Dream Life! For about $50 young girls throughout the nation can build a fantasy world. Apparently, you can create your own virtual representation and do all these amazing activities and have a fabulous life, in essence, becoming Paris Hilton/Lindsay Lohan/Hilary Duff if they are so inclined.

What is happening to the world? This game is a bit ridiculous. What happened to reading a book and fostering your imagination the old-fashioned way? As technology advances more and more, children are becoming equally tech-savvy, but maybe they are losing the ability to use their imagination independently of such progress.

I remember as a child reading books and drawing pictures of what I imagined the characters looked like and where they lived. Sometimes, I would create my own sequels, not wanting the adventure to end. I wonder if kids today ever venture beyond the world of Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket and revisit some classics, like the Chronicles of Narnia and Nancy Drew.

Sadly, the state of literacy among the youth is frightening. When talking to my brother about his senior English class, I was shocked to hear about some of the books high school seniors had read for summer reading. Seventeen and eighteen year olds were reading books that were aimed for a much younger audience. And I'm not talking about Harry Potter, but other frivolous teen oriented series. I'm not advocating that they ought to have read great classics like Jane Eyre or The Count of Monte Cristo, but there is a plethora of great modern and approachable authors that should be devoured like Nick Hornby or Marian Keyes.

It worries me that young adults, future leaders of our world, are refraining from expanding their literary knowledge. They see reading as a chore and not the pleasure that it should be. Perhaps, games like Dream Life are distancing young kids from the pleasure of reading and the mental exercise of using one's imagination.

A balance must be found. Imagination must learn to be independent from technology so that it can continue. Perhaps this will create future generations of outside-the-box thinkers, who will find a new perspective in a world that can only see technology in one way.