when offset with exercise.

More worrying than the physical effects of excessive game playing are the psychological effects. There has been a lot of talk in the last few years about Internet and video game addiction, but it’s not yet clear if overuse of either genuinely has the characteristics of an addiction. What is clear is that heavy media use can have a variety of negative effects, both on a person’s physical and mental health. Moreover, it may be harder during the summer to notice or recognize the signs of problem media use because of the absence of a normal routine. Generally, video game playing (or Internet use, or nearly any other activity) can be considered problematic when it starts interfering with someone’s normal life, but in summer it can be difficult to define what normal life is – just as someone might spend every waking hour of July and August practicing jump shots or skateboard tricks without it being considered a warning sign, so too might it not be that unusual for someone to devote all their time to mastering a video game or “levelling up” their character in an RPG. Some signs of problem use, though, are still meaningful. For instance, is your child becoming isolated from friends? Are his sleep habits or general health being affected? Does he become depressed and argumentative when unable to play the game? Keep in mind that games, like other hobbies, are supposed to be fun; if a game seems to be making your child unhappy (aside from the occasional frustration over a lost duel or blocked progress) there may well be something wrong.

Even if your child is a social butterfly who’s hardly ever home, though, doesn’t mean that media use isn’t a problem. That’s because for most teens and tweens there is no separation between their online and offline social lives, with physical attendance at dates, parties and get-togethers flowing seamlessly into the online discussion and dissection of them. Checking status updates, tweaking profiles and commenting on photos can be as obsessive as video game playing, with the added problem that it often goes on around the clock. Rather than being isolated from their friends, in this case youth feel like “microcelebrities”  – with everyone in their circle messaging and commenting on everyone else, they may be reluctant to ever turn off the computer or phone.

In either case, parents can use the same strategies to help their kids moderate their media use in summer (and year-round.) The most important of these is simply to set household rules regarding screen time and media use. While parents (and youth) may be sceptical, there is strong evidence that the existence of rules on media use has a positive effect on behaviour. A recent study showed that having consistent rules makes kids less prone to excessive screen time, a finding which echoes MNet’s research showing the positive effects of household rules on online behaviour. You can also set rules by controlling the physical environment in your home: keeping TVs and Internet-capable computers in public spaces and, if necessary, imposing a “cell phone curfew” after which phones and Web-capable devices need to be handed over to you. More broadly, it’s important to talk to your kids about your expectations and concerns relating to their media use, and to listen to them when they talk about their media experiences. Finally, it’s important to model good media use as well – if your iPhone is on the dining room table every night, the message that sends is going to be louder than anything you can say.

When Marlene Kane’s sixteen-year-old son Andrew asked her to drive him to the nearby town of Midland last December, she was surprised to hear that he wanted to meet with someone he had met while playing the online game World of Warcraft – and even more surprised to learn that the person he was meeting was a 42-year-old mother of four from Texas. Experts on sexual solicitation of youth online were less shocked however. In fact, for them the only surprising thing was Lauri Price’s sex. Everything else about the scenario – how they made contact, Price’s openness about her age, Andrew’s willingness to meet her, and the lack of deception about her intentions – all fit the evolving picture of how youth are sexually exploited online.

All of this contrasts with the popular image of an “Internet predator,” which over the years has been built up to be similar to the monster in the movie Alien: a pedophile, most likely a man in his forties, who conceals himself within a false Internet identity and uses it to win the trust of a young girl, leading up to an offline meeting which ends in an abduction and rape. Recent research, however – particularly work done by Janis Wolak, David Finkelhor, and Kimberly J. Mitchell of the Crimes against Children Research Center and Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire and by Michele L. Ybarra of the organization Internet Solutions for Kids – has shown that this picture is almost entirely false.

To begin with, the research has shown that social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are not any more dangerous than other online environments. In fact, the only online environment that does correlate to receiving sexual solicitations is chat rooms, and in general online sex offenders rely on tools such as e-mail and instant messaging (IM) to develop relationships with their victims. What these technologies have in common is that they are immediate and intimate – chatrooms and IM, in particular, mimic a live conversation. In this way we might see the movement of youth away from chatrooms to social networking sites as an improvement in terms of their safety from online sexual solicitation. Although the research available does not specifically consider online games as a means of communication, their chat systems resemble chat rooms and IM, in that conversations are carried out in real time and there are relatively few barriers to contacting someone – you can chat with anyone who is on the same “channel,” and channels are generally public.

While it was once thought that posting personal information online was a particularly dangerous activity, the research has shown that it does not, by itself, increase the risk of receiving sexual solicitations. Instead, it is one of a number of behaviours that may be considered risky. The more of these behaviours a youth engages in, the greater the risk of receiving sexual solicitations. In addition to posting personal information, behaviours identified as being risky are include sending personal information to people not known to you, interacting online with people you don’t know, having unknown people on a “buddy” or contact list, talking to unknown people online about sex, seeking out online pornography, being rude or aggressive towards others online, using the Internet to embarrass or harass others, and downloading images from file-sharing programs. It’s important to note that these behaviours are associated with receiving sexual solicitations online, not necessarily the cause of it. Rather, the evidence suggests that engaging in four or more of these behaviours is associated with a general risk-taking attitude that increases the risk that a youth will receive and respond to online solicitations: research has shown that the same youth are risk offline as online. Although we don’t have a full picture of Andrew Kane’s online behaviour, it’s clear that he had engaged in at least two of these behaviours: sending personal information to someone he only knew online and talking about sex online. Like the vast majority of reported victims, he went willingly to his offline meeting: only one of all the cases in the American study involved an abduction, and only one in twenty involved forced sex. (Investigators have remarked that victims often remain loyal to offenders even after the relationship has been brought to light, which can make prosecutions difficult.)

The most unusual thing about the case was the sex genders of the two people involved: nearly all (99%) of those who solicit sex online are male, and 79% of victims are girls; of the 21% who are boys, most are gay or are questioning their sexuality. At 42, her Lauri Price’s age was somewhat unusual: while American research has shown that 60% of offenders are over 25, recent Canadian data found that only about 35% of those accused of “child luring” were over 35. Aside from those, however, Lauri Price was fairly typical of those who solicit sex from youth online. To begin with she was white, as are 84% of online predators; as well, she had no history of violence (like 95% of predators) or prior arrests (79% of offenders studied had no prior record of non-sexual crimes, although unlike Price some did have records of sexual offences.) Most importantly, Price was absolutely typical in that she did not disguise either her identity or her intentions: 80% of offenders are open about their age and 85% make clear their interest in sex with the victim. Moreover Andrew Kane, at 16, was a fairly typical victim: 99% of victims studied were between 13 and 17 years old, and none were younger than 12.

In order to protect young people online we need to understand – and to make them understand – what we are protecting them from. To begin with, we have to be aware that not all children are equally at risk: certain behaviours, such as seeking out sexual material or talking about sex online, and certain other factors, such as being female, being gay or questioning one’s sexuality, or having previously been abused sexually, substantially increase the risk of receiving and responding to online sexual solicitations. As well, we must recognize that offenders do not generally disguise their identities or their intentions but openly attempt to position themselves as potential sexual partners. In a way, the term “predator” is more accurate than we knew: like predators in the animal kingdom, they target the most vulnerable – those young people who are prone to taking risks, particularly in their sexual behaviour; those who are insecure or confused about their sexuality; and those who have already been wounded. Armed with this information, we can learn to watch for warning signs and risky behaviours in our children, we can be candid with them about the kinds of behaviours and material they may encounter online, and we can teach them about the realities of how adults can exploit young people’s inexperience, insecurity and developing sexuality.

MNet Resources

For Teachers

The Safe Passage section on our Web site contains essential tips for teachers on how to teach kids to enjoy the benefits of the Internet while recognizing its potential risks. Many schools, school boards and provinces have also licensed the Web Awareness Workshop series, which includes a workshop version of Safe Passage that covers the same material in greater detail and provides handouts and worksheets.

For Parents

Resources for parents can be found on our recently updated Be Web Aware site, which covers a broad range of topics including online safety and risk-taking. Parents also have their own version of the Safe Passage section of our Web site. Many community groups have also licensed our Parenting the Net Generation workshop which covers many of the issues that arise when young people go online.

It's a question that most parents of young daughters face: "Has she hit the 'princess phase' yet?" Not all parents are upset by this, of course: many happily buy their girls princess costumes, toys and accessories ranging from shoes to purses, all in pink. Some, though, despair of the powerful gender stereotyping this delivers to young girls and each new piece of princess gear can be a source of conflict.

The source of much of this princess culture is Disney, of course, and this winter the studio is extending its reach by introducing its first African-American princess, Tiana, in the animated film The Princess and The Frog. Princesses are big business for Disney: since 2000, when the company began to tie together all the merchandising for any of its characters who might conceivably be called "princesses," the line has become one of the company's biggest earners. Disney's Andy Mooney, who spearheaded the creation of the princess line, told the New York Times  that he got the idea from seeing girls at Disney on Ice shows who were dressed in non-Disney princess costumes, but there's no doubt that in the years since the company has pushed the line into almost every imaginable aspect of a child's life, from beddings to Band-Aids to lip balm. Not surprisingly, the marketing of Princess Tiana began well in advance of the movie's December 11 premiere: more than 45,000 dolls based on the character had already been sold by mid-November, while actors portraying her were already performing in "Tiana's Showboat Jubilee" at Disneyland and Disney World. 

The creation of Princess Tiana would seem to be an attempt to expand into the one market as yet untouched by princesses: African-Amerian girls. The official list of Disney princesses includes, along with born princess Snow White and married-to-royalty Cinderella, two entirely non-royal characters, Mulan and Pocahontas, who are Chinese and Native respectively. The last two characters, though, rarely appear on merchandise -- less, perhaps, due to their ethnic origin than the fact that neither fits well with the "princess aesthetic": in their movies Pocahontas appears in tolerably realistic (if somewhat revealing) Native garb and Mulan actively rejects feminine attire in order to masquerade as a male soldier. Tiana, though, is carefully crafted to fit the princess mould, with an hourglass figure, many glamorous dresses, and even a tiara. Of course, she spends much of the movie in the shape of a frog, but that's not the image that will adorn lunchboxes everywhere. If the movie is at all successful, an entire new population of young girls will soon have caught princess fever.

Is this necessarily a bad thing, though? After all, princesses -- whether born to royalty at the beginning of a story or married into it by the end -- have been fairy-tale protagonists for hundreds of years; the characters of Cinderella and Snow White long predate their Disney incarnations. The appeal of princesses is not hard to see: the unearned wealth and privilege of being a princess makes it a close parallel to classic boys' fantasies of being demigods or orphans rocketed at birth from a distant planet. Where the male and female versions diverge is that where the boys imagine gaining powers and abilities from their special status, being a princess instead brings girls wealth, beauty and romance. It's not surprising, then, that many parents are concerned about just what gender roles their daughters are being trained to play.

Graphic by Jeff Brunner

One common feature of the many articles on this phenomenon is that young girls resist any criticism or alteration of their princesses. In the New York Times article cited above, the writer's daughter asks repeatedly if her mother likes her princess heroines; in her article in The Los Angeles Times  Rosa Brooks fails to convince her daughters that princesses are more likely to end up at a guillotine than a fairy-tale wedding; and Tracee Sioux, who writes a blog titled The Girl Revolution, describes her unsuccessful efforts to steer her daughter away from princesses. Nor can girls be easily swayed by stories that try to subvert the classic princess: "Frogs and snails and feminist tales: Preschool children and gender," a 1989 study by Bronwyn Davies, found that both boys and girls often rejected stories that tried to alter the traditional gender roles found in fairy tales.

Is it really gender roles that children are so attached to, though, or is it the fairy-tale narratives on which they are experts? A recent article by Karen Wohlwend, "Damsels in Discourse: Girls Consuming and Producing Identity Texts Through Disney Princess Play,"  finds that while children engaging in "media play" with princess characters feel a strong loyalty to the original narratives, they are not averse to changing things like the gender of secondary characters (turning Prince Charming into a princess, for instance) or making the protagonist more active, especially if that means giving themselves a larger and more entertaining role to play. (One of the girls in Wohlwend's study finds a way to involve a comatose Sleeping Beauty in a swordfight.)

The children in Wohlwend's study, though, are kindergarteners; though they might have been exposed to quite a lot of princess-related media by this age, they’re still in the early stages of forming gender identities. As girls get older, the worrying aspects of princess culture -- the passivity, consumerism, and so on -- may become more and more confining. As Lyn Mikel Brown, co-author of Packaging Girlhood  writes, the issue is not princess play but the sheer dominance of princess culture: “When one thing is so dominant, then it’s no longer a choice: it’s a mandate, cannibalizing all other forms of play. There’s the illusion of more choices out there for girls, but if you look around, you’ll see their choices are steadily narrowing.” Her co-author, Sharon Lamb, points out as well that the road travelled by princesses is a narrow one, leading to the hypersexualized roles now being sold to ‘tween and teen girls: "There’s a trap at the end of that rainbow, because the natural progression from pale, innocent pink is not to other colors. It’s to hot, sexy pink -- exactly the kind of sexualization parents are trying to avoid.”

How should parents deal with the arrival of the "princess phase"? One option is simply to say “no” -- something parents should never be afraid to do. But an outright ban may backfire by making all things princess even more desirable. What may be more effective is to make sure that girls (and boys) are also exposed to more positive female role models. There are many children's books with strong female characters; kids' movies with good female leads can be harder to find, but the anime produced by Studio Ghibli -- such as Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro -- is a good place to start.

Most important is that parents engage with their children's media and be ready to discuss the images and events they see. Don't be confrontational, but ask questions: do you think you can really make an angry person nice like Belle does to the Beast? Is it worth it to give up your voice, and your family, for a boy the way Ariel does? If Mulan spends most of her movie dressed as a boy, why is she in girls' clothes on the merchandising? There may be no escaping the "princess phase," but teaching kids to view media critically can help make sure your princess doesn't grow up expecting a handsome prince -- or a fairy godmother -- to solve all her problems.

MNet Resources

Teachers can address the presence of gender stereotypes in fairy tales and other children's media through the less Once Upon a Time (for Grades 2 to 6).
 
Media Stereotyping: Media Portrayals of Girls and Women looks at the ways that mass media can stereotype girls and women; the effects this can have on girls' body image, self-esteem and views of gender roles; and provides tips for kids and parents on resisting stereotypes and working for change.

Marketing and Consumerism: Special Issues for Tweens and Teens  talks about how young girls and boys are sold rigid gender identities by consumer culture.

Some concerns have been raised about the portrayal of race in the movie The Princess and the Frog. To help kids deal with racial and ethnic stereotypes, consult Media Portrayals of Ethnic and Visible Minorities .

Halloween is perhaps the most contradictory of the major holidays. Though born in Ireland and other Celtic regions, today it is almost exclusively observed in the form that developed in North America; though closely associated with the imagination, it has been thoroughly commercialized, becoming an opportunity for children to buy costumes and then acquire candy (today it is the second largest commercial holiday in the US, after Christmas); and finally, though it is the holiday most closely associated with children, it is also one that has, traditionally, been all about fear.

From its beginnings as the Celtic festival of Samhain, Halloween has been associated with death and the supernatural: it marked the passage from the "light half" of the year to the "dark half" and was seen as a time when the border between this world and the next grew thin. Perhaps for this reason, it was associated with a variety of masking and divination practices, many of which still happen today. Interestingly, trick-or-treating, at least in its current form, is one of the most recent aspects of Halloween. Derived from a tradition practiced by adults, it was -- along with wassailing at Christmas -- one of a number of occasions each year when landowners were expected to give food and drink to peasants. It became more associated with children when Irish immigrants brought their traditions to North America in the late 19th century. Almost immediately, religious activists began objecting to the "diabolical" effects of the holiday on children, while doctors and community leaders urged parents to remove anything that might frighten children; since then Halloween has been both a playground and a battleground.

Why do kids like scary things?

 While Halloween today has been substantially defanged -- you're more likely to find a branded character from the most recent Hollywood blockbuster at your door than a ghost or a witch -- part of its appeal to children undoubtedly comes from its association with fear. One of the things that appeals to children about the kind of frights provided on Halloween is that it is limited to a single night. It's similar to a thrilling roller coaster ride, or to the experience of watching a horror movie for older children and teens: an opportunity to play with fear, experience the adrenaline thrill of it while keeping it safely contained. Masks or costumes provide another level of emotional safety, as do symbolic markers such as jack-o-lanterns: children can engage with the holiday as something other than themselves, and even their neighbourhood is transformed into a fantasyland.

Unfortunately, today's media landscape provides an all-you-can-eat buffet of frightening TV shows, movies and video games, and children are unlikely to be able to judge in advance how frightening they will find a particular media product. As well, channels that appeal to younger children such as YTV and Teletoon often show TV shows and movies at this time of year that are more appropriate for older kids and teens. As a result, children can find themselves getting frights that are beyond what they're able to handle.

How are kids affected by scary things?

What frightens children changes significantly as they age. One thing that remains consistent with time, as noted above, is the desire for frights to be contained to a particular context. What is perhaps most frightening for all children is images of grotesque transformations, which violate the boundary between fantasy and reality. Joanne Cantor, professor emerita and director of the Center for Communication Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, found in a survey that the most frightening image children had seen on TV was that of Bruce Banner turning into the Hulk in the TV series of the same name.

The ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality, however, does not develop until children are about six or seven; before that, children are as likely to be frightened by fantastic images as by more realistic ones. Young children may also be as affected emotionally by animation as by live-action film, so don't assume that "Scooby Doo Meets Dracula" is a safer bet than Bela Lugosi.

In general, children younger than seven are most frightened by overtly grotesque images and stories where a child or a parent is in peril; older children, meanwhile, who might not be affected by ghoulish images such as witches or vampires which are clearly (and safely) fantastic, can be quite shaken by things that blur the fantastic quality of Halloween by invoking the real world. Psychological horror, frights that connect to their daily lives, and blood and gore can still frighten this age group. What is best are movies and TV shows that are safely contained in fantasy, or that contain clear cues that they are not set in the real world.

What parents can do

 As always, it's important to be aware of what your children are watching and playing. Don't assume that a program is safe for your children to watch based just on the channel broadcasting it or the time that it's airing. Whenever possible, watch potentially troubling content with your children, and be ready to talk to them about what they see.

If your household has children in a range of ages, be ready to provide alternative activities for younger children if your older kids want to watch something frightening, or use your DVD player or PVR for them to watch it after younger kids have gone to sleep.

Don't assume, though, that older children are immune to frights. Don't schedule potentially frightening media or activities right before bed time; spend some time doing reassuringly "normal" activities before kids sleep.

Remember that both younger and older children are most frightened by things that violate the difference between the real and the unreal: if anyone in your household is wearing a potentially frightening costume or makeup effect, let your children watch it being put on so they aren't scared by the transformation.

If you are taking young children trick-or-treating it's probably best to do it during daylight, and emphasize the "dress-up" aspects of it over the potentially frightening elements. For kids who are still learning the difference between fantasy and reality, make sure to reinforce the idea that Halloween is a put-on -- it's a special night where we all pretend to believe in ghosts and goblins. Letting kids participate in things like carving a pumpkin and hanging decorations can help, and keep them clear of frights that might shock and surprise them. When you're decorating, don't use props or tricks that might frighten kids unless you're able to control who encounters them.

Older children should be allowed to engage in "scary play," since this is an important part of learning to manage fear, but make sure that they only do it with kids their own age and older, rather than frightening younger siblings or neighbours. Always respect your kids' limits when it comes to frights and don't let older siblings pressure younger ones into doing things they're not yet ready to do, such as going out after dark or going to a stranger's door.

MNet resources

Our Parents' Section has more information on frightening TV content and how to deal with it.

The article "Questions to Ask Yourself Before Donning A Halloween Costume" provides parents and children with some tips to help find a costume that does not demean or stereotype people of any ethnicity or ability.

The study "Tales from the Screen: Enduring Fright Reactions to Scary Media"  is hosted on our Web site and contains a lot of information about what kinds of images frighten children at different ages, and what kinds of short- and long-term effects being frightened can have on children.

Our Tip Sheets "Helping Kids Cope with Media Coverage of War and Traumatic Events"  and "Talking to Kids about Media Violence" contain lots of great information about how to tell if your children have been frightened or disturbed by media images and how to help kids deal with what they have seen.

Other online resources

Common Sense Media has detailed reviews of many media products, including tips on which are likely to frighten children.

On Saturday, September 26, 2009, the US network Nickelodeon did something unusual: it switched itself off. This was in observance of the "Worldwide Day of Play," an event Nickelodeon inaugurated in 2004. The network -- along with its sister channels Noggin, the N, and Nicktoons, and their associated Web sites -- went dark for three hours to encourage its young viewers to "ride a bike, do a dance, kick a ball, skate a board, jump a rope, swing a swing, climb a wall, run a race, do ANYTHING that gets you up and playing!"

While this is certainly a laudable sentiment, it's interesting to take a look at the list of things that kids are told not to do during that time, which includes "read a book," "watch television or movies," "surf the web" and "play video games." This suggests that the Day of Play is somewhat akin to Turnoff Week in its attitude towards media (and, indeed, the Day of Play occurred on the last day of the 2009 Turnoff Week) -- that anything media-related is, by definition, not play, even playing video games. Other efforts to bring back "traditional" play, such as those described in these New York Times articles,  also focus heavily on physical, typically competitive games such as stickball, ringalevio and jump rope.

It’s easy and fairly natural to make this distinction: consuming media has always been seen as a passive activity, in contrast to physical play -- consider the traditional contrast between the "bookworm," or the violin-carrying child off to his music lesson, with the "all-round boy" engaged in physical play. But are play and media really incompatible? For that matter, what exactly is play?

What is play?

This turns out to be one of those questions that is much more complicated than it looks. As children, we are certainly aware of a distinction between those things we do that are "play" and those that are not, but it's difficult to broaden this into a true definition. There is no agreement, for that matter, on why we play: while some varieties of play make evolutionary sense, such as the "rehearsal" play we share with other animals (cats, for example), other kinds of play are harder to justify from an evolutionary standpoint. (A good summary of the leading theories of play can be found here.) Among the few qualities of play that are universally acknowledged are that participants in play share an acknowledgement that they are playing, that play involves activities removed from their normal context, and that play only happens in leisure; in situations of significant stress, such as hunger or other kinds of deprivation, play disappears.

The National Institute of Play  has identified seven types of play, these being:
attunement play (behaviours that build a connection between the player and another person or group)

• body play (motions and activities with no purpose other than to take pleasure in them)
• object play (taking pleasure in the manipulation and observation of objects)
• social play (playing with social roles and hierarchies)
• imaginative and pretend play, storytelling play (distinct from the former because it requires narrative)
• transformative-integrative play (play with ideas, exploring concepts and possibilities.)

The NIP makes the point that adults take part in these activities as much as children: a baseball fan doing "the wave" is engaged in attunement play as much as a baby playing "peekaboo." As well, it should be noted that there is not necessarily a hard and fast line between "play" and "work". Artists, for instance, engage in a sort of "professional play" (and we disdain art that is lacking that feeling of play, calling it "by the numbers" or "hackwork"), while Einstein, as the NIP's Web site points out, was engaged in transformative-integrative play when he performed the famous thought experiments, such as imagining himself riding a beam of light, that led to his theories of relativity.

It's clear, though, that the Day of Play is specifically about physical play. While the decline of outdoor play and the increase in childhood obesity are certainly matters of concern, some experts feel that we've suffered more from a loss of imaginative play. Laura Berk, an Executive Function Researcher at Illinois University, told National Public radio that children have less ability to regulate their behaviour than in the past because they engage in less make-believe play, which requires what's called "private speech": "If we compare preschoolers' activities and the amount of private speech that occurs across them, we find that this self-regulating language is highest during make-believe play. And this type of self-regulating language… has been shown in many studies to be predictive of executive functions." (Indeed, one study summarized here found that sustained imaginative play was one of the only reliable ways of improving children's self-control.) One widely-cited study compared the ability of children in 2001 to stand still with children in the late 1940s, and found that the earlier group was two years ahead (so that a seven-year-old in the 2001 experiment showed the same level of self-control as a five-year-old in the earlier study.)

Media play

Why are kids engaging in less imaginative play? The easy answer is to blame it on the media: children spend more time as passive consumers of movies, TV, video games, YouTube videos and so on, leaving them with no room for imagination. But children in the 1940s consumed plenty of media such as movies, radio and comic books. The screenwriter William Goldman has written of spending entire Saturdays at the movies, by no means an unusual experience, and in many houses the radio was turned on as soon as the children got home from school, broadcasting adventure serials and comedies just as TV does today. This media diet was not absent from children's play, nor did it detract from it: Brian Doyle, whose novel Angel Square is based in part on his own childhood experiences, depicts his heroes re-enacting and elaborating on the stories they saw and heard in the movies and radio. In my own childhood the media certainly played a large role in our imaginative play, but not a limiting one: our Star Wars figures journeyed to places Luke Skywalker never saw and George Lucas never imagined, and our Smurfs were as likely to have adventures drawn from Tolkien or Dungeons and Dragons as from their own comics.

Children have probably always based their play on the media they consumed; where else would classic schoolyard games like "Cops and Robbers" have come from? Certainly children weren't watching policemen chase criminals on their own streets -- but they were watching, hearing, and reading about those stories, directly or second-hand, through the various media of their times. Media play can be seen as a declaration of ownership, of independence, taking the branded entertainments we are sold and warping them into the stories we want to tell.

What's changed is not the role of the media alone but also the decline of unstructured play time, which provides an opportunity for this kind of media appropriation. Two main factors are responsible for this: first, a growing fear over the last thirty years or so that children cannot be safely left to play unsupervised, and a cultural pressure to have children engage in "worthwhile" or "educational" activities rather than unstructured play. (The media is responsible, at least in part, for both of these: the former due to unrealistic depictions of crime, and the latter due to bad science reporting and the relentless advertising of supposedly educational games, videos, and so on, nearly all of which have been shown to have no developmental value -- a toddler gets as much benefit out of wearing a Baby Einstein video as a hat as he does from watching it.) As well, changing patterns in employment -- both an increased number of women working outside the home and longer average work hours for both sexes -- have led to a perception that parents have less time to spend with their children (though in fact Statistics Canada reports the amount of time spent with children is actually on the increase), which may cause parents to enrol their children in organized activities that are seen as being "worth more" than unstructured play.

Play school

What's particularly unfortunate about the decline of unstructured, imaginative play is that it fosters skills that are more important than ever before, and not just the self-control Berk refers to -- though that is surely of importance at a time when our words can be instantly transmitted around the world and may haunt us forever online. In fact, Project New Media Literacies identifies Play as the first of their "Core Media Literacy Skills," defining it as "the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem solving." Simulation is another, and simulation forms the heart of imaginative play. As children "try on" roles and identities in games as basic as "House"; their understanding of these roles is drawn as much from media as from life -- as is ours.  Appropriation, defined as "the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content," is explicitly tied to media play: without knowing it, this is what children have been doing for years when they have Barbie marry G.I. Joe or Superman fight Popeye. Another of these new media literacies, Collective Intelligence -- defined as "the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others towards a common goal" -- has more in common with imaginative play than it does with more structured activities. In a sport, after all, or other organized or "educational" play, the rules and conventions are already set; there is none of the collaboration and negotiation that's involved in imaginative play, whether or not it's media-related ("We're playing Star Wars, but Jeff and Max both want to play Han Solo." "Well, maybe Han has a long-lost brother…'")

Play day

Of course, Nickelodeon should be praised for encouraging kids to engage in active play (though a cynical soul might note that they typically follow their three-hour "blackout" with marathons of their most popular shows, which adds up to a rather mixed message.) But it's important to get past the simple equation of play with exercise and recognize the value of play for what it is: unstructured time in which we can, if we choose, defy Nickelodeon's commandments and "take a nap," "read a book" or "twiddle your thumbs." So, too, must we abandon the notion that free play is wasted time, that it's only useful if children learn something. Children at play certainly are learning things, but they are doing so in ways that cannot be planned or designed.

Exercises for teachers

• How can we incorporate elements of imaginative play into our classes? What are the key elements (creativity, choice, open-endedness, etc.)?
• Discuss ways in which different media can stimulate types of play.
• Think of ways you can encourage students to appropriate and play creatively with the media products they consume. For example, you might ask students to act out a story where an unlikable media character becomes the hero, or where a character defies his/her stereotyped depiction.
• Take an exercise or assignment and convert it into a play-based activity. What has to be changed? How much of the instructional content has to be sacrificed?
• Try to think of a few opportunities for students to just "play" with your class content. Think about applying this to different subjects. Do some lend themselves more naturally to play? Why?
• Think of ways to incorporate extended imaginative play into your classroom. Encourage your students to stay in the roles they've chosen as long as possible and interact with each other according to those roles. Don't forget the "pre-play" period where you and the students negotiate roles and rules: if students are role-playing numbers or elements, for instance, talk about what those roles will mean, both to the individual student and in relation to one another (for instance, larger numbers might boss smaller numbers around, positive ions might be cheerful and optimistic and look to pair with gloomy negatives, and so on.)
• What are the limitations of play in a classroom setting? When should play activities not be used, and why?

It’s a persistent phenomenon: the faster we move into the future, the more we find it embedded with the bones of the past. Why else, for instance, would we still talk about “dialling” a phone, and later about “hanging it up”? Few people remember the early TV remote controls that worked by sending high-frequency sounds, but we still call remotes “clickers.” We still say “stay tuned,” “CC” (carbon copy) e-mails, “rewind” DVDs, and “post” online messages. Even new media darling YouTube contains an old-media artefact of this kind: the name is obviously meant to make us think of television, the “boob tube,” but few TVs have tubes in them anymore.

These kinds of throwbacks aren’t just linguistic, they’re found in technology as well. Most often these come from a failure to rethink assumptions, or an aesthetic attachment to the old technology – think of the wood paneling found for so long on cars, a relic from the time when a station wagon was really a wagon – but sometimes they are intentional design choices. An amusing example is Betamaxmas, which uses the Web to recreate the experience of watching TV sometime in the early 1980s. The site’s content is made up of old TV shows and commercials, but what sets it apart is the presentation: a rabbit-eared TV sitting in front of a faux wood paneling wall, framed by a Christmas tree and grey cloth couch in the foreground. It’s easy to dismiss the site as nostalgia – and that’s certainly what it is – but what’s interesting here is that the main purpose of the interface is to limit the user’s control. While the content of this site comes from YouTube, the interface is decidedly analog: a genuine “clicker” whose only controls are Channel Up and Down, Volume Up and Down, and Fullscreen (which zooms in on the screen, though the TV remains in frame.)

What is the difference between pressing the button on a remote control (or clicking a cursor on a picture of a button on a remote control) and typing in the search box of YouTube? The answer may be that the former is a tactile experience, albeit a simulated one. Look at all of those old-technology holdovers in our language – how many of them refer to a physical activity such as dialling, rewinding and clicking? As technology becomes increasingly digital, both in the sense that it is entirely computer-based and in the sense that our digits are the only part of our body that interacts with it, we may feel the lack of a tactile connection. More and more, technology is taking tasks that used to be done in the physical world and making them virtual. Consider the progress from the vinyl LP to the CD to the digital music player: from the tactile experience of fitting a needle into the groove (and seeing it skip if something went wrong), to putting a disc into the tray and watching it spin, to the inscrutable workings of a tiny metal and plastic box. Even as recent a technology as the fax has been virtualized: all of the physical properties of the task of faxing – printing a document, placing it in the machine, keying in (dialling?) the fax number, listening to the dial tone and eventual handshake noise, receiving the confirmation and reply on slick, curly paper – have been replaced by a direct computer-to-computer process.

Some new technologies try to incorporate a physical experience. The most successful digital-tactile hybrid is the iPhone, which uses accelerometers to translate actions – tilting, turning or shaking the phone – into digital processes. Some of the most successful apps for the iPhone have been those that directly reproduce tactile experiences: maze games, like those that once filled innumerable car-trip hours, in which a ball is guided through a maze; virtual Zippo lighters for holding up in tribute at rock concerts; and even applications, like the one pictured above, that turn it into a rotary phone. E-book readers, similarly, compete with one another to most fully reproduce the physical experience of reading a book: the Kindle’s “paper” screen, the tactile page-turning feature in Classics app for the iPhone, and the leather cover of the Sony e-Reader.

More evidence that we miss the tactile properties of old technology can be found in books such as The Dangerous Book for Boys and The Mysterious Benedict Society, both of which deny or at least ignore the virtual world. The first of these offers advice on a variety of old-school children’s activities such as building a fire, tying knots and folding paper airplanes; the second, a novel, features young protagonists who employ similar skills to foil an evil plot to brainwash the world’s children through TV. Although The Mysterious Benedict Society is ostensibly set in the present, the Internet is oddly absent: the characters are brought into the action by a classified ad in the newspaper, dictionaries and encyclopedias are consulted when information is needed, and Morse code is used in place of cell phones. Again, nostalgia is undoubtedly a factor here – the former book could easily be titled The Dangerous Book for Dads – but there’s also a genuine longing for a more physical, tactile world.

The irony is that being denied access to that physical world is a big part of what’s driven young people online; as writers such as Anastasia Goodstein and Dr. Tanya Byron have suggested, a lack of unstructured play is due largely to exaggerated fears of the dangers of letting kids go unsupervised – when in fact most parents of young children today grew up at a time when the crime rate was significantly higher. This has made the Internet the only place youth can go to experiment, test their limits and escape adult scrutiny, while parents look at their wired, over-scheduled children and feel pangs of nostalgia for their own days of racing bikes, burning ants with magnifying glasses, skinning knees and occasionally needing booster shots for tetanus.

How will the current generation of children feel about this? Most of the technologies that try to bring a tactile experience into the virtual world – the iPhone, the Wii – are aimed primarily at adults, not kids. Will today’s children eventually feel the lack of the physical in their online lives, or will they simply accept a world experienced only through the eyes, ears and fingertips?

Discussion Questions

• Do you think young people place less importance on a physical experience when using technology for work or play? Why or why not?
• Will technologies that try to bring a physical experience into their interface, such as the iPhone and Wii, be successful with young people or only adults? Why would this approach appeal or not appeal to young people?
• Is the phenomenon of “retro” kids’ books such as The Dangerous Books for Boys and The Mysterious Benedict Society something that appeals to young people, or just their parents?
• Is something important lost when technology becomes completely digital? Why or why not?
  

 

• Research and homework
   
• Online relationships
   
• Inappropriate content
   
• Online marketing
   
• Cyber addiction

• What are some common characteristics associated with sitcom TV ad dads?
   
• Are these characteristics consistent with how dads are portrayed in other TV genres (e.g., dramas) or other types of media, such as music and movies?
   
• Why do you think these portrayals exist? Do you think this is an accurate depiction of “the dad of today”? If no, how would you portray fathers on television?
   
• Stereotypes are "fixed" or "set" beliefs about a group of people and that when we apply stereotypes, we assume that all members of a group are the same.  What impact would these stereotypes have on our understanding of a father’s role in the family?
   
• What other gender stereotypes do you think exist in movies and TV shows? List some of the stereotypes of people your age and gender. How do these stereotypes compare with people you know in real life?

• Talk to your kids about Facebook. Ask to see their profile and have them guide you through how they add friends. Make sure they have enabled the privacy feature that allows them to restrict access to only people they know.
  
• Explain that they must be extremely careful when posting information about themselves on the site because school administrators, police and potential employees have been known to troll Facebook profiles looking for incriminating or illegal behaviour.
  
• Read through the Terms posted on the site with your kids. The section User Content Posted on the Site explains that the company has the right to use content posted on the site in any way it chooses to.

• Talk to other families and parents for suggestions of good games.
• Find games that have the appropriate Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rating for your child's age. But be aware that even games with the seemingly benign "Everyone" rating can still contain violence.
• Look for games that are challenging and exciting without being violent. Video game manufacturers create violent games to satisfy children's need to feel powerful and in control. Try to find ones that offer the same thrills and the chance to experience control in a non-violent way.
• Find games that require strategy and problem-solving skills. If they have an educational component, that's a bonus.
• When choosing games for girls, look for ones that have strong, non-stereotypical female characters.
• Look for games that involve two players, to encourage cooperative play and to make game-playing a social activity.
  
  
• Video games are expensive, so make sure the game has good play value before you buy. Read gaming magazines or blogs and check out some of the great game review sites for families on the Web, such as the “Family Video Game Reviews” on the Common Sense Media Web site. If possible, try the game first by borrowing or renting it. Ask for an in-store demo and make sure you can return the game if you are not satisfied with the content.
  
  
• Review the annual MediaWise video game report card by The National Institute on Media and the Family. The report card highlights best bets for parents looking for non-violent games for their kids, provides research and reviews on how effective the industry is at keeping age-inappropriate games out of the hands of young people.
  
  The report card’s recommended games for children and teens
  
  LEGO Star Wars II – The Original Trilogy (E 10+)
  Mario Hoops 3 on 3 (E)
  Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz (E)
  Roboblitz (E 10+)
  Madden Football ’07 (E)
  LocoRoco (E)
  Dance Factory (E)
  Brain Age (E)
  Nancy Drew: Danger by Design (E)
  Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: The March of the Minis (E)
  
  Parent Alert! Games to avoid for children and teens
  
  Gangs of London (M)
  The Sopranos (M)
  Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (M)
  Reservoir Dogs (M)
  Mortal Kombat: Unchained (M)
  Scarface: The World is Yours (M)
  The Godfather: Mob Wars (M)
  Saints Row (M)
  Dead Rising (M)
  Just Cause (M)
  
  

• Media Awareness Network: the For Parents section of MNet’s site provides resources, background information and practical tips for helping parents manage media in the home.
• Be Web Aware: an Internet safety Web site for parents produced by MNet.
• Me, My Kids and the Media: A Workshop for Parents: a free workshop from the Canadian Teachers’ Federation to help parents make their kids media savvy.
• TV&ME: For Parents: a resource from Concerned Children's Advertisers to help parents support children in developing healthy media habits.
• Commonsense Media: a U.S. organization that provides reviews of popular media and parent tips through a Web site, newsletter and blog.
• Media and the Family: a U.S.-based research organization that looks at the positive and harmful effects of media on children and families.
• New American Dream: a U.S. site that addresses issues around consumerism and consumption.