by Susan Linn, Director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, The New York Times, 15 September 2013
Creativity — our ability to invent, conjure, envision, think divergently, and change the status quo — is essential to a thriving democracy and is rooted in children’s creative play. Yet as a society, we seem to do just about everything we can to prevent even very young children from playing. Over-scheduling, lack of access to green space and early emphasis on rote learning are a few of the barriers we’ve constructed. Another primary culprit is today’s unprecedented convergence of unfettered commercialism and ubiquitous screen media.
A commercialized, screen-saturated culture deprives children of what’s essential to creativity: time, space and silence.
Read more »