It used to be that when children wanted to play a game of kickball, they would walk around the neighborhood, knocking on doors and asking their friends if they wished to play. This simple act took initiative and leadership.
Today kids can join "under 5" soccer teams. With the best of intentions, parents take care of the sign-ups, and the coaches set about building teams. Of course, it’s all available online.
Sure, getting our young athletes off to an early start helps them build skills and gives them an edge when, a few years later, the competition gets serious, but the table is too neatly set.
The ready ability of online bookings for anything from entertainment to travel has in much the same way placed at risk our spontaneity and eroded our desire to leisurely explore the world. As my family began to plan for a trip to Europe last summer, we settled on a general itinerary but did not want to over-plan. Rather than deciding where we would be each day of our vacation several months in advance, we wanted to stay open and follow our noses. The problem is that with the global population steadily growing and so many people on the move for the summer holidays, if you snooze, you lose. Bookings for museums, hotels and trains to quaint cultural events in the countryside were, in many cases, difficult to get at the last minute.
The online booking industry, which began in earnest in the mid-1990s, is soaring. According to PhoCusWright, consumers last year booked one-third of the world’s travel sales online. Leisure and unmanaged business travel bookings grew twice as fast as the total market, surpassing $313 billion.
Despite a flood of blogs and ways for consumers to rate their experiences for others, those who book online still may be fooled or even fool themselves. This past week my son and I went on a trip to some of the nation’s most amazing national parks: Zion, Bryce, Grand Staircase-Escalante and the Grand Canyon. Our principal focus was "canyoneering," the art of rappelling down cliffs on ropes to extremely narrow valleys below and then climbing out. Not knowing the specific terrain in each park, we booked with canyoneering guides to take us through. On a couple of these day trips, we encountered people who clearly were not physically or mentally prepared. Sure enough, they had booked online from the comfort of their urban armchairs but had little idea what they were getting into.
The modern age, replete with so much technology-enabled opportunity for advance booking, is no doubt at least convenient and at most empowering, but it can be at the expense of healthy social interaction, safety and true adventure.
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Ira Zunin, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., is medical director of Manakai o Malama Integrative Healthcare Group and Rehabilitation Center and CEO of Global Advisory Services Inc. Please submit your questions to info@manakaiomalama.com.
