If zoomers and millennials are any indication, the segment of our population comprised of pre-adolescents up to and including age 14 - generation alpha - has been rapidly losing their predisposition for creativity and imagination
A perfect example of this are Legos. A thread:
A perfect example of this are Legos. A thread:
LEGO, a company teetering precariously on the premise that kids want to be creative, has been struggling with exactly that conundrum for decades. As recently as 1990, the standard box of LEGO bricks contained anywhere from 500 to 1000 pieces
Through sales research, focus groups and peer review, LEGO now believes such a set is way, way too complex. Let's dial it back a bit: not only do children not have the patience to gather together all the required parts for a castle, or boat, or car - there isn't enough space in
their tiny, ridiculous brains to previsualize long-term plans, imagine new forms, or create the requisite custom shapes
As a response to this trend, LEGO decreased the number of pieces in each box
As a response to this trend, LEGO decreased the number of pieces in each box
Instead of grappling with a full one-hundred pieces to build that Kentucky Fried Chicken or Starbucks Coffee, now you only need ten
And look: these pre-fab green umbrella straws snap directly into the miniature espresso machine - you don't even gotta build 'em. LEGO bricks have gotten bigger, as well: the size of each block in a set has increased steadily over time in direct proportion to your child's
inability to manipulate his backwards, clumsy-ass ham hands. Who needs hours of unnecessarily complicated finger work when you're trying to develop your motor skills?
Finally, the majority of "bricks" in today's LEGO kits have evolved exactly as Darwin intended: they're now shaped exactly like the cars, trees, humans, animals, ships, and rockets originally subject to interpretation by a kid's imagination
And which set of LEGO is right for you? Choose from styles like Harry Potter, Star Wars, Exoforce, Knight's Kingdom, Bionicle, Minecraft, Ghostbusters and numerous other brandy-brands too depressing even to think about
It's only a matter of time before LEGO starts packaging their product directly inside the Happy Meal carton
From little plastic bricks and imagination to electronic, battery-operated toys and program squiggly meta-scripts so his optically sensitive robots to kaput in 24 years. Not sure where along the way imagination was lost but it happened
There should be a children's aptitude test where they're in a room with 10,000 single-cell plastic bricks and given however long they want to successfully construct something from their mind
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