Publish at July 21 2008 Updated June 13 2022
Summer vacation camps have always offered youngsters what parents fear most. In the past it was the wilderness, exposure to the raw elements, and today it's not being able to join their beloved offspring for a week or two.
Anxiety for parents and sometimes children, but oh-so-healthy experience: young people are entirely there to experience what's there.
In fact, more than 2/3 of summer camps ban cell phones, the Internet and other electronic communication. And it may well be that this intuitive or philosophical decision is the right one.
An English study shows that children's brain development is threatened by the absence of manual labor in school or at home.
Not only are schools abandoning woodworking, metalworking, crafts, instrumental music or small mechanics, but these activities are also becoming increasingly rare at home, replaced by video games.
Manual work in the real world is imperative for full cognitive development, as manual experience allows for real-time integration of a range of information such as precision, force required, duration, inertia, range of motion, coordination, temperature, friction, flexibility, and even fatigue, information that is more often than not absent, delayed, or symbolic in a virtual environment.
The study cites examples of young people clearly demonstrating deficits in certain areas of their cognitive development. Young engineers and apprentices are also found to have serious difficulties in clearly conceiving mechanical problems.
And if we also addressed interactive social skills without intermediaries, would we find the same kind of findings?
Still, it does seem that summer camps have chosen their camp: that of direct experience. When it comes to starting a fire, the best video isn't worth a good experience.
References
Working with hands helps develop kids' brains Playing online vs. hands-on activities tied to cognitive decline, study says
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