No Kidding Why Our Kids Know More About Technology Than Us And What We Can Do About It

By Yvette Adams

Your kids know way more about technology than you, and it’s time you did something about it.

Today’s kids are intuitively able to use every device, app, game and social network handed to them. Just give a table or a smart phone to a toddler and watch what happens.

But as life speeds up, and we’re busier than ever being ‘good parents’ the technological gap between parents and kids seems to grow exponentially.

We expect the Government and the education system to do something about it, the fact is, kids desperately need their parents to understand the technology they are using RIGHT NOW, and to embrace the technology themselves.

There is no point in fighting technology or ignoring it. It’s not going away, and the sooner you embrace it, the better of you and your family will be.

This book is aimed at helping you get started with technology and to understand how it can actually help, and not hinder your family life through many practical applications. It will also sere as a valuable resource to teachers, career advisors, grandparents and other influencers of children who realise the world is changing and are prepared to step up and do something about it.

Written by Yvette Adams, a mother of two, who never thought in a million years she’d work in IT, she now gets a real kick out of helping people all in live with technology too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Yvette Adams
• Release date: Nov 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311631138

Yvette Adams

Yvette Adams is a serial entrepreneur having started 5 businesses and sold two. She is also a public speaker, author, media commentator on topics related to trends, technology and social media and proud mother of two. She was awarded ICT (Information Communications Technology) Woman of the Year at the National iAwards in 2013 and has been the recipient of numerous other business awards. No Kidding is her second book after More Than Meets The Eye, a biography on her grandfather’s life.

Book preview

DEDICATION

There are many people I need to thank who have helped me in the journey of writing this, my second book, and who just plain help me do what I do each and every day.

Firstly, to my partner, Steve, for his unwavering support and patience in all of the crazily ambitious projects I continuously tackle – including writing another book. Thank you for always believing in me, supporting me to pursue my dreams, and being my sense and sensibility when I need it.

To Vanessa, Bec and my parents for helping out with the care of my kids so that I can trek off to run three businesses, speaking-gigs and media-opps all around the country (and maybe one day the world).

To my amazing staff, contractors and business partner, Kat, who introduce me to cool new technologies every day, and especially Zoe, our Social Media Specialist extraordinaire, for contributing to the Technology for Travel section of the book.

To all my Facebook friends who answered my callouts to incorporate kids’ perspectives on things for this book. I know you’re busy and it was great to get your input from around the world. I hope your kids like seeing their ‘name in lights’ in this book.

To the incredible Australian business community and global ICT industry I work within. I have tried to showcase as many of you as possible, but I know there are people I will have missed and that there will be much more cool technology to come. Keep up the awesome work, and tell me the moment you have something new to share via our online community:

http://www.nokidding.com.au/community

To David Bartlett for being an industry thought leader, and for writing the foreword for this book. To Gavin Keeley for his valuable comments also.

To Macushla Montell of MindSherpa.com for being the best executive coach a girl could have.

But most of all, to my two creative directors and beautiful children – Rio and Matisse.

I love you both so very much, and I can’t wait to see what wonderful things you do with your lives in this technology-driven world. It is a different world to grow up into the one I did, but it is an exciting world full of immense opportunity and possibility too.

‘You’ve got to be the best that you can be. In this life…’

- TRINITY ROOTS

FOREWORD

Our world, our nation, our communities are changing at an unprecedented rate. The digital disruption occurring to our lives, our homes, our businesses and our governments is not just a passing fad or fascination. It is here to stay, and it will affect everything.

As the speed and accessibility of the internet improves, it is the connectedness that is driving the most significant transformations. The fact that we are all connected in some way – via our smartphone, our car GPS, our FitBit or, increasingly, our home devices – means the world will never be the same again.

Everywhere and all the time, connectivity via technology is driving extraordinary new ways of creating wealth and conversely destroying some of the old ways we created wealth. Technology is also driving disruptive new ways of having a conversation with our customers, our citizens and our governments.

Of course, old school radio shock jocks that overstep the mark these days are finding their customers or listeners can now talk back – en masse – via social media. Even our governments are starting to realise that connectivity is driving new and unexpected ways of solving old public policy problems. Those governments and people who don’t work out that a digitally empowered community is much more powerful than previously imagined will be swept away.

New technologies and the uptake of these technologies, like 3D printing, augmented reality, geospatial sensing and big data analytics, is also moving ahead at a breakneck speed. Technologies are being created and becoming commonplace in our lives in quick succession, in the way we live and in the future we create for ourselves.

A recent report shows that some three quarters of our industry sectors will be facing a massive digital upheaval in the next decade. If Generation Y was the first truly digital generation, then the current school-aged cohort will be the generation that is not only truly immersed, digital natives, but also the ones that will realise digital technologies’ true power, for both good and bad.

From Socrates and Plato, who argued the for’s and against’s of the written word over the spoken word, we as humans have debated the benefits of new technologies. We may debate them, but we cannot hold back the tide.

Therefore, we must prepare our children for this new world the best we can. In No Kidding, Yvette Adams has made an important contribution to how we think about that preparation. Parents and carers who endeavour to make sense of these changes themselves will be better able to help prepare our children. Yvette urges us to do just that and gives us valuable tools to embark on what is sometimes a scary and unchartered journey.

Remember next time your child asks you to pay $2.99 for an in-app purchase on their iPad that the virtual goods industry has grown from nothing to $20 billion in just one decade.

Most importantly, remember that your children can either grow up simply as consumers of this new media or they can change the world by learning to be producers.

No Kidding is a great manual to start your journey to help your kids change the world.

Hon. David Bartlett

43rd Premier of Tasmania

Top 50 Most Influential People in Technology in Australia

CHAPTER 1

Why You Need to Care About Technology?

Okay, I’ll admit it. I grew up in a house, surrounded by computers. But don’t judge me as a tech whiz kid from day dot.

Although we had several computers in the house at any one time, all I ever knew to do with them was how to turn them on and play games.

Pacman, ET, Jumpman, Summer Olympics and Pole Position are just a few of the Atari greats that we spent hours banging the arrows and spacebars of keyboards, or wrestling with joysticks, in the act of beating one another.

Growing up, my Dad was a high school computer teacher, and as anyone who has been a teacher, or has grown up with a teacher as a parent will know, school holidays were spent with Dad marking papers, writing reports, creating the next term of curriculum, and, in his downtime, tinkering on computers.

Whilst Dad was home with us, we were largely left to our own devices. With the array of computers and assortment of borrowed PE gear out in the shed too (Dad was also a PE teacher), a bunch of neighbourhood kids and cousins would congregate at our house. We’d while away the days playing sport, or, if it were too cold or wet (which it often was – I grew up in Wellington, New Zealand, which isn’t exactly known for its tropical climates), we’d play computer games.

But there was no word processing. No programming. No internet back then, and certainly no mobile phones or iPads. Whilst I knew how to turn a computer on and boot a game, though I wasn’t scared of them, I didn’t exactly know how to do anything particularly useful with them either.

I do remember being scared once when I accidentally formatted (read: completely WIPED) a computer in the process of loading up a game for myself and a cousin to play. Needless to say, Dad wasn’t too impressed. Hours of work down the gurgler, and me feeling real bad for thinking I knew what I was doing.

People were always telling me to ‘learn typing’ and ‘do computers’ at school back in the 90s because they were ‘the way of the future’, but I was a fiercely independent teenager and had no interest in pursuing a career that might (God forbid) wind me up with an ‘office job’. Instead, I chose art classes, PE and biology whenever I had a choice.

I was always good with words but was horrified in sixth form (grade 11) when taking journalism for the first time and discovering we’d have to layout our carefully crafted articles on a computer.

Begrudgingly, I followed the teacher’s instructions, but impatience and frustration got the better of me. I distinctly remember swearing at the teacher and threatening to throw the computer out the window in class.

It just wouldn’t do what I wanted it to!

Therefore, isn’t it ironic (don’t you think!) that I’ve ended up immersed in a world of tech and committed to teaching others that there is hope, even if you are the world’s biggest technophobe (like I once was!).

Anyway, even if not for yourself, you owe it to your children…

Even if you’re still not convinced that you can indeed learn to love technology, I’m hoping that you care as much about your child and their future as I do and that you’ll give this technology thing your best shot for their sake.

You see, for the first time in history, our children know more than us about something: technology! Just stop and think about that for a moment. It’s a crazy phenomenon.

Since the dawn of time, cavemen and cavewomen have taught their children everything they needed to know to survive. Firstly, to hunt and gather. Later, to farm. Then, to cook, clean, sew, build and study, and, of course, to love and share.

But technology has turned every aspect of our lives on its head. Love it or hate it, life is not the same as it once was. And it just keeps on changing. The one thing constant is change!

The challenge before them is immense. Information overload. Rapid change. Safety and privacy concerns. The fact that we are preparing them for jobs that don’t exist yet. Not to mention the giant digital footprints they are creating.

But don’t worry. This book is not all doom and gloom, and I don’t intend to scaremonger you with pages and pages of why the internet is dangerous and is best avoided. There are plenty of books already out there like that, and I don’t think educating through fear is the best approach anyway. And, besides, kids don’t want to hear us preach and lecture about all of technology’s evils. They will immediately tune out. 

Nor is this book intended to teach you everything you ever needed to know about technology. I need a lot more time with you to achieve that, and my company, TheTrainingCollective.com.au, offers a range of training solutions in this regard. See the resources pages at the back of the book for more on this.

Rather, this book is aimed at mobilising an army of technophobic parents, carers, grandparents, teachers and other influencers of children because the short of it is, the kids need us.

You see, at the moment, we expect the education system and the government to do something about it, but the fact is kids desperately need their parents to understand the technology they are using right now and to embrace the technology themselves.

There is no point in fighting technology or ignoring it. It’s not going away. Technology now permeates every aspect of life (yes, really), and the sooner you embrace it, the better off you and your family will be.

This book is aimed at helping you get started with technology and to understand how it can actually help (rather than hinder) your family life through many practical applications.

So are you going to leave them to it? Or do what you can to step up, skill up and become a responsible tech savvy parent? I hope you choose the latter, and will continue to read on.

I promise I’ll be as succinct and informative as possible because I know you have a life to lead and a child (or more) to raise and, like all of us, are probably short on time too.

CHAPTER 2

So Why Do Our Kids Know More About Technology Than Us?

These days, it is not uncommon for babies and toddlers to be passed phones and tablets just as early as they are passed their first toys. Whilst the righteous amongst us may swear they would never lower their standards to this sort of carry on, the fact is devices are being dished out to children in the doctor’s waiting room, in the supermarket queue, on a long drive and in the restaurant by desperate parents who are looking for a bit of light reprieve.

Besides, your child is clamouring to get their hands on your mobile phone or tablet. After all, from a very young age, they love emulating absolutely anything you do – pushing a trolley, mowing the lawn, gardening, playing ‘kitchens’, and, now, playing on your phone, tablet or computer too.

HOW MUCH TIME ARE THEY ACTUALLY SPENDING ON TECHNOLOGY?

A study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation in America in 2012 found that school-age kids spend an average of 7.5 hours a day in front of a television, a computer, a smartphone or another digital device. That’s one hour and seventeen minutes more than they did when the last study was done five years ago, and these figures I predict will continue to go up.

Even babies may log an average of two hours of screen time per day, despite the fact that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that children under the age of 2 have no screen time at all.

In Australia, The National Physical Activity Recommendations provide guidance as to the number of hours to spend on particular types of activities to help become healthier. The recommendations cover children via three separate age groups: 0–5, 5–12 and 12–18 year-olds.

For children aged 2–4 years, the current National Physical Activity Recommendations for 0–5 year-olds recommend:

• at least three hours of physical activity every day, either in a single block or spread throughout the day;

• a maximum of one hour of screen-based activity per day, that is on electronic media such as TV, DVDs, computer and other electronic games (total).

• The current recommendations for both 5–12 year-olds and 12–18 year-olds are the same and include:

• at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day;

a maximum of two hours screen–based activity for entertainment/non-educational purposes a day.

However in the Australian Health Survey: Physical Activity, 2011–12 they discovered that almost one in six (16%) of 2–4 year-olds had at least one item of screen-based equipment in their bedroom, such as a TV, computer or game console and spent almost one and a half hours (83 minutes) per day on them. Children with screen-based equipment in their bedrooms spend on average an extra 22 minutes per day engaged in screen-based activities and were twice as likely as those without screen equipment in their bedrooms to have done more than the recommended 60 minutes per day.

The average amount of time spent in sedentary screen-based activities for 5–17 year-olds was over two and a quarter hours (136 minutes) per day, with just 6 minutes of this being for homework. Fewer than one in three in this age group (29%) met the ‘no more than 120 minutes of screen–based entertainment’ per day threshold. These averages are just that: averages; and they are not giving us an idea of those at the extreme end of the high use spectrum.

The reality is, despite what ‘authorities’ say, kids love tech and parents do too. Like it or not, it is being consumed like crazy and is a portable, convenient, educational, and mess-free activity for kids.

TAKE IT FROM SOMEONE WHO KNOWS…

One person who knows this for a fact is my friend Vanessa Garrard. As the founder and CEO of Brisbane based company E3 Style (who have sold over eight million electronic products to Australians since 2006), and as the mother of four children of her own aged 3, 4, 5 and 9 years at the time of printing, Vanessa and her team brought youth electronics to the global market in January 2007.

One in three Australians now own a product her company manufactures and distributes through some of Australia’s largest retailers including Big W, Kmart, JB Hi-Fi and Dick Smith.

The company is also the largest licensed electronics supplier in Australia and New Zealand, working with leading brands such as Barbie, Star Wars, Skylanders, Sesame Street, Batman, Superman, Thomas the Tank Engine and The Simpsons and sells products into South Africa, Russia, Chile, The Philippines, India and Italy, US and China.

Vanessa says youth electronics is the only category in electronics that is actually growing, and not just by a little but in double digits every year, which gives some indication of just how ferocious our children’s appetites is for tech.

We’re one of the few suppliers in the world who has taken this category seriously, she says. We create products specifically for kids, that are appropriate for kids. We’ve got the biggest range in the world and the most kids and family friendly products in the world, she says.

Vanessa has many interesting insights into the behaviours of parents and kids when it comes to the purchase and use of electronics. In fact her company observe over 1200 kids a year using their technology, the feedback of which drives their product development.

A huge amount of money is being spent on kids and technology, she says.

What’s also interesting is that kids want to buy technology themselves. If they’re saving up or spending their own money, their first choice is generally to spend it on electronics. It’s not necessarily about ‘my friends have one so I want one’ either, as some people seem to think it is. They really don’t care where it comes from, whether it is your device or theirs, they just want to use it!

Vanessa says Apple were the first ones to make products really easy to use, which is why kids are often particular fans of iPods, iPads and iPhones.

And the app world has just driven this more. There is so much stuff they can do using apps.

THEY’RE BEING TARGETED TOO

App developers around the world are well aware that the very young have an insatiable appetite for apps too.

In 2009, almost half (47%) of the top-selling apps on iTunes targeted preschool or elementary-aged children, according to a 2009 analysis by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Street Workshop,