Why kids learn to use technology quickly

Here's an interesting take on the well-known phenomenon of small children using complex pieces of technology with ease. And it's so obvious that I'm surprised it never occurred to me before, nor have I seen it in any other writing about young people and technology.

I saw it in a passing comment by technology journalist Alex Wiltshire. He was talking about Minecraft, which in case you don't know is a hugely popular game, played either solo or co-operatively online by children as well as adults, though the game was not specifically designed for them. As he observes: "When it first came out everyone was confused as the developer gave little or no guidance. It didn't specifically say you had to cut down a tree to get some wood, whereas games that are produced by big companies give instructions – the last thing they want is for people not to understand how to play. With Minecraft, which had an indie developer, the player had to work things out for themselves."

And here's the key bit. "Because you learn so much when you're young, kids are used to the idea of a world they don't fully understand, so they're comfortable with having to find things out for themselves."

Now this is quite an unexpected way of looking at the phenomenon. We tend to think of kids as having some sort of special technical ability, ascribing it an essentialist explanation such as them being "digital natives" or their brains being wired differently. But of course, as he says, for children >everything< is strange and unknown, and given that kids are able to figure out adults and the rules by which they operate - far more complex than any technology, and far more critical to a child's survival - it should not be surprising that they can cope with a multi-channel television service or an iPad.

This perspective also reminds us that, though we adults may envy kids' facility with technology, it comes at a price: that of living in a world which they don't fully understand and which many things are strange and potentially threatening.

References

Marc Prensky, (2001) "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1", On the Horizon, 9 (5), pp 1-6.

Diana G. Oblinger and James L. Oblinger (eds), Educating the Net Generation (Educause, 2005)

David White (2009), "Not ‘Natives’ & ‘Immigrants’ but ‘Visitors’ & ‘Residents’", TALL blog

David S. White and Alison Le Cornu (2011), "Visitors and Residents: A New Typology for Online Engagement" First Monday, 16 (9).