It used to be that children came to us – the adults – to understand how to how to put a Disney movie on. Yet in a world of gadgets, mobile games, and YouTube, kids are showing the adults in their lives where to find our preference settings on laptops.
I asked my eight year old cousin what he wanted for his birthday, and instead of begging me for an action figure, or a Nerf gun like back in my day, he asked for an iTunes gift card so he can buy a chest of gems (to the tune of $99.99) for his Clash of Clans village. His mom already bought him the iPad for Christmas. I don’t even own an iPad.
Scratched up knees are replaced with scratched up phones. Broken Etch-a-Sketches are replaced with broken laptops, and flipping the pages of their favorite books are swapped out for swiping the latest apps on tablets.
70% of elementary students own a tablet. OK, I guess with all those games and apps they love, I can stomach that. But what really boggled my mind was that 37% of toddlers own tablets! Little drooling, stumbling humans own a tablet and I’m still trying to figure out how to stop Candy Crush notifications on Facebook.
Let’s get real:
– How many of you are confused by “The Cloud”?
– How’s that Apple TV treating you? Do you even know what Apple TV is?
– Have you ever forgotten your smartphone in your pants and thrown it in the wash? My mother has.
Aside from trying to fix the washed phone by then putting it in the dryer, she was always a little confused with technology. When we got our first satellite dish we had four different remotes, she’d come to us to show her how to turn the TV on without scaring the neighbors by instead, turning on the subwoofer and surround sound. She never quite got it…. And I have this nagging feeling that I’m slowly turning in to my mother.
Fast forward a couple of years to the present day, I’m the one asking the little ones how to set up my work email on my new HTC One. The use of technology has made kids smarter, better problem solvers, and even improves concentration, so it’s really no wonder that they can turn on the television without making anything explode.
By: Angelique Picanco
