The apprentice beat the master
Today I got my ass handed to me in Mario Kart on the Nintendo DS by my 4-year-old son. I knew this milestone would come sooner or later, but honestly, I wasn’t expecting it so soon. Even though I had chosen Bowser, who´s kart was supposed to be the fastest one, I could only win one race out of five. And I won it by a tiny margin, courtesy of the almighty blue shell. I did not “play nice” either. I gave it all I had, but I just couldn’t keep up with the little guy. It was a weird and amazing feeling at the same time. I have never been so satisfied by losing at something.
I remember my own skill level when I was four years old. Back then, I was playing Super Mario Bros 1 on the NES. A rented system, mind you. Yes, you went to the video store and rented both a console and the games you wanted to play. Consequentially, those weekends were spent in front of the CRT screen. I remember I had big problems even with the first level in SMB 1. To be fair, the supply and accessibility of video games in the 80’s were several orders of magnitude worse than today. And that means I hadn’t clocked in the same amount of practice. My little petrolhead boy loves racing games almost as much as he loves real cars, motorcycles, or anything else with an engine. I don’t know how much but I wouldn’t be surprised if his experience is counted in hundreds of hours already.
This raises another interesting thought. I have always felt like tech support to the generation before me. And I always felt that they were hopeless dinosaurs when it came to anything tech related. Today, I am in exactly the same spot. I am now the dinosaur. One thing that I am starting to get really scared of is what happens when he starts to tinker with my computer? I have usually let him play racing games on my personal Steam account, but that is while being logged in as an admin. Obviously this is completely unsustainable. If the little guy starts to play around with the settings, he could seriously mess up my machine. Some kind of parental controls are crucial and probably a lot more urgent than what I understand. The kids are always at least one step ahead of what I thought them to be intellectually. Until now, I haven’t been scared to leave him at my computer. But that must certainly change sooner than later. I seriously need to learn more about multi-user and security settings to 1) protect my files and machine from him and 2) to protect him from himself so he doesn't find inappropriate stuff online.
Good luck with that by the way. If he can beat me on Mario Kart today, how am I supposed to create an IT infrastructure that is failsafe? When he surpasses my IT skills, it is a case of goodbye Mr Bond. I remember my fellow PhD colleague in Luleå (computer science), who told me about how his little boy had bypassed the parental controls in their home by getting access to the router and changed the security settings according to his own preferences. You see, we’re screwed. I think my own mom and dad would have had better success in trying to “contain” yours truly online, than what I will have myself with my sons, now that I have taken on the tech dinosaur title.
There are obviously both risks and benefits to introducing the younglings to technology. I think resistance is futile, so better just to embrace and establish healthy habits together. That’s probably the best I can do. If they choose to use today’s technology wisely, they will have tools at their fingertips that are 100-1000X more powerful than anything I could dream about 30 years ago. And should they choose the dark side, it is even easier to mess up your whole future with various forms of screen addiction.
To end on a positive note; I am at least aware of the challenges ahead and am doing my best to help them navigate. And what better place to begin than with shared gaming sessions with handheld consoles, on the living room sofa?