What the “Techie Tot” means for grown ups

A recent survey from Legal and General, on a topic other than umbrellas, found that more and more parents are concerned with their children’s obsession with playing with their expensive smartphones and tablets. 10% of those surveyed had even revealed that their children downloaded software without their knowledge.

Sophisticated technology has moved from the laboratory, to the office and now into the playpen. The “mobile” that now entertains children in their cots has changed drastically from the generation before. If this is how quickly things have changed for children in a relatively short space of time, what does this say for the rest of us? Also, if we are at the point where we let toddlers that drool all over their birthday cakes play with a £500 device like the iPad, what does that say about the way we view technology?

How we use these devices, both in the home and for work, now reflects our personalities as much as the utility of the device themselves. This week, the mention that one of the team was looking for a new phone contract resulted in a full blown debate on mobile handsets involving everyone in the office. Android was pitted against Apple, HTC against Blackberry and colleague against colleague. From this debate, it was clear how personal these opinions had now become (thankfully without blood being spilled) and also how many new considerations come into play for our digitally-dependent generation.

The crossover between using these devices for work and play has meant that our phones now have to be cameras, music players, e-mail clients, storage devices, work enablers, social networking tools and also make the odd call now and then. What is going to be of utmost importance in coming years will be to understand why perspectives are changing as much as technology itself. In a sense we are all children when it comes to the technology around us, constantly in awe at the things we are continuing to learn, and how as technology around us changes, our lives are changing with it.