The whimsical adventure super-heroes

Amalshan GUNERATHNE

We live in an era where teen lives revolve around a new breed of heroes. Their world spins around the whimsical adventures of Rowling’s Harry Potter and rivets around the stories of action super-heroes like Spiderman, X-Men and Batman. Then there are other cartoon figures like popular Sonic the Hedge Hog, Scooby Doo, Soora Pappa and Tin Tin who thrill and amuse their lives with adventurous stories.

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With the advent of Stephenie Meyer’s Twighlight series, a new breed of vampire superheroes have also invaded the juvenile minds. There is nothing wrong with living in childhood fantasies. Such fairy tales and fabled fiction have always played an integral part in kid’s lives, but the addiction to such fiction could always have an adverse effect on their school studies and their development as productive individuals. Times where kids used to play with nature and run along the streams and wrack havoc with their childhood exuberance are no more. The modern entertainment means provide them with ample adventure and action from the insides of their house itself. Hence, Daily News Punch decides to explore on how teen life is affected by modern entertainment means such as action oriented sci-fi movies, TV series, video games and other computer related entertainment activities.

Childhood fantasies

Spiderman, Wolverins, X men and Harry-Potters have become childhood role models. While idealism that is portrayed through such fiction would do no harm to the child psychology, it is the addiction to such fictional characters and the violence that is portrayed through these storylines that could create adverse effects on their development.

From very young, they start to live in make-believe worlds of super-heroes and other magical wonders that they lose their touch from the real life and completely forget to cherish simple blessings of life. They begin to revolve their lives around super-hero characters and sometimes even try to build their personalities according to those fictional characters. Speaking of their teen friend’s ‘Twilight’ addiction, a seventeen year old school girl commented, “Some girls are hopelessly in love with those fictional vampires that they see on those movies. They have imaginary relationships with those characters and they even build their personalities according to those characters. It is very juvenile and silly and prevents them from having a realistic outlook on the world.”

The other factor is that most such movies expose kids to grave violence and often the storylines revolve around super-heroes trying to beat up the bad ones with their vindictive motives. Sharing his thoughts on who his favourite super-hero character is, eight year old Nisandu Lakmith, studying in grade two enthusiastically commented “I used to like Wolverine because he has claws like steel that can shred any enemy to pieces, but now I like Harry Potter because he has immense magic that can take on anyone.” This could affect their mind in a negative manner and make them more aggressive as individuals.

Television-still a major medium

Though computer has emerged as a major force in recent times, many local families still do not have the financial means to afford such luxuries. Therefore kids from average families often grow up with television and other electronic media. Joining with Daily News the past president of Royal College disciplinary committee and a teacher, Annasly Rozairo explained, “The media plays a great role in developing teen psychology. But the crisis is that the insipid programmes which they telecast these days do not serve such purpose. Even if they do telecast exam oriented, study related programmes, not many students follow them. Most television channels dedicate the whole evening to telecast cartoons that kids often end up spending their evening free time watching those programmes instead of investing that time on a productive activity.”

Sharing similar thoughts and speaking of her six year old son’s cartoon addiction, Sriyani Perera, commented, “There is a certain local TV channel which telecast cartoons from four in the evening to six o’clock in the trot and kids are very addicted to those cartoons. Instead of doing some out door activity, the kids stay home glued to the television set.”

Having said that putting undue restrictions on kids and preventing them from cherishing their childhood is not the right way to handle the situation either. Imprisoning them with rigid rules and forcing them to become book-worms will kill their exuberance and turn them in to dull, placid beings. Sharing her thoughts, Shashika Gallage, parent of two kids of the age of eight and six noted, “We have to understand their likes and give it a place as well. We should not deprive them of cherishing their childhood. I allow them to watch cartoons as long as they finish their school work on time and sometimes it motivates them to finish their work early.”

The virtual fascinations

However, according to Rozairo, the biggest infectious plague to hit the teen life is computer, internet and its virtual gimmicks. According to him the school children does not necessarily need a computer to help them out with studies. “I frankly feel the study content that their teachers teach to them in class rooms is more than enough to get through exams. Therefore providing them with internet access is not going to provide them any extra benefits. It would be beneficial, if they use it in a productive manner, but often they do not always do that,” he says.

Still, in this day and age, where computer has become an integral part in everyone’s lives, it is also unfair to deprive kids from accessing such luxuries. On the positive of side things, exposure to modern technology, Internet, etc could help kids to get accustomed to modern way of doing things and could provide them with necessary technological acumen that is needed to succeed in a high-tech world. The means of entertainment have evolved with time and the conventional leisure time activities have become things of past. Times are such that before long, paper-books would be completely replaced by modern e-books, the black boards with gigantic projectors and class rooms will be networked with lap-top computers. Therefore restricting them and keep them completely away from computer might not solve the issue either.

However, according to Rozairo adverse affects that computer could make on child development are far greater than the positives. “Parents buy their kids a computer with good intentions in mind. They want the kids to use Internet for productive purposes. But more often than not, when they go online, the kids get distracted with its wonders and instead of focusing their time on study related content, they tend to wander off and engage in other activities like Facebook (FB). The negatives are greater than the positives.” He also commented on teenagers being exposed to virtual predators through social networking sites such as FB.

“Sometimes boys use social networking sites to meet girls from popular schools and these could lead to various adverse consequences. There were instances where boys even started to fight against each other for the girls that they meet online.”