Access to contemporary technology helped promote my habits as an early adopter.
Parents in the silly con valley are idiots. They are in a trillion dollar industry and make billions a year because people want to use the technology they are developing. Think about how different my childhood would have been if we had learned camera work and video editing in art classes rather than painting, pottery and other less interesting art forms.
Imagine if as a child I had not watched Cousteau Documentaries. Two of my strongest passions would never have emerged… scuba diving and documentary making.
The luddites who amass personal wealth worth billions should understand that new technologies promote creativity and innovation rather than the opposite. Look at games and how they have evolved. Look at the emergence of multiplayer gaming right up to the leading edge games like Ingress among others. Without creativity and free time with new technologies revenue would be less forthcoming.
My passions for video and editing were held up for many years because I had no access to an edit suite. Imagine how the children of Sillicon Valley execs are having their creativity stunted because of the very people who have most to gain from their children being early rather than late adopters.
“Those who endorse this approach say computers inhibit creative thinking, movement, human interaction and attention spans.”
These people demonstrate just how limited their understanding of modern technology is. News organisations are teaching their staff how to shoot and edit news stories using mobile phones, others are using tablets to write books and more. The idea that information technology prevents people from moving around in today’s world is redundant. How many of you still have a desktop at home that you use regularly. I personally use my mobile phone and a laptop most of the time. The laptop is with me everywhere I go.
As a child and as a professional the thing that limited my movement is classroom and office time. In the classroom you learn at the speed the teacher chooses. There is no fast forwarding, skimming or rewinding. Everyone learns the same information at the same speed… in theory. In practice we learn at different speeds and information technology allows us to build knowledge actively. As children we had books and we learned by reading different chapters at different moments. Imagine studying the Roman civilisation as a child and wanting to see pictures and video from the time. Multimedia devices and computers would bring more to life quicker.
I strongly believe that children should be given the freedom to use the technology or medium they want to use. It is not up to adults to decide which tools are relevant to their children. As an early adopter contemporary values and norms have held me back and stop others from keeping up.