Stupid.
AVG, an antivirus and internet security company, has carried out a survey analyzing 2,200 mothers and their children in 11 countries. I’m not sure what the purpose of it was or what they hoped to prove, but the most important “discovery” of the research is that today’s (very young) children “can play computer games but can’t tie their shoelaces.” WE’RE DOOMED!
Some of the finds:
- 70 percent of children aged between 2 and 5 could play online games, but only 11 percent of them could tie their shoelaces;
- Less than 20 percent of them could swim unaided, while 23 percent could use a mobile phone to make a call;
- Less than half of them knew their own home address;
- Only a third were able to write their first and last name.
The child development “experts” then went on to claim that practical skills in children are increasingly underdeveloped and that because of technology they “don’t learn how to invest the emotional effort that is necessary for real relationships.” I’m not sure how being unable to tie your shoelaces at 2 translates into the inability to have real relationships, but I’m obviously missing something here. That, or internet security companies shouldn’t be involved in this kind of research. After all, we don’t see butcher shops publishing papers on quantum electrodynamics.
