Youtube Youngsters

The last time I spent time with my four year old nephew, we spent over an hour playing games. However, these weren’t the same games I played when I was four years old – hide and seek, dress-up, make-believe. We sat at the kitchen table on my laptop, playing kiddie computer games on Treehouse.com – my nephew sat on my lap, as he’s still too small to comfortably reach the keyboard on the top of the table.

I was amazed at the ease in which he clicked through the items and dragged things back and forth with the mouse. He even got me to type Youtube into the browser, where he clicked through cartoons like Peppa Pig (his favorite, an English cartoon which we can’t get through our TV programming), and videos of washing machines spinning (my nephew occasionally has slightly strange interests). My parents couldn’t even speed through the internet like this kid could. What was all that about?

It’s amazing to look at how quickly young kids can adapt to technology. Their minds are like a sponge – it reminded me of how the textbook mentions how much more easily young children can learn a second language than adults (I am actually a personal testament to this – when I was young, I learned French like it was nothing  - my dad has been trying to master it for over 20 years now and still struggles occasionally). When I think of this with a cultural perspective, it makes me wonder – will these young children in developed nations, who are exposed to vast amounts of technology practically from birth, develop notable differences in the way that they develop as opposed to children who are not?

This is more than just a question involving the children’s cognitive abilities when being able to master the cognitive ability to navigate themselves through the internet in the technical sense. As our textbook mentions, through advancing technology, children are much more exposed to other culture than they would have ever been before. Not just children either – their parents too. I wonder what this could lead to. Maybe it will help cultures to understand and relate to each other. Maybe parents from certain cultures will take pointers from how other cultures raise their children – I know that through these studies, I’ve considered some techniques shown by other cultures for how I plan to raise my own children some day. Who knows? I guess time will tell.