Kids and Technology

Kids and Technology

By Allan Olson

It’s funny how time changes and how technology makes us dependent and frustrated at the same time. My kids are good at making me frustrated as well but for different reasons.

For the longest time my wife and I made a stance against video games and owning a console. Then about 18 months ago we decided to get the Wii, because it seemed like; as my oldest daughter would say “so much fun.”

Like most new ‘toys’ the fun and excitement eventually wears off as we primarily use the machine for movies. The kids for the most part all four of them seemed to have learned how to use it pretty well if not proficiently.

Another item in our house that holds their interest is the computer, especially for the boys as they appear to be able to navigate it best.

When I was growing up our family got our first computer sometime in my mid-teen years. This remarkable machine was all command prompts using the DOS system and no internet (how terrible). I think I would be scared to know how much they paid for that ‘relic’ by today’s standard. This machine was spectacular to a household of boys, and I’m sure that more than one time fights broke out over who gets to use the computer.

Something’s don’t change when it comes to fights with the siblings. With our oldest, he was learning to navigate PBS kids early and that was fine because the others weren’t old enough to use the computer. Today is a different story. PBS worked fine, until someone clued him into much more exciting games available over the internet. Recently Nikolai and I were looking at some information about King Tut and I handed my laptop over to him and left the room for a few minutes. When I came back I found him playing a computer game. “I really wish you would play something you can learn from,” I said.

“I am,” he said. “At the end of each level they give you a little factoid,” he said.

Now if that isn’t a loophole I don’t know what is.

 I watched him play for a little while longer and sure enough he was right. It wasn’t even a fact about the game; it was a genuine useful tidbit of information. Once again, outsmarted by my kid, I left him alone before a short time before commandeering my computer back.

Last weekend I went to check to see what the kids were doing, since they were being too quiet and usually with kids, quiet isn’t a good thing.

I found them all hovered around the computer downstairs. I don’t recall which one of the boys were playing on the computer but all four them were watching what was going on. The youngest was sprawled out on the desk, and the other two were on each side of the chair in front of the computer interested in what was going on.

Thankfully, the other three are still content playing PBS kids rather than some other game on cyberspace.

Nikolai, while he thinks he is too big for PBS kids, will at least occasionally visit other educational sites while he is on the computer, but they aren’t as much fun at least according to him.

The computer and the Wii, are just a couple of things that they are quickly becoming technology savvy as I’ve heard more than one request for a cell phone, a DS or their own laptop.

And of course as I fought with my siblings, all of them will too occasionally fight over using the computer and when that happens, usually they all lose.

Thanks for reading! Remember, we appreciate your feedback so feel free to drop us a line at cltimes1@arvig.net. For more of my columns please visit my blog at: http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com