Velcro laces

 

Ars Technica has written up a great piece on AVG’s preschooler technology report. According to the results of the survey, kids are better at navigating the iPhone than they are at doing up their shoelaces. This is probably not news to any parent who has ever asked their child to put down the PS3 for a few minutes and tidy their room. Like doing up your shoelaces, housework is boring.

After every major holiday festival (think Thanksgiving or Christmas) it’s common to see a flurry of tweets and posts bemoaning the perennial problem of being the only geek in the family: how I helped mum get Skype installed; how I rebooted Dad’s router; how I got Gran on Facebook. Given our exasperation over the older generation’s lack of skillz, why are we disappointed when we find that our children have a natural aptitude for the technology they’re growing up with?

This is the kind of natural evolution that would get Kurzweil’s approval. We should be pleased that generation Z will live a hyper-connected, and fully augmented life. I for one will be only too happy for my son to run from the command line before he can sew on a button or darn his socks, I know which of these three skills will be the most valuable for him.

The writers at Ars Technica (and The Daily Mail) can tut tut at the state of things today and settle into their slippers with some cocoa and a newspaper, I’ll nip out and buy some velcro-laced slip-ons for the kids.

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