“It’s amazing how we brought up our children without the
help of technology,” I said to my wife, looking up from the newspaper. I often
introduced deep, philosophical topics like this over our morning cup of coffee.
“You mean disposable diapers?” she asked.
“No, but good point! We should discuss that another time.
But I was wondering how we brought up two children without even one iPad?”
“Jordy Kaufman of Swinburne University, Melbourne,” I continued,
reading from the newspaper, “claims that using an iPad is intuitive to babies
and it fosters creativity and intelligence. According to Ofcom's report, 51% of
UK households own a tablet and where children are in those households, they
tend to be users too. And in the US, as many children have their own iPads as
did adults two years ago! All our kids had was the rattle.”
My wife nodded sagely.
A few days after this intellectual exchange, our friends
Mithun and Amrita came home for dinner with their six-year old twin boys and infant
girl of eight months. Like a good host, I moved to help them dismantle the baby’s
pram. That’s when I noticed it had an iPad mounted two feet above the baby’s
face.
“Wow! That’s neat,” I said, reaching out to pluck it out of
its mount.
“No! Don’t!” screamed Mithun, but too late. I had already removed
the device. Immediately the baby began howling and thrashing about in the pram,
making it impossible for me to clip the iPad back.
