Creativity Crisis | Contented Online

Creativity Crisis

According to Newsweek, the creativity of children in America is on the decline: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html. Apparently IQs have been steadily increasing, but levels of creativity have been going down. The reason? Hard to say, but the article mentions TV and video games as possible culprits. My initial thought is that the environment we live in has become so enhanced in the last few decades that the demand on our daily creative powers is much less. For example, I remember before there were cell phones. How on earth did we meet people in places like clubs or theatres? Well, we had to come up with a plan, like "I'll be at the entrance at 7:00. If you don't see me by 7:15, go to a phone booth and call my mom. I'll let her know where I am." In fact, sometimes I think cell phones encourage us to be pretty flaky about our social engagements - you can be as late as you want, as long as you send a text message. But back to the point: kids now have much more access to high-quality TV programmes and engaging forms of electronic play, such as the Nintendo. They don't have to come up with as many ideas for free play as they used to.

In any case, Newsweek's article brings up many interesting points about how creativity comes about, what stifles it, and ways we are learning to understand and promote it. The reason I'm talking about this in the Contented blog is because the more creative marketing and content are, the better. It can be helpful to study traditional methods of seeking publicity, sales, and audiences, but you have to move outside that to really make progress. You have to use your own ideas. You have to have your own ideas.