Research and studies have shown that the nature of an American childhood has transformed very rapidly. The free and unstructured outdoor childhood life, the days of pick-up baseball games, the tree houses, and the “be home for dinner” have all but history. Today, one has to push children to go outside.

Present day, childhood is spent indoors, playing video games, working on something in the internet, and watching TV. There are still times when children go outside for some scheduled community events like football camp or a fishing activity but are under the careful watch of parents or adults.

The change to indoor past times of childhood has increased within the same century and big decrease in spontaneous outdoor activities like swimming and biking. Surveys and studies showed that biking has dropped by 30% since 1995. A survey made by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that a child tends to prefer to play a video game instead of riding a bike. Some children see video games are more fun than skateboarding.

The change can be seen through the bodies of the children. CDC states that in 1960, 4% of the children were obese but presently, 16% of the children are overweight or obese.

It can also be observed in the children’s “brains”. Studies also show that the children who use most of their times in outdoor activities have longer attention span compared to children who, most of the time, watch TV and play video games.

The attraction of the children to television and video games is not the only thing that is keeping them indoors. Parents now are afraid of allowing their children wander in heavy traffics and with news and reports of pedophiles and missing children. Another study showed that there is a 40% drop in birth rate since 1960 which means that there is smaller number of children to wander around the neighborhood. Air conditioning units mean that children do not have to go to local pool or swimming pools to cool off.

Richard Louv, an author, observes that the boundaries of the children in the past were by the miles or blocks but now, their boundaries are their front yards. He further said that many children are now “under house arrest”. He says that parents now are afraid of letting their children go climb a tree or hike alone in the woods and believe that their children are safer in front of the “Xbox” in their rooms.

In the past, children’s games tended to be open-minded and following whatever game or adventure that come up in their minds However, parents and children today choose the structured entertainment such as video games.

Well, many parents are not also happy with the way their children are doing but they, themselves, are not sure what to do.

Darrell Mueller, a father, spent his childhood days outside playing balls and riding his bike but boticed that his children are different. They choose to be driven to their school which is just two houses away. His daughter thinks that test messaging her friends who are just across the street is more fun than going to their houses. His son spends the whole day playing Warcraft game from with people globally and when he announced that his team was on top ranking of the game, Darrell did not know whether to congratulate his son or worry about what it really mean.

It was time for the Howell family is heading to go home from Spring Lake. Dakota Howell announced that he wanted to be an archeologist because he want to get his fingers dirty. But John who was carrying fishing rods smiled and said,”Now, we’re going home to play video games”.