6 ms·

> I've seen children accustomed to using touch interfaces blurring the line between physical and virtual, i.e swiping at physical objects like books, photos, e

• codingdave 8y ago
  It depends on the age of the child. A toddler who is still exploring the world is one thing. A 14 year old who swipes at a book is a problem. (I don't know the age of the children from these anecdotes.) On the other hand, a toddler who explores the world as if it is a touch screen has been given way too much time on a touch screen. So there is definitely a problem there.
  • 21 8y ago
    > On the other hand, a toddler who explores the world as if it is a touch screen has been given way too much time on a touch screen. So there is definitely a problem there. You are making quite an assumption here. People of many centuries ago would also say that we raise our kids in a wrong way, because we don't teach them how to survive in the wild or how to work a potato field.
    • curuinor 8y ago
      A computer is a machine of profound alienation from the actual ability to create and the ability to use, unlike anything someone who survives in the wild or farms would do. Many people will die having used computers for 10 hours a day but not being able to really act with computers and create with computers. This is unacceptable.
      • 21 8y ago
        > A computer is a machine of profound alienation from the actual ability to create and the ability to use A funny thing to say, given that today a lot of content requires computers to produce, even abstract art. > Many people will die having used computers for 10 hours a day but not being able to really act with computers and create with computers How is that different from people who voraciously read countless books, or watch countless movies, yet never produce anything at all, in whatever domain. Not everybody wants to be a producer. Some people are perfectly happy just consuming, or partying all day.
        • andybak 8y ago
          I've had similar disagreements with people bemoaning VR for being isolating and non-social compared to other interactive media. Nobody decries reading literature for being somehow morally inferior to watching TV in a group.
          • pbhjpbhj 8y ago
            >Nobody decries reading literature for being somehow morally inferior to watching TV in a group. // Never heard the term "bookworm", it's a mild pejorative leveled at people who read books a lot.
            • retsibsi 8y ago
              This probably varies a lot by culture (and sub-culture), but 'bookworm' doesn't really have perjorative connotations for me. I know it was probably originally intended that way, and it can still be used as an insult, but it feels neutral to me.
        • curuinor 8y ago
          How many of these literature readers can't write? Not write well, can't write at all. How many can't take a video? Not take a good video, but take one at all. But you can use a computer without knowing how to create for it _at all_.
    • actsasbuffoon 8y ago
      I live in an agrarian area where potato farming is a major industry. It’s a hard life, and not one that I’d encourage my son to get into. I think he’ll be better off with a computer.
      • freehunter 8y ago
        When I was a kid growing up on a farm, we'd have semi trucks come by and pick up our produce, and I thought that would be such an easier life than actually producing the crops. I told my grandpa that I wanted to be a truck driver when I grew up, and a few weeks later he drove into town and bought a computer to keep me from being either a farmer or a truck driver. He had been both, and didn't want me to be either.
    • codingdave 8y ago
      I might agree with them. I'm not saying we should be all out working potato fields, but knowing how to grow your own food is valuable knowledge. Likewise, knowing how to live in the wild, at least for a few days is a basic skill that I believe everyone should know, as it could save your life even today if something goes wrong while you are out hiking/camping. But that is all just my own personal opinion, not something we need to argue about. However, the idea that toddlers should not have that much screen time is an official recommendation: https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/21/health/screen-time-media-rules-children-aap/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/21/health/screen-time-media-rule...
  • Tomte 8y ago
    I have swiped on books several times now. Just a temporary lapse, I laugh about it and a few years later it may happen again.
    • samatman 8y ago
      When watching movies in the theatre, I catch myself jogging the cursor to see how much time is left. How I do this without a trackpad and without moving, I don't know. I only notice when it doesn't work.
  • radicaldreamer 8y ago
    I highly doubt you'll find a 14 year old who swipes at a book... kids very quickly learn context and rules of physics. It's much harder when some screens are touch screens and some are not, however, but I see adults trying to swipe non-touch screens all the time (mall displays, ads, iMacs etc.)
    • eugeniub 8y ago
      Meanwhile we adults are still occasionally trying to Ctrl-Z real life.
      • foobarian 8y ago
        I understood that as suspend. It still works! Who wouldn't want infinite time for video games/hobbies while time was stopped.
        • kps 8y ago
          What else would it be? EOF on CP/M? I assume that's not what was intended since it is possible in real life (and the OS will do it sooner or later).
          • mclehman 8y ago
            Undo, presumably.
      • kitsunesoba 8y ago
        I was constantly running into this during drawing classes in college after having spent countless hours in Photoshop in high school. It’s amazing how firmly the Cmd-Z reflex plants itself as a reaction to making a mistake! I’ve also caught myself yearning for Cmd-F when hunting for something in large chunks of printed text.
        • uiri 8y ago
          That's why traditional books (especially references and textbooks) have an index at the back.
• victorvation 8y ago
  I find this type of neo-Luddism to be a strange form of gatekeeping for technologists. "Back-in-my-day"-ism for Google and manpages and the computer mouse.
  • dev_north_east 8y ago
    I know plenty of parents who let their 3/4 year olds "play" away with tablets. Like really, they give toddlers internet connected devices and let's be honest they're not always supervised. Or even most of the time from what I've seen. It's the modern pacifier. When some of the kids come over to ours to play, their withdrawl from the devices becomes very bad. I won't let my kids near tablets/smart-phones. When they're a bit older, they can start their journey on a family desktop in the sitting room. Call me a neo-Luddite all you want, I have a feeling all other things being equal my kids will have a better chance at life than the ones left to explore Youtube on their own before mastering how to cycle a bike.
• userbinator 8y ago
  I don't think that making information access easier is ever a bad think. Except when it decreases learning and perseverance, and deemphasises the benefit of careful thinking. The term 'spoonfeeding' is very relevant here.
  • 21 8y ago
    The way you view personal responsibility is also important here. Spoonfeeding kinds of assumes no human agency. If you let yourself be a leaf in the wind, yes, you'll arrive wherever the currents take you.
  • pharrington 8y ago
    > deemphasises the benefit of careful thinking. This may be a bit of a tangent, but that reminds me of what is, by my guess, a core flaw of the US Constitution - it is deliberately written in a difficult to follow style (most notably, double inversions are slammed in everywhere). Even if the intent is to cause people to more carefully consider the subject matter, in the hopes that they come to a more accurate understanding, the literal effect of making information harder to access is that more energy is spent trying to access that information. In turn, the likelihood of errors in the course of accessing that information increases. addendum: It's good to make things less error-prone.
• nickserv 8y ago
  My worry with toddlers and touch interfaces is precisely because at that age they should be exploring the world, touching, tasting, smelling, feeling... By exposing them to something that doesn't react to the laws of physics, I fear they get a wrong first impression of the world, that at an early age they are not able to distinguish the difference between a book and a representation of one. I'm not against tablets, just that they shouldn't be given to toddlers at all, and to older kids once they are able to use the basics of a keyboard and mouse interface. Like walking before running so to speak. Regarding looking things up in a book, it's a great skill to have, even from a purely enjoyment aspect, and I would certainly encourage kids to learn it. It doesn't mean not having access to the internet or voice search. Same way one can teach growing food or making fire with a bow, while still buying groceries every week and cooking on a convection range. It's important in my view for kids to know where we've come from, to better understand the world as it is today.
  • 2bitencryption 8y ago
    this is once of those things where I'm 90% confident it isn't actually harmful to a young child... ...and yet if I had a child, I wouldn't expose them to tablets at a young age, just because that 10% is scary.
    • Double_a_92 8y ago
      But I guess it's more because of the content, not because it will learn that certain surfaces are swipeable. E.g. it's probably quite bad to just let your kids watch random youtube playlists all the time.
  • kqr 8y ago
    > By exposing them to something that doesn't react to the laws of physics, I fear they get a wrong first impression of the world, that at an early age they are not able to distinguish the difference between a book and a representation of one. I'm not friends with how you casually throw the word "wrong" in there, as if it was an unquestionable universal agreement. Transport yourself (by vessel of imagination) to a future where this toddler is 30 years old, and both you and this toddler-no-more are bidding for a project: a customer is going to write a neat piece of software dealing with technical spec sheets, but they need someone to do the interaction design for it. Of course, it's going to run on the next-next-next-next-next gen touch surfaces which is what is available at the time. You both present your solutions to the customer, and after a few weeks they call you up to say, "Please don't get us wrong. Your interface was really good. We decided to go with the ex-toddler anyway. They had similar ideas to yours, it's just that yours felt a bit tied to the Newtonian laws of physics. The toddler seemed to think more freely about the medium and used that for good. "We fear that, given your age, you have gotten a wrong first impression of digital interfaces. You seem to have problems distinguishing the difference between what we call a book these days, and one of those old objects made from dead trees." I'm not saying it's good either, I'm saying it's different. And while the toddler perspective may look wrong with your 20th century eyes, it could very well be that your perspective looks wrong with the toddlers 21st century eyes.