Wednesday, August 5, 2009

The Computer Generation

This generation's children are so at ease with technology at an early age that even before they master their ABCs and 123s, they're taking pictures with the mobile phone and surfing the World Wide Web on a mouse. It's almost intuitive for them.

As a true child of the generation and following in the footsteps of his brother, XX has progressed from pressing buttons on mummy's mobile phone to using the stylus on the Nintendo DSLite. Touch the screen with your stylus or finger and move things around. Easier than 123. His favourite game on the DS: Cooking Mama.

And after months of not getting it, XX finally caught the "mouse" on the computer last week. Suddenly he realises that if he moves the mouse, the arrow cursor on the screen moves in tandem. He can control where it points and can also "left-click" using his index finger. So now, he can navigate the LEGO website on his own without having me sit next to him. While I celebrate the psycho-motor achievement, I'm not looking forward to the additional competition for my laptop. Already he bugs me to let him play on the computer everyday and he can sit there for a long time, clicking away, though he has no idea where it leads to. It's getting harder to tear him away from the computer now to play other things.

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