My daughter came into the world craving candy. She would often ask for it at breakfast time. Of course, I said no. But despite the fact that I never said yes, she still asked … repeatedly.
I recently read a novel that took place in the imagined future. Parents were given a choice of whether to have their child implanted with a “feed” in their brain that would constantly read their environmental cues and feed them options of where to go and what they could buy. News was fed in a similar way, and people who had the feed could chat to each other without using words or any external device.
There was a catch, though. You had to do this early enough, before the child developed a mind of their own. Otherwise, things might start to malfunction, and any resistance to the feed could prove to be life-threatening. So while the parents were given a “choice,” few took the chance of saying no.
It felt a little too real to be science fiction. So you might imagine my shock when I discovered the book was written in 2002, before the advent of social media as we know it today — before smartphones, and notifications, and texting, and reels.
At the time that this book, Feed, was written by M.T. Anderson, we were still living in the early stages of the internet. We had moved beyond floppy discs to CD-ROMs. My oldest daughter was barely school age and had become obsessed with CD-ROM math games that gave virtual prizes for every right answer. The intent was fairly honourable: learn math by playing games. The resulting dynamic, however, was a different story.
This was candy all over again — albeit packaged with a different name. And the craving was just as visceral.
Huge upset ensued when I tried to pull her away from the “game.” This was not working for anyone, and so I managed to “lose” them all. I made a mental note to be careful with this kind of technology in the future, the kind that baited our reward system to incentivize the play. There were risks involved that I wasn’t ready to contend with, let alone expose my daughter to.
Fast forward 20-some-odd years, and we find ourselves in a society eerily similar to the science fiction world of Feed, with instantaneous access to information, influencers, and images that, even if only present for an instant, can be imprinted forever on the networks of our brain. With no obvious off switch, it leads some of us to wonder: What do we do now??
Like the lure of candy for a child like my daughter, the temptation is strong to go all in. All candy all the time. Most of us (my daughter being an obvious exception here) would likely agree that a diet of only candy would not be healthy for a child or an adult. One needs nourishment of a different kind — something green, grown in a garden, maybe. At least a healthy dose on a somewhat regular basis.
We know this when it comes to food, but when it comes to other things that we need in order to live, our insight can get fuzzy. The intuitive answers are easily eclipsed in a world of “temptation screens” (this is a term my young daughters and I came up with when they first installed a video feed of food offerings at our heavily-frequented Tim Horton’s drive-through).
One of our greatest needs as human beings is connection. We are wired to seek connection with those who are meant to be caring for us. But the connection drive is strong and prone to seeking out shortcuts. The vegetables that beautifully nourish us may pale in comparison with the candy that promises a quick fix of sweetness.
In his most recent book, Superbloom, Nicholas Carr tracks the history and impact of social media, exposing the irony of technology and our search for connection through his subtitle: How technologies of connection tear us apart. Carr gives a convincing argument that our attempts to connect through our various devices have, more often than not, caused division and disconnect. Could it be that we are barking up the wrong tree?
This brings me back, once again, to the need we all have for real connection with real beings — not imaginary ones, who may be intelligent but are missing a very vital element … a heart.
And whether they realize it or not, and whether they are asking for it or not, our children need connection with US. They need to feed at our table (as the saying goes), not somebody else’s (even if they have more social media likes than we do).
Instead of asking how we get them to stop asking for candy (or screen time), we might want to change the question to “How can we make our offering seem sweeter than candy?”
We don’t have to do this alone. There is a way through, but it might not be what you expected. No, it’s not a bulldozer or a wrecking ball — although that can feel tempting. It’s something more subtle, understated —often considered frivolous. A little four-letter word that packs a punch … play. But this kind of play is not about outcome, or winning, or performing; it’s not about toys or games or playgrounds. It’s about allowing space to process, to express, to release. It’s about experiencing things hands-on, in the real world:
Throwing a ball in a yard, or rocks in the ocean.
Reading a story, or writing one.
Singing a song, or drumming a beat, or dancing up a storm.
Being in nature, or bringing nature in.
Growing something, or creating something, or pretending to be something.
Building something, or destroying something, or both.
These avenues feed something in us that technology simply falls short of delivering:
True connection. True play.
Our children are hungry. Only we (and the magic of play) can truly feed them.
