http://mumpsimus.blogspot.com/2004/05/sf-for-kids.html

Trent

I have a different question. Are kids afraid of technology, or is it so transparent to them that they don’t question it? I suspect both problems exist, perhaps even simultaneously for some kids.

Dawn J-L

Good to see you one the boards!

Blankety blank. I thought I could get awy with just raising the questions, and leave it to readers wiser than myself to guide us through thoughtful discourse towards a hopefully productive resolution. Alas, to be called on to address mine own issue.

Do I think young people of today are comfortable with the technology of today, more so than folks 30 years their senior? Tough call. People of my parents generation have been slow to adopt technology such as the personal computer, but a huge majority have. On the other hand, the novel uses of text messages on cell phones or phone cams are largely driven by the under 30 crowd. Over all, I’d give the edge to folks under 30.

Do I think young people of today are more comfortable with technological change overall? When the next cool device is introduced when they’re 60, will they adopt it rapidly or with the same hesitation my grandparents might have reagrded the personal computer? My answer starts out "people are people." I’d expect them to be about as hesitant to adopt radical change.

But that acceptance is also culturally determined. I live in a part of the country where scientific curiosity must be replaced with belief, science is entirely suspect, Darwin is synonymous with evil, and technology, as the fruit of science, must be carefully watched and regulated. Those aspects, such as weapons research, that support God’s plan are acceptable. Those that tranfer authority and responsibility to the individual, such as gene mapping, must be suppressed.

So I am concerned the children of today will be comfortable with many elements of technology that fill the lower rungs of a consumer society but will be encouraged to be ignorant or suspicious of technology at large.

My revised question would be: are wonder and curiosity about the world at large–that need for children and young adults to understand our Universe at a fundamental level–endangered? Does SF have a responsibility to promote a questing mind and respond to the need for exploration?

Best regards,
Alan

Thanks!

Alan

Speaking in overly general cultural terms, I guess I’m wondering if SF is less "interesting" to contemporary young writers and readers than other storytelling modes because SF traditionally romanticizes science/technology — even in its dystopic forms– and science and technology have become too mundane to the general population to be thought provoking. I think that perception is extremely problematic, but I pose it as one possible part of why there is less SF — particulary for the juvenile and YA markets.

Here’s some more food for provcative thought You are a parent. What questions or problems do your children ask that you think could be explored via SF stories?

–Dawn J-L

Writers, of course, are more objective. It’s probably sheer coincidence that, for example, Jonathan Lethem and William Gibson happened to be in their teens during what they consider the golden age of sf to have been.

—
Dan Goodman

But it might hull my argument "reading SF will promote comfort with science and technology" below the waterline.

Best regards,
Alan

If we call it the future but it looks like today, I can see how it might not attract modern, young readers. And it also isn’t going to meet my concern about introducing the next generation to unknowable, alien futures.

The only contemporary YA/SF I have read recently is Mortal Engines. It’s an enjoyable, rewarding read. If you like Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy, I would expect you to enjoy Engines. From my perspective, that’s exactly the problem. Philip Reeve has solved the problem of prognostication by working in a degenerate world. As readable and enjoyable as it is, this story has more flavor of a fantasy with technological trappings than a real SF story.

But it seems to me that SF ought to be able to provide visions of the future and technology that are sufficiently sophisticated as to represent 2050 with some degree of wonder and realism, where the technology is as advanced from the kids of today as the technology presented in SF of the 1950’s was advanced from the kids who lived in the 1950’s.

Best regards,

Alan Lattimore