Kids Navigate iPad Apps Before Learning to Tie Shoes

Before the iPad or the iPod -- back when computers were big and expensive -- curious pre-schoolers were regularly shooed away from their shiny monitors and noisy keyboards. No one would dream of giving one to their three-year-old to play with. (Read consumer complaints about Apple).

Of course, that was then and this is now, when the iPad is one of the hottest playthings for the playground set. And as technology moves at the speed of light, it appears the people most adaptable to the ever-evolving trends are the ones who were born within the last five years.

Precocious kids

According to a new "Digital Diaries" study from Internet security company AVG , small children today are more likely to navigate with a mouse, play a computer game and operate a smartphone than swim, tie their shoelaces or make their own breakfast.

“Technology has changed what it means to be a parent raising children today -- these children are growing up in an environment that would be unrecognizable to their parents," said AVG CEO, J.R. Smith. "The smartphone and the computer are increasingly taking the place of the TV as an education and entertainment tool for children.”

Multiple studies

AVG Digital Diaries is a series of studies looking at how children's interaction with technology has changed over the years.

The first piece of research, entitled "Digital Birth" and released in October 2010, found most babies and toddlers have an online footprint by the time they are six months old.

The second piece of research polled 2,200 mothers with Internet access and children ages two through five in the U.S., Canada, the EU5 (U.K., France, Italy, Germany, Spain), Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

The mothers were given a list of tech skills and a list of life skills and asked which ones their very young children had mastered.

Surprising skills

Some of the findings are enough to make any adult who still can’t figure out how to play "Angry Birds" die a little inside:

• More small children can play a computer game than ride a bike. 58 percent of children aged 2-5 know how to play a 'basic' computer game. For the U.K. and France, the number jumps to 70 percent. Even 44 percent of two to three year olds have the ability to play a computer game. By comparison, 43 percent of kids that age can ride a bike
• More kids ages two through five can play with a smartphone application (19 percent) than tie his shoelaces (nine percent). Almost as many 2-3 year olds (17 percent) can play with a smartphone application as 4-5 year olds (21 percent)
• More small children can open a web browser (25 percent) than swim without help (20 percent)
• There is no tech gender divide between young boys and girls. As many boys (58 percent) as girls (59 percent) can play a computer game or make a mobile phone call (28 percent boys, 29 percent girls)
• European children aged 2-5 lead their U.S. counterparts in knowing how to make a mobile phone call (44 percent in Italy vs. 25 percent for the U.S.), playing a computer game (70 percent U.K. vs. 61 percent U.S.) and operating a computer mouse (78 percent France vs. 67 percent U.S.)

 

These results could make some parents think twice about giving Junior his very own iPad for his fourth birthday -- at least, not without some words of caution first.

"As our research shows, parents need to start educating kids about navigating the online world safely at an earlier age than they might otherwise have thought," said Smith.