Social Media And The Chance For Us To Become Adults At Last

When I was a child, my free time was spent with a bunch of other kids in an empty field playing ball. There were no parents involved, they trusted the group that we were hanging out with to look out for one another. I can’t think of a time an adult was required to get us of out a mess we had gotten ourselves into.

Not that it was all smooth sailing, of course. There was a lot of arguing over the rules of the game, but we played a lot more than we argued. We learned to work together, learned to compromise, learned that sticking to your point, even when you were right, was less fun than just giving in on what were ultimately small matters and getting on with the game. In this way we learned skills that would serve us when we became adults and had to live with each other when no one would be there to settle our disagreements.

In the neighborhood I live in now, there are no empty fields where children can gather far from the watchful eyes of adults. We do have a water park nearby, though. There are video cameras there that monitor those who walk past the chain link fence. Lifeguards watch the children, most of whom are also watched by helicopter parents. I worry that these children will never learn how to negotiate the rules, but only learn to obey them.

The world needs adults who are skilled in negotiating workable ways of arranging society. But we have been gradually abandoning our role as adults, preferring to remain children. I suppose it began when…