Reflection #3: Three Year Old Orders $10 Movie

The other day, a family friend was telling me how she was baby-sitting her grandchildren and had a lovely little experience with Comcast's OnDemand and her 3 year old grandson. He's three, right, yet he knows how to put in DVDs or VHSs, he knows which buttons need to be pressed to make it so that you can see one or the other--I can't even always remember that! He knows how to get to one of his favourite shows (that he's only allowed to watch when the little sister is asleep :) ) and asked "Ma' if he could. She, exhausted, said,"yes." My friend, Ma, went to the kitchen to get a glass of water, came back to the living room (which you can see from the kitchen!) fewer than 45 seconds later to find that the three-year-old had order an R-rated movie OnDemand that cost $10, because it was a pre-view movie.

I am continually shocked by the stories that my friend tells me of her grandchildren and the escapades that they find themselves in. These kids (the oldest who is the one in this story, almost four, and the youngest, barely two) know so much about technology and are so familiar and comfortable with it. I thought it was easy for me to use, remember, and learn about technology, and yet I feel ancient in comparison to these tikes.