I was out for a coffee today with some friends and one of them has two kids, a five years old boy and a two years old girl, both cute, clever and a blessing for their parents. They weren't at the table with us, but the father was keeping on getting notifications from Apple Pay...
I don't know exactly how buying apps on the apple store works, but his kid, who has his own smartphone at 5(imagine that) was on a buying spree from the app store. $12 spent in less than half an hour... That's when this guy called his wife so she would stop the kid from buying apps.
Imagine that the kid is just five years old, he doesn't even know how to read, or at least he doesn't properly know that, I'm sure the smartphone has thought him some, but he is nevertheless operating this gadget. I guess colorful icons show him the way to go...
From what I understood he is mostly "buying games" and he is also able to install them by himself and that's something, you know. A five years old toddler is able to "create himself a digital universe" by himself.
I remember that the first time we got cable TV was when I was probably 9 and I was entirely caught by cartoon network as soon as I turned on the TV after the cable was installed. Having tons of programs to watch was definitely enhancing my horizon, but it was a "preprogrammed horizon". I was only consuming what I was served with...
It's not like I had the choice for anything other than changing from one TV channel to another. I bought my first PC, my parents actually did, when I was 16 and it was used for playing games offline, watching pirated movies and listening to pirated music as well, but no internet connection. I guess we first had unlimited data internet connection when I was 19, or something like that.
I grew in this small town I currently am, and access to technology wasn't available to us in its incipient stages. Big cities like Bucharest were already playing Counter Strike "on a network" when most of us didn't even owned a PC.
Kids nowadays are born to an abundance of information and the means to access it. Our education was mostly driven by our parents and school, we were taught what to learn and how to think, there weren't much alternatives, meanwhile younger generations have alternatives.
Teenagers nowadays can double check their history classes online and have access to alternative information, which makes much more things clearer and gives sense to a lot of mysteries, like the one of the Russia invasion, which was demystified to me by a video shared in a comment of @oldtimer.
These new generations have the ability to ask questions not only to a physical teacher, but question narratives as well, create themselves online communities and have a side education from the one they get from parents and schools and despite seeming to be "more zombie" than we were at similar ages, they're actually more lucid imo.
Technology is probably the spiritual awakening we were waiting for, it took us some time to recognize it, though. That kid owning an iPhone at the age of five will have a totally different life experience and perception than I did, I'm not saying it will be definitely more positive, but more abundant for sure.
Thanks for attention,
Adrian
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I'm glad you liked my link. It changed my perspective as well.
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Now everything makes a lot of sense
Well change is one thing that is constant, in 20 years time this same kid will be telling another kid how privileged they are. Who knows what will be used to consider privileged then
True. Evolution never ends.
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That's very true. Technology is opening a lot of doors and I believe that, if done right, the sooner we get kids used to it, the better.
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Too much is harmful imo.
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It reminds me of how many hours I put into places like NeoPets or Runescape as a kid. It was where I spent my time because it was different and fun. At the same time, I could get away from some of the pay to win aspects like membership through some trades outside of the site. Pay gold and they give you the membership or etc.
However if I had access to the credit card, I have no doubt that I would be adding a lot to my parent's card. I didn't really know better but finances were tight so I had no access to that money.
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I sometimes wish I had that as a kid. I was a voracious learner, and I was mostly limited by what I could find in books.
On the other hand, I would sit and read for hours. I fear this generation will completely lack the ability to do this. It's important to have a sustained, singular focus if you want to be able to produce deep thought.
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