Socialization and the New Age

It was the moment when I and one of my 10 years old cousin brother was watching a football match on TV. Suddenly, a charismatic goal happened and we both cheer with joy. He told me his was trying to give exactly the same goal in a match yesterday. I asked him with excitement that in with playground you go to play and with whom you play. He looked me with full of surprises and says “I play in my computer and alone”. I was not ready for this answer though I born and brought up in the computer game generation.

From my teenage I was always envious of my male friends as they can go to the playground but I am not. In South Asian country like Bangladesh when a girl reach to teen ages they are not allow to go to playground and there are many social and cultural reasons behind this. As a result, when I stepped into my teen life, I had to spend my free time with computer games and I can still remember that day when my dad gifted me, my very first PC in my 12th birthday. It was a surprised birthday gift and I was totally overwhelmed with this that I did not even notice that it made me an alien to my playground. For most of the parents it is a trick to make their growing up children stay at home as they are always tensed about safe environment, friend circles or bad companion and most importantly about teenage crazes. But, they did not even notice that this home stay policy can make this child unhealthy, unsocial and frustrated. Therefore, these children find the definition of socialization nothing but Facebook and Twitter or many other social networking sites in internet. At the end of the day they find themselves isolated in his or her own room with only one best friend which is no exception then personal computer.

However, when all this various types of thought starts heading into my mind I looked at my little cousin who did not even start his teen life cannot think of giving goal outside his PC and computer game. I would not be surprised if he said me that he never saw a real football in front of him and I think he do not ever bother about that. I was feeling old but lucky in front of him that though I am an Asian girl, I had access to various type of traditional games may be some of them I did not played physically but saw and at least know about this. It makes me feel sad when I think that my generation is the last generation to see those unique traditional games to extinct.