Actual objects don't teach this sort of thing. They may well teach other things.

I encourage you to parent your own children. HN users are typically adults and can make their own decisions on whether some screen time for their kids is ok, and what sort of screen time. Doing a logic puzzle is not, in my opinion, the same as going from video to video of squeaky voiced ladies with brightly colored nails opening toy eggs on YouTube.

Is it ok if my daughter videochats with relatives? Or is that screen time and therefore bad?

Is it ok is she draws with crayons? Crayons and paper may be "actual objects", but the images she creates are no more "actual" than the pixels on a screen.

The world is a lot more complex and subtle than just dividing things into "screen time" and "real world".

The world is complex. And that's why division between screen time and real world at this age makes sense. You let many more brain areas develop when you can touch stuff, move it around with many more degrees of freedom, you have way more complex visual stuff to analyse at different focal lengths and so on. It's quite well documented.

But of course, do parent your own children. You are the optimisation function. You may value abstract thinking higher than spatial imagination dexterity etc.

"You may value abstract thinking higher than spatial imagination dexterity etc."

I don't think they are mutually exclusive. I mean, here's typical examples of my kid taking in some screen time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z492IPHZTUY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khU5A6Y1dk4

Haha, fair enough.

Just finished watching a film about Magnus Carlsen and how early he started and one of my key takeaways was that getting extremely good in chess actually helped him do well in other aspects of life as well.

Then of course his family doesn't seem to be pushing him, rather than supporting him, and if they had been pushing him hard into this it could possibly had a totally different outcome.

Have you seen the documentary about all the other kids who've started chess very early?

No, is there one?

I'm not sure if the comment you responded to was a sarcastic joke or a reference to this documentary.

Chess Kids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK0vtFkm7mE

> getting extremely good in her s gqme actually helped

huh?

My guess at a correction: 'good in her game'

Should of course be "good in his game".

I have rewritten it. I'll leave it to you to figure out my opinion of autocorrect ;-)

agreed.

this tool seems to optimize practicing logic more than enjoying logic.

i think kids will find greater success in life with logic if they're taught to enjoy it before they're taught to master it.

why do i think this?

my dad wrote a "computer game" in 4th Dimension in the late 80s that was just randomized arithmetic problems. i had to get a certain score before i could play outside etc. i got really good at answering his program's stupid questions. i also learned to resent him for it and have negative associations w arithmetic to this day.

i also quickly lost my "skills" and am bad at arithmetic now.

it was a nice idea but please don't repeat his mistake.

This might be true if the idea of this app was something you were supposed to put your kid in front of for a few hours a day.

To me it is just one thing, one of many, many things a kid will encounter, that help them understand concepts. It's not that different from the typical ad hoc "games" I play with my daughter, often while in the car. From "I spy with my little eye" to "what's the opposite of X" to "I'm thinking of a movie where there is a...." to "how many points on a star? how many wheels on a bicycle?" and so on.

I'm not sure what sort of "enjoying logic" you are expecting from a 2-4 year old. Solving little puzzles actually seems pretty enjoyable to them, from my experience. This is not to suggest that it should come at the expense of more "natural" ways of learning logical concepts.

> if they're taught to enjoy it

Left to enjoy, eh?

> I had to get a certain score before i could play outside

Your intrinsic motivation was killed with extrinsic motivation. That's the lesson here. Exercises are okay. Children kinda like exercises - even stupid or pointless ones.

On the other hand, my parents found a computer game where arithmetic problems fell from the top of the screen and you got points for solving them quickly. My siblings and I loved it and played it whenever we were allowed - it wasn't a requirement for us to play it but a treat.

I agree that concrete objects are easier to teach concepts with. I taught two elementary classes the basics of Scratch programming several weeks back. I made a whole bunch of props to start with before I even turned on the computer. That was what really made the difference. It was something they could connect with.