Nowadays you can get much cheaper all-purpose computers though; if kids are tinkerers like you were, they will find a way, either on their smartphones or on a raspberry pi or whatever. And if they don't - accept it, they're not you, and they'll probably end up better off than you did.
The portability was a big factor in it. As a kid, you're forced to be in all sorts of places you'd rather not or are totally boring because your school or parents require it of you.
I'd code in the car, at the grocery store, at family gatherings, while my parents discussed serious business (taxes, attorneys, etc), while sitting in waiting rooms, during boring classes at school (because school catered to the lowest common denominator and teachers would have to re-explain things about fifty times) etc and I would spend about half of the time on my calculator and the other half on my Game Boy. Fairly often I'd just leave the Game Boy at home.
We also had a computer at home since I was 7, and I spent as much time as I could get away with on there (mostly writing and working on my personal website). But when that wasn't available, or my parents felt like limiting my screen time, back to coding on the calculator I'd go.
I still did plenty of other normal things, I didn't exclusively do this, but I did spend a lot of time on it, and I got into a Maker mindset when I was really young that still carries over to this day.
It's more complicated than that because distractions play a huge role. If you've got access to endless stream of entertainment and games you're obviously less likely to find time to explore the other stuff that you can do with computers. I know quite a lot of tech savvy and smart people who loved tinkering with computers but never really got to the point of being able to do anything professionally because they've got distracted by too much Starcraft, WoW, etc...
I agree with this. I was also a calculator-tinkerer who learned TI-Basic on my TI-83 (And later z80 assembly.) I doubt I would have ended up down the same path had I had an iPhone 7 instead. Yes, there are educational apps, but then again there is infinitely more content available than what is available for a calculator.
The limitations on the calculator seemed to be a big driving factor in my interest at the time. The drive to push it beyond its intended purpose. With smartphones...you don't really have that because apps already exist for nearly everything.
You're ignoring what they said. They're not you, so stop trying to force them to either become you or be better than you were. Just let your kids be kids and grow on their own.
If "but they're not you" (what they? there is no they in that comment) is such a great argument that it absolutely needs a response, "you're not the person you're talking to, stop trying to influence them, they're not you" is a sufficient one. Your own medicine, take it first.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. I'll clarify what I meant.
Parents need to learn to back off. It's the one thing this generation of parents (Gen X and older millenials) seem to not have gotten. You can't force your children to be you or to be a version of you who didn't make the mistakes you did.
What I'm about to say might be a little bit too much of internet psychoanalysis, but I see it too often all over the internet as well as from people I know in real life, and I feel like this is a general trend because of that. So, this needs to be said somewhere for the chances at least one person will see it: this sort of thinking in my opinion stems from the parent putting too much of their own sense of self in a child. Specifically, seeing a child as either an extension of their being, and even a "second chance" to do things right from the beginning. The success of a kid or their failure is essentially the parents' since said kid is an extension of themselves. This can lead to the child becoming an instrument of the parents' self-validation.
While a lot of this may be intended with the kindest of intentions, it is unintentionally extremely selfish, and it gets parenting backwards. A child isn't you, and they aren't a chance to fix yourself; they are their own person, and they have an existence apart from you and deserve respect apart from you. The point of parenting isn't to have a smaller version of yourself, it is to cultivate an individual who has their own self-agency and own right to self-determination. Of course, in this process, that person will no doubt emulate many parts of you...but that process will be natural. It should not be the focus of your parenting and it shouldn't be forced.
Once a parent realizes this, then a lot of these things that keep them up at night won't turn out to be as terrible as they seem, mobiles, drugs, bad boyfriends/girlfriends, art school, you name it. Sure, you want to take care of your child, make sure they sleep, eat, get a great education, and may be not do too many drugs. But the person I was replying to was fretting that, god forbid, a child be more distracted by a phone like x or y person they know was distracted by games, and not become z person they should be. It's so ironic, because so many distractions have existed for decades, but you've turned out fine. Why not let your child discover for themselves what turns them on, despite the distractions and all? Why do you know who they should be? (hint: it might have a lot to do with who you should be (or are), not what the kid should be).
The entire thing about play is that it is play and adults aren't there to supervise. Parents need to learn their place and let kids fail a little and get hurt a little bit. It's part of growing up. And for the parents, understanding this will hopefully get them to realize you won't "fix yourself" by "fixing" your kids instead of looking inward.
> But the person I was replying to was fretting that, god forbid, a child be more distracted by a phone like x or y person they know was distracted by games, and not become z person they should be.
But that's the thing, they weren't. I can't find that upstream in this thread. But I'm happy to hold that position.
> It's so ironic, because so many distractions have existed for decades, but you've turned out fine.
I'm not convinced that many people actually did. Right now, it's getting more and more absurd, more and more shallow and violent, and climate and pollution nobody really feels responsible for. The branch we evolved on is being cut off, and we suffer from bystander paralysis. But we're fine because we can actually sleep well in this pathological mess? How sure are we that the people who act out in silly or destructive ways are not more sane still than those who don't even do that? Personally I'm not sure at all.
> Why not let your child discover for themselves what turns them on, despite the distractions and all?
Because they're not by themselves, we're not talking about kids finding mobile devices in the woods. It's kinda saying let the kid deal with the onslaught of machines and algorithms made by all adults except their actual parents, as if the whole world only wants their best, while the parents just selfishly want to have a second chance at their regrets and so on.
I super duper disagree. I don't disagree with your point in a vacuum (Franz Kafka expressed similar thoughts in letters to Elli Hermann), but in this context I do. Like when someone says "too much sugar is harmful" and someone else talks about how we shouldn't expect others to conform to our ideals of beauty. Yeah, it's technically correct, but in context it smells, because it's not addressing the actual point made in the least, and is making assumptions about people you don't know the first thing about.
If a kid gets hooked to ElsaGate videos ( https://i.imgur.com/AlTHFn5.jpg ), who am I to say they're wrong? Someone paying attention. If 99.99% of the people on the planet said "it's fine" that wouldn't make it fine, it would put 99.99% of the people on the planet my personal trash heap. When I was a child, I didn't hold back with my opinion, so why would I do that as an adult? I haven't even found ONE serious adult who can actually take in ElsaGate (the linked image is a joke, a tiny crop of a still frame of a trailer, but even that's too much already). And that's just a derpy bumbling first step, this shit will evolve and iterate. But oh yeah, let's mock "think of the kids". This is cavemen playing with nuclear bombs, bragging.
There's being hurt a little bit, and there's being swallowed whole, and the thing about getting swallowed whole is that you don't live to get hurt a little bit another day.
