Should Kids Today Have Free Time

Basic Argument Assignment Should kids today have more free time? Research shows that children have lost hours of free time every week due to structured activities. Have children lost the time needed to help their brains develop? Or have they traded their free time for time spent behind an electronic screen? Quindlen argues in Doing Nothing is Something parents over scheduling adolescences has led to a generation of stressed and over worked children, further examination suggest technology is playing a much larger role in the deterioration of downtime than selfish parents are. Parents want the best for their children, whether that is in education or in extracurricular activities. They are also more cognitive about what colleges look for in students and what will help in the real world, outside of school. Quindlen claims that ”the culture of cutthroat and unquestioning competition that leads even the parents of preschoolers to gab about

They are getting so wrapped up in the instantaneous entertainment at the palm of their hands that “the average American boy or girl spends as few as 30 minutes in unstructured outdoor play each day, and more than seven hours each day in front of an electronic screen.”. It’s no wonder why children today are so stress and overwhelmed. Our brains evolved in ‘real time’, the computers that we find ourselves in front of for hours on end process information so much faster than what we ourselves are capable of doing that it stressing our brain out; having to keep up is too taxing. The brain can only store so much information, if it has the choice to hold on to stimulating video games or something relevant such as information learned in school, the brain will choose the exciting stimulation. If children were to spend more time outside playing, reading, or doing anything in ‘real time’ it would allow their brains to slow down and process and retain