Detached Children

I think the article Michu linked to from del.icio.us was really interesting. I'm referring to the one about how Children detach from natural world as they explore the virtual one. Oddly, I was just thinking about that last night as I used World of Warcraft to settle down after a long and busy day. As I led my gnome mage through the snowfields of Dun Morogh, I could see my footprints in the snow and had the volume loud enough to hear the wintery winds blowing through the woods. It reminded me of the part of my childhood that I spent in Manitoba, where it was not unusual in the winter to wake up and find that our front door was completely covered by a snow drift, and where 40 degrees below zero was common as well. (And haha, I can honestly one day tell my grandkids that I walked to school on those days.)

At that moment two things happened - I remembered the sound of the wind blowing across the snowy prairie land in the middle of Winter. I also had a profound sense of disconnect as the rational thought suddenly hit me -- children who play this game who have never experienced a winter like that, or for that matter, have never really spent any time in nature at all, will never have that gut-level physical reaction to a memory; that feeling of almost shivery "thank god I'm inside a warm house right now" sense of recognition of the potential harshness of nature.

I really have to wonder how increasing virtual "worlds" will impact children growing up, who may never have the actual physical experience with which to relate to the online depiction.