I had a nephew, who at a young age, could give out phenomenal stats on cricket. He would rattle cricket facts off at a fast clip, and required little encouragement from us. It was his immense interest in a sport that got him to go and acquire all that knowledge. When he was doing his act, he was in his zone.
There is an interesting pattern. I have found similar knowledge about video games, mobile games, music, spelling, science facts, and trivia in kids. How do they get so much knowledge while getting them to study their subjects, is such a challenge?
We pick things that interest us and go into a deep dive. We work hard without even realizing that we do. That is why we find college students who are great hackers but get poor grades. It is nothing to do with their intelligence or abilities. It has to do with their interest and where they like to spend their time. I think it is a good thing.
We spent some time with 5th and 7th graders and we found them to be gadget lovers. In our sessions when any one pulled out a smart phone, the kids were all over them. They picked it up from you, figured out how to use the camera, found games in a jiffy. I even had 5-year-old changing the wallpaper on my mobile and a 12-year-old trying to record an interview using the phone. I have heard stories from a friend whose 3-year-old was willing to swap dad’s big phone for his small phone (iPad for iPhone).
This gadget love, seems to be a universal phenomenon. Here is an infographic on how kids go ga-ga over tablets. Why am I not surprised?
7 thoughts on “Going Gaga Over Tablets”
My 4 year old is a frustrated young man as he wants WiFi wherever he goes. He loves sleeping with gadgets and wakes up with an app! He proudly shows off the stars and levels he has gained / completed on games where adults find it difficult to move ahead beyond certain stage. It’s natural for them. BTW, he has also burnt my pocket too; by making in-app purchases! I have had a bit of learning too. 🙂
I am sure you are enjoying it all. I think this generation is an “App generation”. Love these stories. Thanks for sharing.
It’s a bit of a scary scenario, so to say. A for Apple would mean a different thing to them, than when we studied. Such profound are impacts that they are affecting at the grass-root level. I’m afraid such sophistication(s) are actually reducing the human space (read as personal space). There is a lesson in all of us. But, like all revolutions, the further we move away from the epicenter, the greater is the force, and closer we tend to come towards it.
Epicenter moves too as technologies shift. Not sure what you mean by “grass root level”, “sophistication”, “personal space” in this context.
By ‘grass root level’, I meant our primary education system where young minds are shaped…sophistication in my terms is the finesse of the use of technology for our day to day activity that could otherwise be performed (and have been performed) without such technological interface. ‘personal space’, thus, would refer to one such place where the intrusion of technology is minimal…
of course, it is not an apocalyptic scenario (as I might sound). Nevertheless, any technology should remain as a slave, not our master. After all, computer was but the outcome of a failed experiment in trying to replicate our human brain…Von Neumann architecture (of compiler programming) is arrestingly similar to our human brain, both in functioning and design…
Excellent Insight… My son who is one year now, knows how to play related videos on youtube in my iPad 🙂 He had been using it for watching rhymes and playing with drawings. iPad is really an awesome piece that can help kids to enjoy their learning. Also the app store has plenty of learning apps targeted at toddlers / kids.
Thanks for sharing it. I think we are in some exciting developments for learning at all levels. It is not just the tablets but the whole ecosystem including cloud computing, free content, new interaction models and many other related technologies.
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