What happened to childhood?

“If children survived to age 7, their recognized life began, more or less as miniature adults. Childhood was already over.”(Postman, 383) During the middle ages, a young person was simply seen as a small adult. No distinction existed between adult and child, examples of this can be seen in paintings of the time were children were depicted the same as adults, just smaller versions. Then, with the invention of the printing press, came many changes to European society as a whole. “European culture became a reading culture.”(Postman, 383) The fact that people could now read led to the lessening of the Church’s authority, it led to the rapid growth of science and technology, and it also, very importantly, led to a newfound idea of childhood. Now, in order to truly be considered an adult, one had to be literate, one had to know how to read the bible and novels. One of the greatest effects the printing press had on European society was that now children were supposed to go to school to learn how to read. This marked one of the first separations of young people from adults, they would go to school in order to learn how to become an adult. No longer were young people thrust into adulthood at the age of 7. Now, the world started to develop a process of becoming an adult, “We began, in short, to see human development as a series of changes, with childhood as a bridge between infancy and adulthood.”(Postman, 384)
Then a few centuries later came the television. Television has transformed the way childhood is observed. The world that television has created has all but eliminated the childhood stage opting instead for a world of small adults. This is very similar to the paintings of the middle ages. “TV erases the dividing line between childhood and adulthood for two reasons: first, because it requires no instruction to grasp its form; second, because it does not segregate its audience.” (Postman, 384) What Postman argues, is that no longer is school that requirement to learn all of life’s secrets. Slowly but surely as one progressed through school, and life, one would learn more about being an adult and eventually when the time came they would transition to that phase. Television, in its attempt to gain an audience, has had to continue to push the boundary on what is considered appropriate and push the boundary they have. The recent revolution in computing and technologies has probably slowed, somewhat, the effects that television is having. Children now a days are born with an iPad in their hand and they develop being extremely tech savvy. This, unlike the television does require some skill and development, like learning a language and reading. I do believe that these technologies have helped restore some emphasis on the written word, the internet and technologies are much more interactive than just sitting and viewing images on a television.

Sources
Postman, Neil. "The Day Our Children Disappear: Predictions of a Media Ecologist." Phi Delta Kappan 1 Jan. 1981: 382-86. Print.