People who grew up in the ‘80s and the 90’s may not exactly realize this but being a kid is really tough work these days. Gone are the days when all you needed to enjoy your day was a companion your own age or even a dog, a few pebbles, marbles, or even just a few sticks and whatever other garbage was freely available in the backyard or the garage that you could slap together to make playthings.
With so much technological intrusion, kids have lost the ability to simply be able to go outside and play and this of course has resulted with more and more kids being obese and having other physical and emotional health problems. This brilliant new Moosh Watch addresses this exact problem and looks to make outdoors activities appealing to children of the new millennium within their tech-infused lifestyles.
The watch basically takes the online social networking experience and tries to reintroduce it to children in their real lives. The concept dwells heavily on the fact that social networking had originated as a tool for adults to recreate the social experience in an emerging cyber space. Most of these people belonged to the pre-internet era and had thus learned social skills the old-fashioned way, i.e., through real-life interaction with others.
Children today, on the other hand, are faced with multiple realities- the one in cyber space which allows them to form countless alter egos and the one they have to undergo in real life via interactions in schools and playgrounds. This duality has resulted in countless developmental problems that parents and teachers who belong to the previous generation, simply cannot identify with and thus, cannot remedy.
Created by designer Martin Spurway, the Moosh Watch looks to integrate the two realities faced by children into a single channel that allows them to form a singular sense of identity. The watch is meant to be used as a tool to share activates that children perform everyday with their online communities so that their cyber-space selves are not disconnected with their real life selves.
The customizable watches connect to each other via Bluetooth and allow children to play together and collect online badges for the games they play in a playground or even in their backyards. The device comes with a plug-in for social networking sites and allows seamless integration to PC/Mac and iPods. With customizable and tradable straps, the watch promotes social interaction and helps children understand key life skills in a fun way without being deprived of the online experience.
Via: Martin Spurway