I have a one year old daughter. She is going to learn how to work windows explorer and windows shortcuts and learn how a mouse works before she’s ever put in front of any apple product.
Computer kids will always be more tech savvy than touchscreen kids. They’ll have better critical thinking skills and better abilities to apply their knowledge in ways that aren’t spelled out for them by patronizing tech companies like Google and Apple pushing their walled gardens.
I’m going to spoil the shit out of my nephew for Xmas this year who’s just old enough now for some video games with the approval/encouragement of my sister. A fully loaded 3DS XL with a compatible NDS flashcart too plus emulators, themes, and whatever else it sat in a drawer for years with last installed. Battery still good. Hopefully it gives him the tinkering bug with Nintendo’s locked down sandbox blown apart day 1.
Loonix laptop when he’s a little older.
Better than iPad kids. Not ideal obviously, but still far better.
iPads (and mobile devices/OS’s generally) are designed to be as simplistic and easily understood as possible. They abstract away complexity, have to make menus less cluttered and make buttons larger to accommodate how people use them, and the lower power processors also mean less functionality than desktop-based systems.
If you grow up using less shit, you’ll learn how to use less shit.
Desktop kid checking in.
Like the gods intended, with Model M keyboard and US robotics dial-up.
I teach in a makerspace and I have to start every new class by teaching the basics of using a mouse and keyboard. It is really hard to teach 3D modelling to students who have no idea what modifier keys or a scroll wheel is.
I miss the laptop generation. The phones are good for consuming they are not good for creating.
Laptop kids gain tech skills
IPad kids gain social media brain
Change my mind
Cyberdeck kids slay
iPads are content consumption devices. Full stop.
Well mine know what a terminal is and can execute the commend needed to launch a Java Minecraft server instance soo you’re not wrong ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My kids will be playing the same sacred edutainment games from 1992-2005 as I did on a virtual Windows XP machine and this is unironically a hard non-negotiable for any serious long term partner
instead they are being raised AI/ phone kids which is probably worst, for genz, alpha. mIlleneals are desktop/laptop kids.
Ah yes, the various internet porn, liveleak and rotten [dot] com generation of kids
I remember having to wait some 30s to a full minute for a single image to load via dialup
Someone once snuck a porn image with an Asian lady in a “Christmas” CD of a magazine, those with apps and media and an auto play menu. You could only find it if you opened the disc as a folder with right click and browsed deep into the subdirectories… Which I of course as a kid with nothing to do, at a time when you paid internet connection based on time, did. It was an indescribably wonderous discovery.
I’m playing the equiv of Minecraft (Luanti) and my 4 year old sits on my lap and helps me jump and use the two mouse buttons. Usually stuff like this begins with the parent’s habits.
My kid used to sit in my lap and press ‘w’ in Goat Simulator to move us forwards while I ensured the chaos happened. Eventually they added the jump button to their repertoire. Then they learned to use controller so we could play Goat Simulator 3 together in split screen. Eventually they moved out of my lap and they have their own computer now.
We used to play an hour together every day. We 100%'ed Terraria, played through PalWorld, Bluey, A Hat in Time, Vampire Survivors, and a few others. They play through single player games on their own after school nowadays, so that hour each night has been repurposed for reading together. We still play together on the weekends.
They’ll occasionally ask if I remember the silly games we played in Goat Simulator 3, like where we’d both equip brooms, one of us would steal the other’s broom and fly away, leaving the broomless goat to dramatically monologue about how their broom was stolen. Those moments gaming together are precious, and I hope you and your kid enjoy them.
This is prime bonding that they might not remember when they’re older, but will make your job as a parent 10,000x easier. 🎉
Actually, installing a CD ROM drive, sound blaster and configuring sound drivers, autoexec and config for dos were instrumental for me. Laptops. Smfh.
