Today is Christmas, and if you could see our den, you'd know that Christmas definitely happened here. Shards of paper and wrapping everywhere. People walking around in new clothes, carrying new books. and playing new games.
Actually, one specific game. Sim City 4 -- Deluxe Edition. It was a gift to the offspring, from her aunt. She asked me to install it, and she then spent some time doing the basics of setting up a city. Watching her from time to time, I thought gee, that doesn't look all that hard. The potential for complexity is surely there -- multiple options, multiple possibilities for each option -- but it looks like you can start slow. I mean, heck, she's just a kid, how hard can it be.
So while she's downstairs, I thought, I'll do this, I'll give it a try. Ten minutes later, I've finally figured out what button to push to start things off. I'm not saying there aren't ten more I could have pushed, just that I found one that started one of the tutorials. Note: One of the tutorials. Looks like there's about seven of them.
Years ago, I played a game called Adventure, also known as Colossal Cave. You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike... That game challenged me, and still does (I found a site that runs a simulation for it; apparently, there's more than a couple). Sim City is light years past Adventure. It awes me. And my daughter just picked...it...up.
I think I can see the end of my years as the All Knowing Father.
I want her to be resourceful and insightful, and this is one of the ways that it starts, when she realizes that she can do it, she can take control of parts of her environment and make things happen. She's moving towards not needing me as a source of insight, and I'm glad for that.
Merry Christmas!
2 comments:
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Apparently, the new "video game generation" has a different approach to life that may not be all bad. I read that they have a greater willingless to learn new tasks and a belief that they can master any task and become and "expert."
It's interesting to see young children who are totally proficient with technology. My three-year old cousin can turn on his computer, connect to the internet, go to his favorite website and find his favorite games despite the fact that he can't yet read...
I'll bet that facility has given rise to some heavy parental thought about access blocking software. We haven't done a lot of looking, though we should -- we tend to rely on the content advisor more than anything.
I'm sure some serious research has been done on the question of how kids react to software, just as a way of facilitating ease of use among adults. I've never considered myself fluent in PCs, but my minor success is swamped by my daughter's. My personal theory is that kids have no fear of technology because they grew up with it -- analogous to the people of my parent's generation who were perfectly comfortable with candle and oil lights, but when electricity came along felt that you might just want to keep things plugged in, just to keep the electricity from leaking away.
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