According to DC Comics, the Doomsday machine killed Superman in 1992. I was sorry to learn of his passing, because when I was a kid we all wanted to be Superman. Of course, that meant flying through space, seeing through walls, and running faster than a speeding bullet. No problem. Some kids would mount the roof of their house, dressed in Superman gear, and jump and flap their arms as they battled gravity, only to fall at breakneck speed onto the grass below. By the way, that was about the time hospital emergency rooms came into vogue. Jumping from the top of a jungle gym was more common. My brother and I developed the ability to fly headfirst, down a 12-step carpeted stairs, without any identifiable injuries (except for a possible concussion or two).
But all this stopped once Superman died. We lost our Supermentor and we learned to stay put. Now our only flying is when we’re crammed into the coach section of an airplane—without nourishment or room to move. A recent article in the sports section of the Wall Street Journal reported that the Atlantic Coast Conference, long a college basketball hotbed, was seeing empty seats. Soaring basketball dunks come as close to flying as anything mortals can do, so why would attendance be down? The coach at the University of North Carolina asked a close friend why he turned down the offer of games tickets and instead chose the big screen at home. His friend told him that the crucial number in his mind was 14: the exact number of steps from his recliner to his bedroom!
Nineteen ninety-two was about the right year for Superman’s demise, because that’s when the lure of computers, the Internet, and electronic games went into full swing. Times have indeed changed. Children are spending half as much time outdoors as they were before 1992, and 8-18 year old kids spend 7 hours and 38 minutes using entertainment media in a typical day—not including computer time for schoolwork. Only 6 percent of kids even play outside on their own. Most of them are in daycare or school and come home only for a snack and bedtime. School and city playgrounds are deemed unsafe, mainly because of the fear of lawsuits.
And why should kids go outside and try to fly or see through walls when they can play a Superman game or watch a Superman movie on the Internet? One movie features a “fat kid” named Clarence who is usually seen carrying a large soda and a stack of hamburgers. He consults with his two skinny friends on their plans to attack Superman. Or they could try an electronic game where the object is to control Superman’s body and fly it into floating debris. If that gets boring, they can switch to a game involving navigation through a cave filled with kryptonite.
Okay, so times have changed. But is it a big deal? Yes it is. Aside from the shocking obesity rate and the presence of adult diabetes in children, operating in space and being a junior Superman is essential for the development of the mind as well as the body. Sports and outdoor games teach self-control, an ability that is twice as important as I.Q. in predicting academic achievement. And what about learning our p’s and q’s? The p and the q are both comprised of a vertical stick with a circle attached. The only thing that differentiates a p from a q is which side of the stick the circle is on. So DIRECTIONALITY is important in learning to read and to spell. A GPS isn’t likely to help in this situation, either.
Researchers at the University of Michigan have found a direct link between mind and body. Subjects assigned to sit inside a 125-cubic-foot box couldn’t think as creatively as subjects assigned to sit outside, and next to the box. Literally thinking outside the box! Other subjects, confined to walk a rectangular path, couldn’t think as creatively as subjects who were allowed to walk freely.
Joe Frost, a professor at the University of Texas: “Today’s kids are unsafe in any environment, because they have not developed the strength, the flexibility, or the motor skills that come with being a well-rounded child. They don’t know how to fall safely and some don’t even know how to skip.”
Outdoor play lets us develop a mental map of where we are and helps us to build our navigational skills. Sure, we can rely on a GPS device, but that puts us at the mercy of computers and weakens brain structures handling spatial relationships. Use it or lose it! I once waited for 20 minutes while a limo driver tried to get a GPS route after his computer broke down. I was amazed to discover that he had no maps in his car and hadn’t the vaguest awareness where we were or what direction we should go in.
In The Digital Pandemic (Reestablishing Face-to Face relationships in the Electronic Age), I wrote about a fictional person named Hal who took on some of the attributes of Superman. Hal is spending his first night in the city and has to park a couple blocks from a high-rise condo. At the end of the evening, how does he find his car? Simple. Hal knows where his car is without giving it a second thought. He can simply picture it in is mind. He'll walk straight to it and might even take a different route back, just for the scenic variety and a tiny bit of adventure.
Can Hal see through walls? Almost. Whether he's facing North, South, East or West, it's as though his mind can look through the front or back of his skull, through the walls of the condo building and other buildings, straight to his car. And he really sees it. There, in his mind's eye, is the sleek aluminum body, the rimmed wheels, and the leather interior. He can recognize the paint job, even in the dark, and can smell the leather. The phrase “flying in the dark” often carries negative connotations, but what could be better than finding your way around in the dark? Now, I guess I’m segueing over to Batman—thank goodness he’s still alive. No, our Hal of the future may not be able to find his car unless he carries a GPS. Or maybe he'll just have to take a taxi wherever he goes.
And what about interpersonal relationships? Does spatial awareness and the ability to fly help there too? It is possible to learn a great deal about people by simply observing them in motion, and nonverbal communications are critically important. People send out messages, most of them nonverbal, at the rate of 2,000 to 4,000 on any given day. There is an infinite number of nonverbal communications available to all of us. They might include raising an eyebrow, turning a shoulder, or moving too fast or too slow.
Sometimes we encounter people who are extremely rude, but it's the proces—not the content—of what’s said, that's insulting. I suspect people who are intentionally rude know this and feel it safe to hide behind this verbal shield. And if a person can't decipher boredom, disdain or approval from the facial expressions or gestures of others, they’re traveling over treacherous ground.
On the positive side, if people are able to observe the world around them, it will greatly enrich their lives. Former FBI agent Joe Navarro, an expert on nonverbal communications, stated: “You look at the children and say this child needs a hug now, this child has something he wants to talk about or that one is having a tough day. That's what I wanted to see.” You just can't get that kind of feedback from texting.
So what can we to do to restore our ability to fly? The digital surge has its positives and benefits us in some important ways, but it must be balanced by sports, outdoor play, and physical interaction. Without this balance, the Doomsday machine will surely have its way. I don't think Lois Lane or Supergirl will show up to resurrect Superman this time around. Video games won’t do the trick either.
Sometimes desperate people take desperate measures. A man named Tommy Jordan of Albemarle, North Carolina made a video in response to his daughter's angry Facebook post that showed him shooting nine bullets into the girl’s laptop with his 45 caliber handgun. This “fast as a speeding bullet” response may have made him feel like Superman, but perhaps it's safer to just use speeding bullets as metaphors.
No, the only way to fight the new Doomsday machine is through education. Adults take their mature intellectual and emotional status for granted, not realizing that their early outdoor play and physical activities were critical to their development, while most young people today have given up on trying to fly solo.
Let’s start with something simple. Please get up now and stretch, then take a walk, but not 14 steps to the refrigerator!