The 2026–2027 school year in Grenada officially begins on Monday, August 31, 2026.
As students head back to the classroom on that day to commence the Michaelmas term and the starting of a new school year, it is a perfect time to reflect on how much the daily experience of growing up has changed since the advent of the internet era.
The widespread adoption of the internet has completely reshaped childhood in the region, shifting the ways kids learn, socialise, and play. It has fundamentally transformed childhood, reshaping how kids learn and play compared to the pre-internet era.
In the pre-internet era, learning was localised, structured, and paced by physical resources. Today, it is immediate, vast, and highly individualised. Previously, students relied on physical encyclopedias, library card catalogs, and textbooks.
Today, search engines and digital databases provide instant access to global information. Education used to be heavily text-based and lecture-driven. Modern students use interactive apps, educational videos, and AI tutors for multi-sensory learning.
Homework was once an individual task or required physical meet-ups. Digital platforms now allow students to collaborate in real-time from different locations. Memorisation and physical research skills were highly valued in the past. Current education emphasises data filtering and critical thinking.
In Grenada and the wider English-speaking Caribbean, education has shifted from traditional textbooks to interactive digital platforms, bridging geographical barriers, and creating new avenues for global youth culture.
However, this rapid digitisation has also introduced significant challenges, expanding the regional digital divide and presenting new risks to adolescent mental health.
Initiatives like the OECS Digital Education Capacity-Strengthening Initiative (DECI) and the Caribbean Digital Transformation Project (CARDTP) have outfitted schools with tablets, e-books, and smart boards.
This shift learning away from rigid memorisation to real-time interactive problem solving. Students across the region leverage social media and YouTube for secondary education. Many rely on peer-to-peer tutoring channels and easily downloadable Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) past papers.
For social connection and entertainment, children now use platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and WhatsApp daily. This has aligned regional youth style, music, and vernacular directly with international pop culture.
The availability of cheap mobile video editing tools allows children to become digital creators rather than just consumers. It opens paths for youth-led entrepreneurship in music, media, and digital arts.
Pre-internet play relied heavily on physical exertion and outdoor games. Modern play tends to be more sedentary, focused on screen interaction and fine motor skills.
While connectivity brings major opportunities, it also introduces acute psychological and structural strains. Prolonged screen exposure has triggered rising cases of youth anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem linked to body image expectations.
Caribbean regional bodies are actively building school awareness campaigns, such as Grenada’s Swipe Safe Youths & Kids initiative to protect children from increasing regional incidents of cyberbullying, online grooming, and identity theft.
The internet, smartphones, and gaming consoles have drastically reduced the amount of time children spend playing outdoor games in Grenada and the wider Caribbean. This shift has altered traditional childhood social structures, replacing physical neighbourhood play with virtual spaces.
Traditional Caribbean outdoor games like cricket-in-the-road, marble hunt, rounders, hopscotch, and “ketch-up” are rarely seen today. Children now prefer to play digital versions of sports (like FIFA or NBA2K) or multiplayer battle royale games (like Free Fire and Fortnite) on their phones or tablets.
Neighbourhood children who previously bonded through spontaneous outdoor play now interact primarily through WhatsApp groups and online gaming lobbies. Smartphones provide instant, high-dopamine entertainment that requires far less physical effort than organised outdoor games.
The loss of daily outdoor play has directly contributed to a sharp rise in regional childhood obesity and Type 2 diabetes, a major concern for Caribbean health ministries. Lack of active outdoor play has led to noticeable declines in physical stamina, gross motor skills, and agility among primary school children.
Outdoor games naturally taught Caribbean kids how to self-organise, negotiate rules, and settle disputes face-to-face. Virtual play often removes these organic conflict-resolution opportunities.
Because spontaneous street play is dying out, parents are relying more on structured, paid sports academies (like youth football and track clubs) to ensure their children get exercise.
Active Group Games such as Cricket-in-the-Road, which was a version of cricket played directly on neighbourhood streets with a tennis ball or a cork ball wrapped in electrical tape that replaced the leather ball, and a plastic crate, kerosene tin, or a drawing on a wall serving as the wicket, have disappeared.
So too is Rounders, a fast-paced precursor to baseball and softball. Players use a wooden bat or their bare hands to hit a tennis ball and sprint around a field marking bases, while the fielding team tries to “pelter” (hit) the runner with the ball to get them out.
Additionally, Ring Games such as “Brown Girl in the Ring” which was a rhythmic, circular singing games heavily rooted in Afro-Caribbean heritage, with children holding hands in a circle, singing traditional folk songs, while a child in the center performed a dance or action that the next chosen child must copy, no longer take place.
Outside games such as Hide and Seek in which one child hunted the others, and the game transforming into highly athletic chases across neighbourhood yards, scaling walls, and dodging through fruit trees, no longer take place.
Pitching Marbles, a game of high precision played in the dirt in which Children dug a small hole and used their thumbs to flick glass marbles, aiming to knock opponents’ marbles out of a designated ring or win them through direct hits, has stopped.
Cricket in the Road was common in the past. The tight, hazardous boundaries required unique batting skills, as hitting the ball in the bush often meant the batsman was automatically out.
Hand-built kites constructed by children using dried coconut frond veins (pointers) or bamboo sticks, tied together with sewing thread. The sail was made from discarded plastic shopping bags or colourful wax paper, balanced by a tail made of shredded cloth rags.
Alternatively, a Cocoa Riggy, a kite made from a single dry cocoa leaf rather than a green one, as the dry leaf provided better stiffness and durability, was used. The edges and bottom of the leaf were carefully bent and folded to give the structure aerodynamic balance.
A small hole was pierced into the bottom of the leaf. A makeshift tail, often made of lightweight, shredded plastic pieces, is inserted to provide stability so it can catch the Caribbean breeze and fly.
Games using hand craved wooden tops wrapped tightly with a length of rough twine string were common. Kids launched the top with a sharp whipping motion, competing to see whose top spin the longest or attempting to break an opponent’s spinning top in half.
Children build makeshift go-karts using discarded wooden grocery crates and old metal ball bearings or lawn mower wheels. They race these non motorised carts down steep, paved roads steering with a simple piece of rope tied to the front axle.
Neither the era before the internet or the era afterwards is objectively better; each offers a fundamentally different way of living with distinct trade-offs.
The pre-internet era featured slower paces, deeper local community focus, and more physical presence, while the internet era provides instant global connectivity, immediate access to knowledge, and unmatched convenience at the cost of constant distraction.
Before social media took over, days felt slower, and people experienced more routine downtime and natural boredom. Relationships relied heavily on face-to-face hangouts, phone calls, or physical mail, which felt more personal.
People had longer attention spans and experienced the world with more surprise because information was scarce. Finding facts required physical trips to libraries, and staying in touch with distant friends or family was slow and costly.
With the advent of the internet, all human knowledge, maps, news, and services are available instantly in your hand. Communication across the world happens in seconds, making it easy to find niche communities.
Everyday tasks like shopping, navigation, and working remotely are fast and efficient. Nevertheless, persuasive connectivity can cause digital fatigue, shorter focus, and the stress of being constantly reachable.
Playing outside provides critical physical and social advantages that internet games cannot replicate. A healthy childhood ideally includes a balance of both, with a heavy emphasis on outdoor movement.
Running, jumping, and climbing build motor skills, muscle strength, and cardiovascular health while reducing obesity risks. Exposure to sunlight, nature, and varied textures stimulates the brain and reduces the risk of nearsightedness (myopia).
Children learn to negotiate rules, resolve conflicts, and cooperate without adult or software mediation. Climbing trees or playing rough-and-tumble games teaches kids how to evaluate danger and build resilience.
However, many internet games many modern games improve spatial awareness, strategic thinking, problem-solving, and rapid decision-making. Early exposure to technology helps children build the technical fluency required in the modern world.
Kids can socialise and teamwork with friends or peers globally, fostering a different type of community. On the contrary, excessive screen time can link directly to physical inactivity, disrupted sleep patterns, and potential digital addiction.
In conclusion, children are generally better off with physical outdoor play as their primary form of entertainment. It satisfies foundational biological and developmental needs. Internet games are best used as a supplemental, time-limited tool for relaxation and cognitive exercise.
Simeon Collins is a former Director of the Grenada Bureau of Standards and first Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Caribbean Agricultural Health and Food Safety Agency (CAHFSA), a CARICOM Institution