The holidays are a few weeks behind us now and the Christmas decorations have disappeared, except for some of you folks with New Orleans roots. I can't help but notice something though. Where have all the kids gone, you know, the ones riding new bicycles they got for Christmas?
Back when I was a kid growing up in east Hattiesburg in the 1960s, those people lucky enough to own cars had to be extra careful driving along Fairley and Seventh streets this time of year. That's because of all the kids riding shiny new bikes they got for Christmas filling the streets. For some reason, everyone seemed to love red bikes. Chances were, your parents, wait, I mean Santa, probably picked your new bike up from Sears on Main Street or the Western Auto at the base of Hardy Street.
Seriously, on Christmas morning, it'd be a two-wheel traffic jam with kids on bicycles all over our neighborhood. Eventually, the bikes would end up broken, one way or another, and one by one, you'd see fewer of them as summer approached. This year though, I haven't seen a single kid on the bikes they got for Christmas. No, wait. There was that one group of Latina kids out riding their new bikes down Fourth Street.
For the most part though, I'm puzzled by the lack of Christmas bikes I'm not seeing in Hattiesburg's neighborhood. It's a trend I've been noticing for years, leading me to pose a question on Facebook's Remember When in Hattiesburg page. There, we discuss days of yesteryear growing up in the Hub City and my question was, "Where have all the kids riding the bicycles they got for Christmas gone?"
There were lots of responses but the one I heard most often was something I'd already suspected, that today's kids have discovered a new form of entertainment. It's all about electronics. One of the responses summed things up; electronics killed the children's bicycle market at Christmas.
I suppose most of today's kids were sitting at home on Christmas morning starting up the new laptops and other E-toys Santa brought them. Dad no longer had to bother with assembling that bicycle. And, as far as getting that new laptop or tablet programmed and running, chances are the kids could teach their folks a thing or two. When it comes to electronics, those 21st century tykes can make us old folks feel kind of dumb.
Snuggled up on the living room couch, or in their bedrooms where you'll probably also find a flatscreen TV, today's kids are living it up big time. The bad news is, they're doing most of their living indoors, rather than outdoors — moving those bodies of theirs. In fact, today's children reflect the lifestyles of Americans in general, young and old. We've become such a sedentary society.
After school, back in the day, you'd find us outside playing a game of marbles, hide-and-seek, or challenging each other to a race, in our bare feet, on the dirt roads that passed for streets in east Hattiesburg. Okay, there were exceptions. If WDAM-TV's afterschool movie featured favorites like "The Creature from The Black Lagoon," that game of marbles could wait while we sat parked in front of our family's 21" black-and-white Zenith TV. As soon as the movie was over though, we'd head outside to play, if there was enough daylight left.
Today, kids and adults have gotten used to sitting. Big deal? Well yes, it is a big deal. Our sedentary lifestyles are blamed, in part, on the COVID-19 epidemic of four years ago, the days of social-distancing and all that. Though it may have helped in slowing spread of the pandemic, it's also made an already sedentary American public even more so. The average American spends two-thirds of their days in a reclining or sitting position.
Young people ride to school, where they sit extensively, then go home to watch TV, play video games or scroll on their smartphones, for hours. There's growing evidence that our sedentary lifestyles, brought on by all of that screen time is associated with poor health, especially as children grow into young adults.
There are plenty of other downsides. For instance, elementary school students who spend more than two hours a day with a smartphone in hand, playing video games or watching TV, often suffer from academic impairment, reflected in lower test scores at school.
There's more. Poor performance in schoolwork can be exacerbated by a child not getting enough sleep. The more time he or she spends on a screen device, the less likely they are to get a good night's sleep. Sleep loss can lead to fatigue the next morning and trouble concentrating during school hours.
Of course, there's also the one we hear about a lot, especially when it comes to one of today's biggest debates, school violence. Overexposure to media violence can desensitize kids to violence — that goes for adults, too. Here's one time Hollywood can be blamed. The constant barrage of violence in today's movies, and tech games, may lead kids to accept violent behavior as a way to solve problems.
Let's bring those bicycles back into the picture. Kids riding their bikes are doing something extremely important for their good health. They're getting exercise, for their entire bodies — not just for their fingers. As a result of all that screen time, today's kids are struggling more often with obesity, which can lead to a number of medical problems as they get older.
One last thing. Excessive screen time means less time interacting with their peers, and not the online chatting kind of interaction either. Chatting online will never make up for one-on-one personal conversation instead of communicating with God-knows-who, on a smartphone. Screen time is building a society that doesn't talk to each other face-to-face, and that's not a good thing.
We humans are social animals by nature. We function better when we're among and talking to each other. In-person socializing staves off feelings of loneliness or even depression. Not only that, it also helps sharpen memory, improves a child's feeling of happiness and may even help us live longer.
No way you're going to get your kids to put down their electronic devices, any more than you'll put down yours. Can you imagine the withdrawal? But it would be a good thing for your kids to take breaks from those smartphones and other electronic gadgets to hang with friends, get outside and experience, you know, the real world.
Maybe they should go ride a bike.
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Elijah Jones is a proud Hattiesburg native who enjoys writing. Email him at edjhubtown@aol.com.
