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Huckleberry Finn is dead.

The Source

Huckleberry Finn is dead. At least that’s what the lady said. She’d been researching technology for the past twenty years and had come to the conclusion that Huck and Jim are now in a graveyard somewhere. I too often come in toward the middle of a radio broadcast as I’m zipping around Morgan County, and I never could catch the researcher’s name, but I found myself shouting “Amen!” as she spoke of what’s happening to a nation of youth who are slowly but surely losing the simple ability to be alone. I had seen hard and sad evidence of everything the gal said in the interview. “There are no more Huckleberry Finn’s who learn to grow into adulthood by floating on a raft of life alone with time to think. They can’t. They’re too busy answering their text messages and in many cases, Mama won’t let them go an hour without reporting in to the nest.” She said that when she began her most recent study five years ago she was studying a group of 12 to 15-year-olds. Now her study has turned to those as young as 8 who can no longer truly be alone with their thoughts. “Even some ten-year-olds reported going to sleep every night with a cell phone in hand. To think that someone wants to talk to them and they might be sleeping is the ultimate horror to them. It’s an addiction, no matter how you define the term.” The problem has become more than an annoyance. It has seriously affected the way today’s kids mature. The report talks about how every great thinker, every great leader you can think of had experienced prolonged periods of being alone while growing up. “We can’t process life through others,” said the speaker. “It can only be done in solitude….mistakes and all.” She went on to explain that a person can’t grow up normally without mastering the ability to simply be alone. Who’s to blame? The lady put equal responsibility on both kids and parents. The kids latch onto it because it’s the current hot media, and the parents can prolong their separation forever as long as they can keep Junior texting. “Some kids rebel,” said the lady. “They reach adolescence and they begin ignoring Mom and Dad’s text messages. They want the freedom.” Of course this doesn’t mean the kids stop texting. They simply talk more to their friends. “I used to study kids who’d text every few minutes,” she said. “Now I’m looking at kids who must send several messages a minute. And keep in mind, these are not life and death correspondence. To wake up at 2 a.m. to answer “What’s up?” from a friend is hardly earth shattering.” I wish it had been a call in show and I’d had a phone. (No, I didn’t. I was living and breathing and had no access to a phone! I was busy thinking.) I’d have called her to tell her about an event a few days ago where I helped host a group of very lively Triopia seventh-graders on an Old Time School Day. They dressed up as their great-grandparents might have done and spent the day climbing the Meredosia Hill Prairie, drinking pure water from Chambersburg’s artesian well, visiting Dexter, a one-room schoolhouse near Perry, using an authentic two-holer outhouse, sitting in desks with actual inkwells, traipsing into the woods for their science lesson, then running down to the nearby creek to hunt geodes while they munched on a lunch they’d packed just as their ancestors might have done. They finished the day bobbing for apples at a pond near Meredosia and standing in an October drizzle as bass and bluegill teased their fishing lines. In short, they had the time of their lives and all without mobile access. Only one boy had a phone and that was for taking pictures. Nobody died. No one fell to the ground shaking from cell phone withdrawal. An entire class of adolescents made it through an entire day without telling Mom or Dad or their friends back at school how much fun they were having. There is hope for mankind. It’s not to late to save a generation weaned on social media. Kids can still enjoy a simple walk in the woods….even alone.

CUTLINE FOR PIX: Members of Triopia’s seventh-grade class take a break from their fishing as the class enjoyed their “Old Time School Day” experience.