Close: Jeremy Vine with his daughter Martha
Today’s children are ‘over-entertained’ and could benefit from experiencing boredom, Jeremy Vine has warned.
The BBC Radio 2 presenter recalled his own childhood building paper aeroplanes and playing in treehouses because he says 1970s TV was dull and his family had only one record.
Modern entertainment, by contrast, is much better and this makes it ‘very difficult’ to experience boredom, he said.
Mr Vine, 52, who has two daughters aged ten and 13, told the Henley Literary Festival, which is sponsored by the Daily Mail: ‘I do think boredom is important for a child.’
He described how the producer of BBC1’s Points Of View was looking into how children reacted to the new TV show Saturday Mash-Up, similar to the 1970s programme Swap Shop, and was shocked to find one group were unable to watch it for longer than ‘two or three minutes’. He suggested the ability of a child to sit for two hours, experiencing boredom, ‘must let the brain grow really healthily’.
Speaking after his talk, Mr Vine, whose brother Tim is a comedian, said: ‘In my childhood there wasn’t a lot to do and we had to invent things. My brother and I, for example, we built a plane out of paper and tried to leave Cheam in it. It didn’t actually get off the ground.’
His father built them a treehouse that become ‘a big part of my life’. Mr Vine, who also presents Eggheads on BBC2, said: ‘A lot of the time in my childhood, there wasn’t much happening. That creates a lot of space, and in the space you’ve got to use your imagination.
The BBC Radio 2 presenter recalled his own childhood building paper aeroplanes and playing in treehouses because he says 1970s TV was dull and his family had only one record
‘But now I see the scheduling of kids, with homework. I met a parent the other day, and their child was carrying a tennis racket and a cello, so they are going to a game of tennis and a cello lesson. I thought, “that’s too much”. Boredom is good, boredom fires the imagination.’
Asked if he thought it possible to be bored today, he replied: ‘It’s very difficult. The TV I was watching when I was eight was c**p, but that was good because I quite often turned it off.
‘The level of broadcasting is so much higher now… but it means we are being over-entertained. Bring back boredom.’
Also at the Henley Literary Festival, adventurer Chris Bonington said children are ‘losing that spirit of unfettered adventure’ due to health and safety restrictions in schools.