Technology

Coffee Chat: Will our kids be boring?

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

When Patti and I were brainstorming our holiday gift guides, we realized how different our own kids have it. Some of the things we loved growing up are literally analog. We’re talking physical media: cassettes and CDs, VHS and DVDs, gaming consoles with zero connectivity. Who even owns a CD player anymore?

Tech has allowed us to reduce our carbon footprint by eliminating physical items in lieu of streaming and downloading entertainment onto one device; but that leaves a big gap when kids aren’t supposed to have their own smart devices until 8th grade.

A Matter of Personal Taste

For me, I’ve become the gatekeeper to my kids’ entertainment. I control what they listen to, play, and watch. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially when it comes to the metaverse, I’ve started to feel like it might limit their ability to explore in a pop cultural sense.

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Meet Me in the Metaverse

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

This past fall, our family went on a cruise to the Western Caribbean. Its kid camp offered a variety of kid activities, including game time in the boat’s computer lab. My son learned how to play Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite with the other kids on the boat. He loved playing, and I loved that everything was on a closed server. There was an additional in-person moderator to keep the kids in check and I was relieved that he was playing with peers he could actually see and interact with.  

Now that we’re back, he wants to keep playing these awesome games but it’s different. Without the security the boat provided, he’s exposed the entire online world.

Once upon a time, the playground was THE place for kids to meet up, hang out, and blow off that excess energy. Now, it’s the metaverse. If you’re not tech or digitally-savvy like me, the online universe is like the wild west; and now my soon-to-be 8-year-old wants to be part of it. What is a parent to do? But first, what the heck is the metaverse (in a non-Zuckerberg sense)?

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Kids These Days: Generation Alpha

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

The new wave of kids born between 2010-2024 is known as Generation Alpha, slated to be the largest, most diverse, and digitally connected generation to date. While the tail end of this generations’ kids are just being born, their reputation precedes them. Remember last year when people were taking to social media about how “rude and disrespectful” this new generation is in Sephora, blaming their millennial parents for their behavior?

But HOLD ON, is Gen Alpha really as bad as they seem or have we become the “Sorry, Boomers” we made fun of in our youth? And is it the parenting or the societal norms that define a generation?

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The Audio-Visual Club: Kids and Audiobooks

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

“I want people to stop saying, ‘I didn’t really read it, I just listened.’ Stop that. If you listened, you read it. There’s no right way to absorb a book.” – Reese Witherspoon

I enjoy reading a physical book. My husband, however, does not. He prefers putting on his headphones and listening on Audible. He told me that he’s “read” three books over the summer. He’s not the only one in my social circle to count listening to an audiobook as reading. Friends will tell me they’ve read a 560-page novel over the weekend (you what?!) and then clarify that they listened to it during their road trip. Even Patti will simultaneously juggle multiple books for her book club and Child(ish) Reads posts, a feat made easier with paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.

As audiobooks become more mainstream, it got me thinking about the trickle-down to kids. Is listening to a book the same as reading one? Can children benefit from this type of auditory medium or would it hinder their ability to read? Inquiring minds would like to know.

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Prepping for Healthy Gaming

| Patti Webb

In my Healthy Gamer book review, I shared a bit about my brother’s and my relationship with video games growing up. I’ve also shared about my husband Troy being a serious gamer well into his adulthood. And now that we have two kids who are ready for beginner video games, we’ve had to create a workable plan for having them in our home.

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