I second that strongly. My career choice is a direct consequence of having lots of unsupervised time with computers since ~9 y.o. I quickly saturated myself with available games and started to tinker with them, first to extract sounds and modify saves - then I started dreaming up my own perfect games and grew the desire to make them, which lead me to learn programming...

That said, I am afraid the Internet is a game changer here. I didn't have Internet access since... ~13, AFAIR, and even that was over dial-up. Given how today there's infinite amounts of brain crack streaming down the ever wider tubes, I fear a kid left in front of an Internet-connected computer will never get bored enough to start tinkering.

So I'm all for lots of unsupervised computer time, but for my future kids, I plan to not introduce Internet access too soon. Mind you - I'm not worried about the content (porn and other usual scares), just about it being like more addictive TV.

I don't think that's true. We didn't suddenly become better at building internal combustion engines because people grew up with cars. Just because you're good at using something doesn't mean you could build it. Race car drivers don't inherently make good engineers and professional esports players don't inherently make good game developers.

> We didn't suddenly become better at building internal combustion engines because people grew up with cars.

Are you sure? What about people growing up with cars, curious about what goes on under the hood from childhood, with references available on how they work, that they can connect to what they've seen themselves? Maybe this gives an edge over those whose learning started later?

Human technology is a long ladder of improvements one generation makes over the one prior. It's not obvious that stone age toys are the best preparation for contributing to the next step of the ladder.

Start off by teaching your kids how easy it is to fix things. Involve them with easy things to start with and then gradually more complex things. By the time their 17th birthday rolls around (or whatever age it is in your country), buy them a broken car for their birthday. They're very likely to quickly learn how to fix it.

Lost you on that one. Keeping a car running is how you learn to fix cars, period.

The difference today is that gaming has turned into a sales funnel for gambling like activity. It’s difficult to find good games.