The other day as part of Boy Scouts, I interviewed my uncle on how his life was growing up in India. One of the prominent things that he mentioned was having time to play outside with his friends whenever they could. Back then, there wasn’t technology as strong as today so none of the kids who played outside had a phone or watch – they looked at the sun to know when it was time to go home. This way, my Uncle had said that kids were given more trust in being able to play without constant supervision. This isn’t the case here in the US as almost every kid has a phone. With this device, parents are more inclined to know where their kid is at all times, which decreases the trust and responsible maturing of a child.

When watching the Ted Talk of Dr. Gray’s perspective on the idea of play, it really got me thinking of how much of a robot society we have become. Most kids nowadays aren’t playing outside but rather studying 24/7, being on social media, and/or relieving stress by doing drugs. The general group of teens fall into either one of these groups, with very few actually going places to hang out. In our world today, people have become more attached to themselves and also have decreased responsibilities which harm their success in the future going into adulthood. I do believe that high school negatively affects a student’s mental health due to not having enough time for a student to really enjoy their childhood and mature responsibly plus create social connections with their peers.