A lot of us grew up with a computer in the house, but if you are around my age, it probably didn't start to be a large part of your life until your teen years. As far as gaming, you probably had an Atari, or maybe (like me) you had the original Nintendo, or Sega. Maybe you even played a little 'Myst' on your desktop, but you probably did not use a computer on a daily basis as a child, and you certainly didn't play with apps on a smartphone, or mess around with your mom's i-pad, like the kids of this generation do. AVG recently did a study, which polled 2,200 mothers with Internet access across the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The mothers, all with children aged 2-5, were each asked to rank a list of computer and traditional life skills according to how early their children had mastered them. Here are a few of their findings:
- More young children know how to play a computer game (58%) than swim (20%) or ride a bike (52%)
- 28% of young children can make a mobile phone call, but only 20% know to dial 911 in case of an emergency
- 69% of children aged 2-5 can operate a computer mouse, but only 11% can tie their own shoelaces
This is kind of amazing, and slightly disturbing to me. I mean, I am in my twenties, and it is incredible how much computers have changed every aspect of our lives since I was a child. I love computers, the internet, gaming, etc. but I have to wonder if we might be sacrificing something when we devote so much of ourselves to these forms of communication and entertainment. Computers can be awesome learning tools for kids, and the internet opens up a world of information to kids that they would never have had 20 years ago, but is it at the risk of their basic life skills? Are they spending time playing computer games instead of socializing with their peer group, or learning the skills necessary to develop normally?
