http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus When you can just google it to find out if Santa is real or not. At least, in my opinion DISCUSSION ADDED: We live in an age where very young kids have very easy access to very sophisticated technology. I don't know about any of you, but part of the wonder of being a kid was NOT KNOWING, but now at the first sing of resistance, the truth is only a google away. What do you think this will affect in the future? I personally believe it will lead to an even more rapid maturation of the youth populace.
Please, could you edit your first post and add a discussion topic, and clearly state what you want us to discuss. Otherwise i'll move this to Spam.
No problem. It's just good to get a wide idea and question down when posting a topic, you did good wih the edit. Now, at the topic. It is something interesting to think about, that 'truth' is a google away. But the thing is these wikipedia articles and such are still no good indication of facts and kids should be told this. But in terms of maturation, i honestly don't think this'll change much. Other cultures don't have a Santa Claus or an equivalent and their population sill matures at an average age across the world. It can seem that people will now not believe in these old folk tales with obvious information a click away, but remember that people still believe in the same things we've been believing for thousands of years. Ghosts, spirits, the afterlife, people believe what they don't understand even if they have information available, it doesn't mean they will read it. So I don't believe anything will really change, few individual kids might leanr this way but i don't think it will mean maturity will happen at a greater rate for kids.
It makes me sad that kids who are young now have never and will never be able to experience life where computers and there internet were not this advanced. I remember being sooo excited when my parents would let me use the dial-up internet so I could get on and play games. Young kids really are spoiled by all this advanced technology.
It is a bit sad when thinking about it. Believing in Santa made Christmas so much more....magical. Christmas was exciting knowing you had to go to bed or Santa wasn't coming and the fact you had to be good all year long was a little challenge for us as kids. I'm not set on what it would effect in the future, though. However, I would much rather a child believe until they can't anymore than to spend childhood not believing.
yea, i know what you mean. i was the same way when i first got dial-up access to the Internet. i kinda miss that annoying dial-up noise, lol. though, part of me wonders if technology will advance so far to the point that what we have today would seem primitive.
Wait, you mean there are kids that are old enough to read yet still believe in Santa ? Well anyway, I' m pretty sure dictionaries existed long before the internet. Besides, having information a mere click away is irrelevant if you have no intellectual tools to assert their reliability, which kids usually lack. Apparently some atheists parents use Santa precisely to give such tools to their kids : when they finally get wind of Santa at school instead of telling them that he doesn' t exist they just ask them whether they believe in it or not and why, then lightly challenge their reasoning. Also, why life would be less happy for kids if they didn' t believe in Santa is beyond me. Christmas didn' t stop being a happy time for me in the slightest when I figured out he didn' t exist. It' s the same for God or the afterlife, apparently contemplating the mere possibility that they might not exist is unbearable for some people, that' s something I never understood and probably never will. Whether they exist or not has zero impact on my day to day life, I don' t believe in either but that doesn' t diminish my imagination nor my capacity to be marveled by nature and life.
I don't see what's so crazy about that. My niece can nearly read and she's four. I'm not sure what's so crazy about a 6-8 year old believing in Santa. And yes, dictionaries existed, but that wasn't something that most kids would bother with. However, googling 'does Santa exist' immediately comes up with people saying no. It's much more easily accessed. And unlike university, they don't care about citation. And I don't understand why you're asserting that tehe kids would cease to be happy after finding out. Honestly, the knowledge isn't what's important, it's the not knowing that gives it that interesting edge. Obviously everybody is unique, it seems like you had a much less Santa saturated childhood, but most of the people I knew growing up, or young people in my family growing up believed in Santa for a good while.
While I do admit there was a certain charm to not knowing and chalking it up to magic or for the church folks out there, God but as I've gotten older I've become more of an advocate for children to have access to information though a bit filtered because there is stuff that NSFW out there and should be reserved for older audiences. As for Santa, I found out it was my parents when I was 12 and since then I learned it's not so much about Santa but the spirit of the season and the idea that we can come together even if just for one day.
I didn' t, it' s just something I often hear (well, that they' d be less happy, not that they wouldn' t be happy at all). What stfruit said reminded me of it. Sure, solving a mystery makes it less interesting, but what I was trying to say was that there' s no shortage of mysteries to solve and of things to be amazed and exited about. Find out an answer and two more questions will sprout.
I for one do not think it "sucks" to be a kid nowadays. Sorry but, these kids are generally too spoiled. Will all these latest devices and gadgets, there is no way it sucks to be a kid. Back in the day, the only cellphone we had had to be packed around in a suitcase. The computers were command lines, or sometimes we'd get to play a poorly made 2D platformer from a floppy disc. Forget about having a computer and internet in your own house. Our TV's were the kind that if they didn't work right, you kicked it in the right spot and it would flicker back on. The cable was produced by two antenna's in which one of you had to sacrifice watching TV to hold them in place. And if you wanted to listen to music, you recorded on a cassette tape and walked around with your Walkman. Of course, the economy was a lot better back then. Gas prices were under two dollars. Coffee was pretty cheap. Now it's five bucks a gallon and 10 bucks a can. But still, kids don't have to pay for gas or coffee. So I've been screwed the whole way around. Do I think it sucks to be a kid? I'll trade places with a kid any day.
Haha! I wasn't talking about everything. Of course being a kid again would be awesome; it's the best stage of life, imo, and i can only imagine how cool it is nowadays.
I don't think it really sucks to be a kid, because they now have so much things that I would like to do, but don't have time to do it. I just find the fact that kids can just go online and find information on things, that I would imagine, sad. Like for example, when I didn't know what something was or where it came from, I'd make up a story in my head about it. Kids these days know how to just find out about it with a click, and miss the fun of making up an explanation, and actually believing it until you learn the truth.
To everyone saying kids today are spoiled: I'm sure the generation before us said that about us. It's a perspective thing. There's always going to be something new and shiny that a generation gets later in their life and it seems awesome to them; then, the next generation grows up with it a natural part of their world. That doesn't make them spoiled, just different. Don't be so quick to judge them. Anyway, I never really thought about the Santa Claus thing. I believed in him until I was 8 or 9 years old, which I don't think is an uncommon age to find out. It's undeniable that later generations will be affected by the wealth of information available through just a quick Google search, but I don't think it should necessarily be considered synonymous with maturity. Maturity implies more of an understanding on something, the ability to critically analyze and form opinions. Simply knowing something isn't the same as that. I do think we have the potential for a far more worldly and informed generation, and I don't think that's a bad thing.
I remembered this thread when my mom brought home a typewriter, my younger brother and sister were really interested in it. The entire time I was shaking my head and thinking 'how the heck do you not know this?!?'. The younger generation will never understand the fun of playing with a typewriter, seriously, those things were fun to pass the time with, when I was stuck in my mom's office, and computers were too expensive for them to let me use it.
