Do you remember the thrill of your summer holidays? Weeks away from school when you could play out with your friends almost every day. Each day starting with the round of door knocking to request if your friends 'were allowed out to play?'. Then the endless hours of bike riding, playing ball games and inventing schemes and adventures to fill the hours.
Even during term time, if you were lucky you could get a few hours 'playing out' before the sun set and you had to go home for a bath.
Memories for most of us consist of groups of children of varying ages, hanging around in the local park or playground or generally loafing around on street corners. Occasionally the younger kids would be building a den, racing twigs along streams or some other imaginative pastime.
Nowadays however, this is not such a common sight. You may see the old child or two, usually face down in their smartphone but the days of assembled groups challenging each other to a game of 'Footy' don't seem to be as prevalent as they used to be even 20 years ago.
So where are all the children? It is no longer considered as safe as it used to be to allow your children to play outside unsupervised and no doubt this has something to do with it?
Children seem to have organised 'play dates' these days. Safely delivered to a friend's house where they can socialise with their chums within the confines of the safety of the house or fenced garden where no 'Jimmy Saville' types can get to them. Even when they are allowed outside of their safe-house they are closely guarded by their adult supervisors.
Yet, most children don't appear to be worse off for it? The sight of hordes of children roaming around Housing Estates and running and shouting in your local playground seems to have all but disappeared.
With the advent of gaming consoles and PCs in the home it would appear that children everywhere are turning elsewhere to congregate without leaving the house.
Network Games on the XBox and PS3 host millions of users from all around the world so instead of running around in a nearby field they are running around in 'Halo' instead. Instead of charging around with toy pistols they are 'parked' on virtual rooftops with rocket launchers taking out the 'Noobs' on the other team.
Social media too has replaced the more traditional methods of communication. No longer are kids 'hogging' the home phone to chat endlessly with their teenage friends. Yet, millions of texts and 'private messages' are posted on the likes of Twitter and Facebook everyday.
The creation of the 'selfie' brought about by the ability to take a snap of yourself on your smartphone and post it on to social media sites is a more recent phenomenon where the fun now is seeing how many 'likes' the photo of your new hairstyle will get amongst your peer group.
Our children are teaching us there is a new world order and for most bewildered parents, the attraction of it is lost. Yet we are all missing out if we choose to 'opt out' of 'social media'.
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