Re:How kids in a low-income country use laptops: lessons fro...
by khedoros1 on Thursday April 05, 2018 @08:06PM
(#16769927)
My screen time was somewhat limited as a child, but to probably an hour or two a day (that is, by the time I was 9 or 10 and knew how to navigate DOS on my own). Games made me learn how to configure the computer. My first programming book was a book of late-70s BASIC games for microcomputers (which I used on my early 90s DOS machine).
I only ever did some light modding, but when I had a chance to take some programming classes in high school, you'd better believe that games were on my radar. Writing emulators is still a hobby of mine.
My parents monitored what I did, like I do with my kid now, and there are the "mysterious" times when the TV stops working (couple hours? OK. All day? No.) So I suppose that my wife and I are taking a kind of hybrid approach: Give kiddo the chance to be familiar with the technology around us, but regulate the time so that an obsession in the wrong direction never develops.
I only ever did some light modding, but when I had a chance to take some programming classes in high school, you'd better believe that games were on my radar. Writing emulators is still a hobby of mine.
My parents monitored what I did, like I do with my kid now, and there are the "mysterious" times when the TV stops working (couple hours? OK. All day? No.) So I suppose that my wife and I are taking a kind of hybrid approach: Give kiddo the chance to be familiar with the technology around us, but regulate the time so that an obsession in the wrong direction never develops.