http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/cover-story-playdate
FUTURE CHALLENGES The June 2015 cover of the New Yorker features Playdate; an illustration by Chris Ware which depicts a scene that many parents around the world would have seen. Estranged from their surroundings and immersed in their thoughts around seven hundred trillion children from all corners of the planet gather dutifully every day to play Minecraft. This game, recently acquired by Microsoft, allows them to bring to life anything that their imagination can conceive. The New Yorker wrote: “Minecraft allows for variations on two basic modes of play: “survival,” where one must find the material means to live for a night while killing monsters (clearly for boys), and “creative,” where one can endlessly build or dig an imaginary world of limitless architectural scope from three-dimensional pixels, with no threat whatsoever.”And this is where we must halt. For it is indeed survival and creative resourcefulness that are being jeopardized by standardized games and static play. Endless hours spent indoors in a seemingly infinite world can actually limit these children in various ways, ranging from social anxiety to health and mental problems. One of the biggest limitations is that by being deprived of real life risk, challenge and adventure experiences (or only addressing these in the virtual world) a person’s ability to cope with real-life challenges is compromised. I chose this image because of the importance of future generations in molding the future. The scene depicted in this illustration does not resonate with the challenges of today's world. We should be Mindcrafting the generation X, Y and Z children (also known as iGen, Post-Millennials, Centennials and Plurals) so that their interaction with nature can go beyond a few futile clicks here and there, Control + Alt, and shoot bang bang.
REFLECTION As anthropogenic actions shift the world’s safe operating space and the nine planetary boundaries (that have kept the world rolling like it has for the past 10,000 years) are transgressed to their tipping points, things are about to go downhill. The future is grim. It seems necessary to stress about the ominous skies lurking ahead. Not only do we know that the problem is in crescendo but we also know that business as usual keeps pushing our planet and it will plummet and us with it. NO. Stop. Inhale. Exhale. Smile. YES. The planet is facing challenges that require humans to take collective actions and redirect the path our ship is sailing before it crashes and we all sinkNope. Stop again. Breath. Smile. We are standing in a pivotal moment in human and natural history. It’s this momentum that can propel the changes that are needed in order to re-establish the world’s balance and reinvigorate our relationship with nature. With close to 60% of the world’s population living in urban areas and forecasts stating that the next generation will spend more than half of their time living in the virtual world, it is paramount for designers to create spaces that allow community building, casual social interactions, playing, rekindling, learning and nourishment. I like hope and understanding resilience thinking is a good way to regain trust in our socio-ecological systems. And know that the future is regenerating.
A boy trudged down the sidewalk dragging a fishing pole behind him. A man stood waiting with his hands on his hips. Summertime, and his children played in the front yard with their friend, enacting a strange little drama of their own invention. It was fall, and his children fought on the sidewalk in front of Mrs. Dubose’s. . . . Fall, and his children trotted to and fro around the corner, the day’s woes and triumphs on their faces. They stopped at an oak tree, delighted, puzzled, apprehensive. Winter, and his children shivered at the front gate, silhouetted against a blazing house. - TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD BY HARPER LEE
JULIANA SAYAGO 723997