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How much technology is “too much, too soon”?

Opinions on this vary so much and most parents make their decisions from the gut anyways, or they just leave it up to the kids to decide. If the kids like computers, video games and gadgets, they just let them have at it.

My friend Brett (Dadtalk) ponders this question as he notices that his kids don’t want to play with the “toy versions” of things. They much prefer the real things. I noticed this with my kids too, my daughter when she was 2 couldn’t leave our TV remove alone. So we bought her this flashy toy one. Instead of black and gray, it was bright red, blue, green, and yellow, and each button played fancy sounds and made the device flash. In no time she became bored with it and kept wanting the real TV remote again.

Like most parents, Brett spends a lot of time thinking about the welfare of his kids and what he can do for them now to prepare the for the real world. He wants them to have an edge in the real world. Who wouldn’t. And the tools of the real world contain computers, cell phones, PDAs. Brett comments:

“One day a computer will be the single most important tool in their lives.”

Hold that thought.

I met a neighbor at a soccer game once, and we chatted. I told him about the product that I was developing, ComputerTime, and how it would help parents limit the time that their kids would spend on the computer because some kids just can’t get off of them without a lot of effort on the part of their parents. His response was, “Oh! I don’t think I would want that on my computer. If I could get my kids to use it 24 hours a day, I would!” Huh? You want to raise a sedentary, greasy, anti-social, pasty-white, introverted nerd?

As somebody who has worked in the software development world, let me tell you what it’s about in a nutshell.

• Problem Solving
• Creativity
• Ability to Learn New Things
• Motivation
• Communication
• Listening
• Speaking
• Leadership
• Persistence
• Imagination
• Teamwork
• Designing Complex Systems
• Doing Computer Things (writing code, Googling, creating documents, email, etc)

The point is, that a job in the computer field can be lucrative, but if you put your kids on a computer for 24 hours a day, are they going to learn how to do all of those other things on the critical skill list above? And that list is about the same for any other career your kids might be interested in.

Kids need to learn those other skills and they’ll do by playing with other kids, getting involved in group activities, playing alone, reading, talking, helping Mom and Dad around the home, being left alone for a while with a problem with real objects in our real environment, walking the dog, helping cook dinner, building a dog house, helping fix the alternator on the car, and sure, using electronic devices once in a while.

I did all of these things growing up and I didn’t start using a computer until I was 15. And look where I am today! Steeped in technology, being successful, and yet always struggling to keep up with the constant change!

Think about this: Compare cell phones now to cell phones 10 years ago, or cell phones 20 years ago. Compare DOS to Windows 3.1 to Windows Vista. Compare Fidonet BBS, to AOL, to the World Wide Web 1995 to the World Wide Web 2007. Do you think anything your kids learn today, technology-wise is going to matter when they’re coming out of college in 20 years? The landscape will look quite different than it does today. I’m sure of that.

So what’s going to be the single most important tool in your kids lives? Their brains, properly equipped with a broad range of problem-solving and social skills!

So Brett, don’t worry too much about your kids falling behind in the technology curve. I think they’ll do great. Focus on the basics and raise wonderful, creative, well-rounded adults who can problem solve in a team environment and persist at things and be really fun to work with, and they will prosper. Those skills never become obsolete, and in a tech industry, they sometimes seem so hard to come by these days.

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