Exactly - that stuff didn't exist. If it had, you'd probably have wanted it. Our great great grandparents used to play with a stick and a hoop in the street. Should we have been content with that?

113- an iPhone is still not todays equivalent of a skip it or GameBoy when I was a kid. At least it shouldn't be.

It is called evolution..and you really wrote something that long? Here is a thought - if a child starts using a computer at 8, how good at computers can he/she be when 20? Maybe better than most of us will ever be?! That's not a bad thing

152, becoming good with computers early might be a bad thing, because technologies keep evolving too quickly. So device your kid gets "good" at 8 might be forgotten when he/she is 14. This isn't that useful. And got/devil help you if your child gets interested in programming. Programming isn't for everybody, and at the age of 30 he/she might look back and wish she spent her time doing something else.

People always read FMLs like this (about ONE child) and assume that the entire generation is going to hell. Barbies still sell well, there are still children who don't own the latest iPod or iPhone, and it's really not that unusual or "bratty" for a kid to own a game console. Hell, even in the 90s I didn't know many kids who didn't have at least one game console or a bunch of CDs or Did people here really spend their childhoods playing outside with nothing but sticks and rocks? I loved playing outside as a kid too...but I also loved watching TV and playing video games. I also didn't like Barbies much, so I guess that makes me bratty and selfish? And don't people realize how technology-based out society has become? 8 years old isn't too young to have a computer or the latest iPod (and I wish people would stop saying "I didn't have an iPod when I was little!" iPods didn't even exist when you were little! I bet you had a walkman or a CD player though!) Hell, waaaaay back in the early 90s computers were starting to enter class rooms and people's homes, and my children were learning to touch-type at the age of 7. And I'm glad they did, because they now have computer and typing skills that many people their age don't. And guess what? They also aren't brainless, bratty zombies too! TV and technology didn't destroy them....just like Pokemon didn't destroy the 90s generation....CDs didn't destroy 80s generation...and rock n roll didn't destroy the 50s generation. Every generation turned out fine, and will continue to turn out fine.