Life's routine carelesness and enjoyment has gone...

When I was a little snotbag and all through my puberty I was very much an outdoorsy kid. Every opportunity I was either out on my bike, on the basketball courts, playing hockey or out with my boyscout pack. It was just a given. I wanted to be outside and there was very little if anything to keep me inside.

These days it's almost the exact opposite. We don't seem to find any reasons to spend time outside. But more than that I feel like life is just so much more stressful now than it used to be. We are inundated with so much information and so many stimuli on a daily basis that sometimes it's hard to keep up. It's really no wonder that mental health has become such a topic of concern. 

Children nowadays aren't worried about how soon they can get outside to play with their friends, they're worried about what Emma might think of their latest Instagram post, or how many friends they have on Facebook. They have iPads, smartphones and laptops on top of text books and ringbinders. Most kids live a "real" life in person and an entirely different, "fake" life online. 

What makes me sad is that in this maelstrom of information and media that we all have to deal with every single day, todays children are losing their innocence and carelessness in the process. No longer are the days filled without phones in their hands and a million things to watch on television. No longer are long summer days spent at the local outdoor swimming pool or on the basketball courts, just spending time outside with friends and family. 

My grandmother always said to me, too much of anything is bad. In todays digital age, information overload is a perfect example of this. Too much intake from technological sources leads to infobesity. Most of this overload is irrelevant information in the form of games, news updates and advertisements on tablets, smart phones and computers. Infobesity causes children to lose interest in other things, get irritable and make bad decisions. 

It's important to declutter the mind and block some of the input channels for extended periods of time to allow the brain to recharge. Get back to our carefree nature of years gone. Get outside, listen to the birds, the wind in the trees and get active outside.