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I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

sethpurcell.com

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Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#11

Post by Mistletoe »

parpfish wrote: post #4

One of my longstanding peeves is that art museums are treated as serious places for grown-ups but science museums and zoos are treated as places for kids.

Our science museum has dumbed everything down to where truly only a child could enjoy it and they don’t even seem to like it much. When I was a child the exhibits were so different and really interesting to both ages. Now it’s the most homogenized crap imaginable. Something only Blippi (the lobotomized) could love. I donate blood there and I’m never even tempted to go look at an exhibit. A lot of this happened in just the past few years, maybe they are just matching their reading and science impaired audience, I don’t know.

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#12

Post by flowerthoughts »

jacobolus wrote: post #8
parpfish wrote: post #4

One of my longstanding peeves is that art museums are treated as serious places for grown-ups but science museums and zoos are treated as places for kids.

Art museums could be made friendlier for kids, but they would need significant design and maintenance effort. In particular: many kids need a lot of running around, want to play with things with their hands, and get quickly bored just standing and looking at artworks. It would be nice if there were better art museums for kids though. (For what it's worth, there are plenty of non-interactive and thus boring-for-kids s…

Yeah, this must be a negotiated market at this point... Kids not being interested in art museums, and thus art museums not bothering making it family friendly.

However, I have to say the computer history museum in Mountain View was nice and felt serious. So I think placing all science museums under one umbrella is a bit harsh.

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#15

Post by cesaref »

parpfish wrote: post #4

One of my longstanding peeves is that art museums are treated as serious places for grown-ups but science museums and zoos are treated as places for kids.

There are exceptions - here in the UK we have the RI: https://www.rigb.org/

The Christmas lectures are probably the most famous thing they do, and these have definitely moved in a more 'child' focussed direction. If you were attending the Christmas lectures in the 1850s however, the audience would have been middle class victorioans, and you'd have had Michael Faraday telling you about electricity, forces, chemistry etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Institution_Christmas_Le...

I would recommend attending one of their lectures if you happen to find yourself in London, just to be in the building, and to sit in the lecture theatre!

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#16

Post by symlinkk »

badlibrarian wrote: post #13

It's rampant in art museums as well. It costs approximately $2,000 to frame a 36" piece of art to museum standards. A similarly sized LCD screen, on the other hand... Art wasn't supposed to be a "by the square foot" kind of thing yet here we are.

It costs $2000? Why?

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#17

Post by dfxm12 »

parpfish wrote: post #4

One of my longstanding peeves is that art museums are treated as serious places for grown-ups but science museums and zoos are treated as places for kids.

I'm not sure which way you're going with this, but the Philadelphia Museum of Art, down the street from the Franklin Institute, isn't specifically geared towards adults and has lots of programming specifically for kids. Seeing Rubens' Prometheus Bound there as a child as part of such a program left me in awe. I remember the feeling to this day. Every time I go, I see families with young children or even just groups of teens there.

The Philadelphia Zoo also has events planned specifically for adults. My girlfriend and I went to one a few months ago. I'm not sure what specifically about the Philadelphia zoo, the Bronx zoo, the Shedd aquarium, etc. is for specifically geared towards kids, though.

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#18

Post by zdw »

If you have a change to visit the Tokyo Science Museum, it's quite good in this respect - it has a lot of interactive displays, many of which are very hands on, and some are application based - focused on how the science concepts are used in industry (with some occasional corporate tie-ins, which weren't too over the top). It's fairly kid focused, as others have mentioned - most of your competition for seeing the exhibits will be school student groups.

Incidentally, the building is featured near the end of the Shin Godzilla movie.

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#20

Post by Frozen_Flame »

It's disappointing to see but it feels as if to keep a futuristic theme and to provide almost an "edutainment" environment that a museum feels as though it must implement screens to keep up with the times. I think this might almost be comparable to how places like McDonalds that had themed play areas for kids have been wiped away. We aren't really designing many places where kids can be kids and when we do, we try to put more screens in there to connect with a younger technology savvy generation?
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