Imagination and Digital Culture

A Little Princess was always one of my favorite movies when I was growing up; it still is today.  While I love the movie, I've never actually read the book--shocking, I know.  So, needing a break from textbooks and required reading, I decided to do myself a favor and read at least 5 pages from A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett before I go to bed, or during lunch, or in a moment of down-time at work.  It's taken me a while to get through the book, but it's been a great way to relax from the stresses of my last semester of school.

Today I came across one of the most fantastic passage in the book:

Sara turned suddenly to find her [Becky] standing by the table, looking very queer indeed.  She had shut her eyes, and was twisting her face in strange convulsive contortions, her hands handing stiffly clenched at her sides.  She looked as if she was trying to lift some enormous weight.

"What is the matter, Becky?" Sara cried.  "What are you doing?"

Becky opened her eyes with a start.

"I was a-'pretendin',' miss," she answered a little sheepishly; "I was tryin' to see it like you do.  I almost did," with a hopeful grin. "But it takes a lot o' stren'th."

I love the idea that imagination, or "pretendin'," as Becky calls it, takes strength and even a certain amount of training.  It makes me more than a little nervous, therefore, that children's minds are no longer toned enough do use even a little imagination because everything is literally already played out for them.  I have a nephew who is 3 years-old and has a better working knowledge of Apple technology than almost everyone else in my family.  He even has his own Kindle Fire!  And while I think it's wonderful that Brayden is learning to use this technology at such a young age, he also just began forming sentences about six months ago.  He didn't need to speak because the iPad/Kindle did it for him.  Don't get me wrong, I definitely believe that you can still imagine while using digital media--after all, the Little Big Planet project is developing a whole new level on the video game, and they are planning on helping users learn how to create their own characters to play with.  I guess you might say we've plateaued in our imagination strength training.  We're still able to use our imagination with digital media, but are we really progressing?  I think this is something we need to seriously consider when we develop digital toys and such for our little ones.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go daydream for a little while.