3rd Place Comment & Opinion
Lucy Ághas, Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne, Daingean Uí Chúis
Web and Wonder: challenges to creativity?
I pity the younger members of this Snapchat-loving, Instagram-obsessed, Viber-fixated
generation. Will they ever know the joy of opening a crisp, new cover, exulting in the papery
scent and jumping into the ocean of characters, emotions, plot twists and adventures?
Can updating your Facebook profile, tweaking your Instagram page and adding friends on Kick
or the next new app really fill the gap of sinking your teeth into a juicy plot and racking your
brains to solve it? Children’s television, after all, is “chewing gum for the eyes” whereas books
are calcium for the bones, food for the soul.
Reading stops children from being encouraged into the lazy cycle of aimlessly staring at the
television, eyes glued while half-heartedly tapping the touch screen, endlessly building up some
pretend image online. Instead books bring them enlightenment, encouragement, motivation and
education. They get the cogs of creativity whirring in their brains, they excite the imagination.
They open doors that children never knew existed, doors of writing, awareness, opportunity.
How can we defend these children against the invading army of apps and unproductive
pastimes and revive timeless plots and ideas that reside in paperbacks, unopened? How can we
fight the tide of modernity that is swallowing books and their joys?
Statistics show that the number of non-book readers has nearly tripled since 1978. Also, 25% of
children are using the internet daily by age three and 50% by age five. A study by The
International Centre for Media and the Public Agenda asked 1000 students on five continents to
stop using technology and media for one day. The startling results showed that without
technology, it took anything from a few hours to under fifteen minutes, before the students ran
out of ideas for what to do with themselves.
Is there an end to creativity as the era of super technology dawns? As these ingenious devices
do our thinking and form our opinions for us, will children be able to think for themselves at all
anymore? Has imagination been stifled, has entertaining ourselves become a thing of the past?
Amongst many other bonuses and advantages that books bring to children, are growth and
development of the brain, as well as the gift of thought, contemplation and creativity. They give
children a better ability to read other people and the situations around them. Books may be
criticised amongst peers as old fashioned and boring, but once a child starts reading properly it
is almost impossible to stop them. What child wouldn’t love discovering the sanctuary of
dissolving into the essence of a good book and adventure?
Reading paints vibrant pictures in one’s mind. A book is a cloak of colourful images threaded
and plaited with creativity and imagination. The intricate framework is a web carefully woven
by the author for us to examine, explore and pick apart.
Stories are a paradise of other people’s imaginations; a joy that no-one deserves to miss out on.
A book is a key for the porthole of adventure. Suddenly the young reader is not sitting on an
armchair, but is following Alice into Wonderland, Charlie into the Chocolate Factory, flying on a
broomstick with Harry Potter. They are in India, Australia, on the moon with superhuman
abilities.
A magical place lies inside the cover; no-one judges you, you can laugh, you can cry, you can be
overjoyed, devastated, envious, amazed. There are endless possibilities. Reading will bring
revelation to these technology tuned, twitter transfixed teens and children, as books show us
things we never even knew about ourselves. As C.S. Lewis once said, “we read to know we are
not alone.” According to another inspirational man, Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, “you’re the
same today as you’ll be in five years except for the people you meet and the books you read.”
The list of new Snapchat or Facebook updates is like junk food for the eyes; they are colourful,
tasty and scarily addictive. Social networking and technology can be hard for children to resist.
Parents and teachers play a vital role, as they need to be encouraged and coaxed along the road
of reading and books need to be introduced into their daily lives.
They need to replace some of the Wi-Fi time, some of the television time. Young people need to
be gently guided away from the lure of endless technology and need to be given some time to
discover the magical world inside their imagination.
It really isn’t a mammoth task; fascinating books are easily available in any library and are very
affordable as presents. Ultimately we need to make every effort we can to incorporate reading
time into the day and make it a fun hobby, both in school and at home, to stop this challenge to
children’s imaginations.
Judges’ Citation
The best ‘opinion’ pieces are not necessarily based on the writer’s opinion but on their
capability to make a compiling argument that is backed up by facts.
Every blogger and tweeter thinks they are an opinion writer but I suspect the winner of
our third place award doesn’t write too many blogs.
As somebody who works in print and is being constantly told that digital media is the
future, I took great pleasure from ‘Web and Wonder: Challenges to Creativity’.
Lucy Ághas’ attack on the ‘army of apps’ and ‘twitter transfixed teens’ was well-thought
out. It was not a rant but a structured piece of writing that if nothing else would make the
reader at least a little nostalgic for the days without snapchat and Instagram. For her
defence of the ‘papery scent’ of books, Lucy is deserving of this award.