Recently, I was enlightened by my new volunteering opportunity at a nearby elementary school. I volunteer as a lunchtime helper, and I help supervise the children at recess and help them during their assigned lunch time. I was really overjoyed to see the children still playing tag and playing on the playground during recess. Doing things I would do at recess during my years in elementary school. These moments made me recollect on the experience of being a young 6 year old with no worries in the world but what I was going to color next or who should I go to the park with later.
That being said, growing up in the 2000s was awesome. We had the best TV shows on Disney as well as Nickelodeon. I remember how, after doing all my homework, eating dinner, and playing outside, I would sit down at 8 p.m. to watch the movie that Disney Channel would play that weeknight, whether it was Twitches, Cadet Kelly, or even the High School Musical series. I also loved watching hours and hours of Drake and Josh, Zoey 101, and Wizards of Waverly Place.
I feel like I grew up in the transition period from the lack of technology to the full-blown use of technology that we see today. I would play outside at the park and go on walks with my friends to the nearby Dunkin or Quik Chek for fun, but I also remember the Nintendo DS vividly. I remember my addiction to technology starting with Webkinz, the virtual and actual world combining through a website and a stuffed animal pet. Now, children have iPhones in the fourth grade and know how to use an iPad and computer better at age five than I do now. They choose to do that rather than gathering those outdoor experiences, rather than jumping off the swings and running through fields, making mud pies or playing tag.
Today, I feel like children do not experience the same kind of time without technology and with their friends unless their parents enforce it. The moments that kids spend being kids playing tag at recess allow them to experience the world disconnected from the technology that constantly surrounds them now. Which is a beautiful thing. It also reminds me, as a 19 year old, to disconnect from technology and allow myself to be the kid I was in elementary school, where fun was not defined by an app your phone. Technology is an amazing thing and the world would be completely different without the advancements in the past twenty years, but it is lovely to have a break and just play a game of tag with your friends or even go for a walk.
