Richard Hearn on kids and technology

One cliché people used to say was: “My three year old is better at operating the video than I am.” It’s a cliché that’s out of date, and needs updating to Skype or Sky+ or whatever. What is certainly true is the way Youngest™ and The Boy take for granted – and can operate – quite advanced technology.

Now this isn’t going to just be me being some Luddite curmudgeon. I’m no technophobe. In fact, rather than the argument that technology can interfere with their development, I feel that the two go hand in hand. I reckon Youngest™’s fine motor skills have been honed from stroking an iPhone screen in order to see a picture of him and his brother eating lollies – it’s an incentive.

Likewise, I once discovered a tiny piece of paper on the kitchen table with the sentence, “Supr Marea is ded”. When I recovered from the fact that it was simultaneously cute and chilling, I realised this was how The Boy was learning to write. Weird messages based on Nintendo DS games. Elsewhere I’ve always been more likely to find “Humungosoor – powr levl” than “The cat sat on the mat”. The fact that his writing has come on in ‘leaps and bounds’, is fitting I guess if he’s been inspired by platform games. He’s moved on now to writing his own lengthy stories, some of which are scribbled on paper, and some – on his own instigation – as Word docs.

“I hate seeing other parents in playgrounds spending all their time checking smartphones”

Technology’s not all positive, of course, but some of that’s more me than them. I hate seeing other parents in playgrounds spending all their time checking smartphones – but I’m guilty of that too. I also must have said “I’m just checking my emails” so often that it became a kind of all-in-one word: “jossjackinmeemales” in the mouth of The Boy.

You can’t uninvent the wheel. They live in a world where a favourite programme can be found instantly ‘on recorded’ and the Sat Nav, with its “bear left” and “turn around where possible” has long since stopped being commented upon. I’m not really that nostalgic for getting lost.

Technology doesn’t make them stop wanting to draw, run around outside, jump in puddles (oh if only) and enjoy books. It’s simply another option, another media. I definitely don’t think that it interferes with other development, quite the opposite. My main niggling fear is if they grow up with a distorted sense of entitlement, feeling hard done by if they don’t have the latest gadget. That’s the side to keep in perspective.