After that, Kim and her assistant led the boys on a slippery hike
up a riverbed, one that would challenge them and not patronize them,
she told me. It’s not easy to compete with multi-player gaming, but
she had the boys’ full attention. The moms brought up the rear,
stopping frequently for selfies. If the intention was to demonize
smartphone use, they weren’t exactly modeling good behavior. I
learned, though, that tech abstention isn’t the goal, any more than a
dietary cleanse leads to anorexia. Unplugging isn’t realistic, and
seeing the Korean kids made me understand this in a new way. For
many of these kids, gaming is the only play they get, and certainly the
only play unsupervised by adults.
“They’re not allowed to play outside at school,” one of the moms
told me. While there are spectacular parks in Seoul, they tend to be
few and far between. Playgrounds are often covered in asphalt, small
and claustrophobic. And the kids go to study programs after school,
leaving little time for sports. They have it worse than their American
counterparts, but I had to acknowledge that many of our kids, ever
losing recess, unstructured play and time without adults, are not that
much better off. No wonder they’re meeting up in a galaxy far, far
away.
Kim wants to help these families find a respectful balance of
power between parent and child, an equilibrium between technology
and human interaction, and healthier outlets for preteen anxiety,
energy and aggression. She believes time outside can offer this. “In
nature, they have to use all their muscles and senses. They develop
body sense. They get scared but they develop self-confidence. They
develop more ability to solve problems themselves.”
The science backs her up. Two South Korean studies looked at
eleven- and twelve-year-olds who qualified as borderline technology
addicts. After trips to the forest of two days each, researchers found
both lowered cortisol levels and significant improvements in
measures of self-esteem, and the benefits lasted for two weeks. Time