A Few Hours of YouTube Marble Races Inspired My Kids for Days
I have a love-hate relationship with screen time. On the one hand, I depend on it to keep my kids connected to school while we shelter in place. On the other hand, I despise it when it creates grumpy monsters out of my normally pleasant offspring. As much as I bemoan the lifeless stares that result from mindlessly absorbing video after video, today gave me a glimmer of hope for this screen-obsessed generation—stuck inside during the COVID-19 pandemic. For the past week or so, my seven-year-old son has used his afternoon free time after completing remote learning schoolwork to watch marble races on YouTube. For a few minutes, I thought it was pretty fascinating and found myself getting drawn into the competition amongst these rolling orbs. But pretty soon I just got dizzy. My son, however, was still entranced hours later. “Are you really still watching this?” I interrupted. “Wouldn’t it be more fun to do something in real life? You know, you do have a marble se...