One of my coworkers bought his three-year-old nephew a picture book as a birthday present. The three-year-old tried to "pinch-to-zoom" on one of the book's pict

One of my coworkers bought his three-year-old nephew a picture book as a birthday present. The three-year-old tried to "pinch-to-zoom" on one of the book's pictures and threw the book away in disgust when he realized it wasn't interactive. When I first heard this story, I thought it indicated a worrisome trend in the youngest generation. Now I'm not so sure. The article notes that kids growing up with tablets isn't necessarily a bad thing, and the reasoning given makes sense. The kids in the article play with iPads at the dinner table silently, but the author notes that it would be similarly bad for them to be coloring at the table silently. The current hypothesis is that spending less time interacting with people harms the development of some communication skills. This is only relatively related to the article's content, but I would be interested in a study that analyzes the effects of children using tablets for creative purposes like drawing, puzzles and games, etc. versus consuming content passively.