Let’s compare two different worlds we live in–making music and using the internet.
According to Gallup polls, 95% of Americans feel that music is part of a well-rounded education. Between 78% and 93% feel that learning to play music makes people smarter, results in better grades for kids in other subjects, helps teach discipline, and helps build friendships.
A recent Harris poll has shown that 88% of people with post-graduate education were involved in music in school, and 83% of those earning over $150,000 had a music education. Researchers explained the connection between music and income partly by pointing to the life skills learned through the discipline and the strong experience of working together with others.
One of the researchers pointed out that the beauty of music is that it brings “both hard work and enjoyment together, which doesn’t always happen elsewhere.”
It certainly doesn’t happen everywhere. While music students learn about real-world struggles and rewards in a very immediate way, our growing infatuation with computers allows many to fantasize that they can “cut to the chase”–to bypass the hard stuff with its real rewards, and instead, fuel up with pure entertainment, kind of like eating empty calories and staying hungry for more…
It is estimated that some 9 million American kids are at risk for a new mental disorder called pathological computer use, or internet addiction.
South Korea, the first country to fully embrace nearly univeral internet connections for its citizens, has built 140 internet-addiction counseling centers, and computer-abuse treatment programs at 100 hospitals. Their newest project is a summer Internet Rescue camp. Here kids are removed from computers and engaged in horseback riding and other physical activities. The goal is to build “emotional connections to the real world and weaken those with the virtual one.” (See the New York Times, Nov 18, p. 1)
One thing is for sure: The struggles and triumphs of learning to play music are very much part of the real world, not a virtual one.
Thank you
by Maria Bucco — Wed Nov 28, 2007 @ 9:34 pm