Snippet: If iPads Were Meant for Kids ☇

Dave DeLong:

I bought my kids their own iPads last fall. I’m nice, and I’m fortunate to be able to afford it. However, I’ve come to realize that despite my attempts to spoil my kids, these iPads (and all iOS devices in general) are not meant for kids.

Now, I realize this might be a controversial statement, especially because it seems counter to a lot of Apple’s advertising. But hear me out.[…]

If iPads were meant for kids, then there would be a way to limit how long they can use an iPad. They’d get reminders when they have 15 … 10 … 5 … 1 minute left of usage time, and then the device would lock and they wouldn’t be able to get back in without the parental passcode.

If iPads were meant for kids, then there would be a way to make the iPad turn off when it’s bed time and not turn on again until morning. Because my son likes to sneak in to our room and take his iPad back from wherever we’ve stashed it, and then stay up until nearly midnight playing Angry Birds.

There’s a part of me that appreciates his point, as there could be more simple management for home use (no one is setting up an MDM solution for home). On the other hand, this argument feels like it could apply to computers and even video games going back to the 1980s. Although we had a “family” computer when I was growing up, I also had a stash of old Macs in my room that were eventually connected to the Internet, too. There were some rules and structure for usage and I certainly tried to stretch those as far as I could. Somehow, because the devices are smaller, that makes the argument different.