Kids and technology

I am on a business trip in Alexandria, VA and read some of the USA Today someone kindly left outside my hotel room door this morning. I came across an article titled Life's connections aren't all plugged in by Bruce Kluger.

He gives an account of his daughter who corresponds with a pen-pal in Australia in actual written letters, not e-mails or IM. He goes on to say:

Among the many challenges facing parents today is the way in which we can help our kids reconcile new technology and old values. This isn't exactly easy for me, as I'm not one of those dads who distrust the electronic revolution.

I had my own internal debate on when to expose my own kids to computers. I didn't want the computer to be another screen for them to look at. I read some articles on the topic and one example that hit home with me is that a child learns more about shapes by touching and feeling a ball or a cube than by looking at them on a computer. We have a PC for the kids in the house now but I never felt rushed to get it for them. And I never felt they would be behind for not having one before the oldest was 6.

Kruger believes kids can switch back and forth from the online/connected/PC world to the real human world more easily than we think

And yet what I'm beginning to recognize is that kids will unplug from the wall and plug into the real world more readily than they'd like us to believe. Like adults, they are hard-wired to make the kinds of connections that don't require a modem, but the trick is in exposing them to both the crackle of technology and the warmth of human interaction, then letting them see the difference for themselves.

I hope he is right.