Children are citizens of the internet. Adults are merely tourists.
I question every time I read about some valiant efforts adults are making to think of the children when it comes to the internet.
Children are citizens of the internet. They are growing up with it as a part of their lives. They were not introduced to it late into their teens, adulthood or in their senior years. The internet is as much a part of their lives as the television or radio was to the lives of older generations.
Children are aware of the privacy implications of sharing things on social networks. This doesn’t mean children don’t need to be made aware of the dangers of online predators or cyber bullying. However, as savvy as the normal parent my be, children are going to become more fluent in the language of the internet as time goes on.
They have grown up with it and have an understand which starts at an early age. Even if your children aren’t allowed to browse the web, they likely enjoy the benefits of Netflix, Hulu, iTunes and other providers of entertainment.
I am a child of a time before home video game consoles. When I was younger, you had to visit an arcade to play games at the expense of piles of jingling quarters.
When video games came out, I was still quite young and I grew up with them so I had a clear understanding and appreciation for them. I spoke their language and they spoke to me. I spent many, many hours playing and perfecting my abilities.
I understood how they had to be connected to a TV, how to troubleshoot them when problems arose. I understood how to control them and how to play the games.
There was a time before television, and especially color television was in homes across the country. There was a time before the radio. There were always times before technologies we take for granted today.
When the television was delivered and setup, there was a learning curve to understanding how to get the set connected and working. There was a skill set involved in figuring out why it wasn’t working and what could be done to make it work.
Each technology has its own language which must be learned and mastered.