Universally we try project ideas we’re familiar with on to people or actions we are trying to understand. Based on my experience result is mostly a failure when it comes to developing baby. I have decided that the most optimal approach early on is to treat learning like vitamins. As with nutrition for your body, brain needs certain things at certain times. The problem is you (or the brain) do not know what it is. That is why my firm belief is it is best to offer variety (eat your vegetables in addition to things you like). Plus, anything in moderation is fine.

Ipad is a display device. Offers 2 dimensional representation of the 3 dimensional world. In my opinion it offers fine hand and eye coordination exercise. It does not offer tactile feedback, smell, gravity physics, finger coordination (grasping) so it’s not really substitute for other educational play but it certainly offers variety that other toys do not. What’s bad about it is fixed focus (no exercise for retina muscle) and it’s 2 dimensional, giving false representation of the world so I would limit it’s use to an hour a day. I would imagine it’s probably a pain in a neck for a young baby too :-)

Currently, out of everyone I know (literally), and have bothered to ask, I have the best eyesight. Better then 20/20 actually. The only thing I suffer from is temporary eye strain during marathon sessions, which is easily manageable by just taking a break.

Rob already addressed the paranoid worries about radio waves. If it were detrimental, the only way you could avoid them is to live in a bomb shelter 200 feet below the ground with no electronics. Good luck w/ that.

My child does not need an iPad to be entertained. As a matter of fact, he stays just as entertained with his magna-doodle, or a set of mega-blocks (oversized legos). But that’s my point in my original post above, is that the iPad, and most technology, is as ubiquitous to him as a sponge ball is, and he treats it with as much joy and as much nonchalance.

B) We are tool using beings and always have been. The fact that our tools are getting more advanced, means that WE are getting more advanced, not less.

I hear these luddite arguments constantly, and they never fail to depress and sadden me with the lack of logical thought and factual rigor put into them.

I’m not even going to get into the possible health-related issues but i’ll let you all ponder a couple of questions. Did you even think of the strain on the child’s young eyes? Are you concerned at all by the possible radiation effects on his developing brain from the WiFi signal?

What people don’t grasp is that this is exactly what ‘they’ want. It unfortunately won’t be uncommon that everyone will own a smart tablet device at some point, or the latest re-incarnation of it as time passes, but the norm will be to grow up with one of these in your hands.

These products are introduced into society as fashionable, entertaining, and even educational electronic devices but what they’re really designed to do is re-wire the brain to function differently and effect the way we learn and think. It is preferred we no longer use our own natural brainpower but that we defer a large portion of our mental capacities to the artificial intelligence of a computer processor and memory to dumb us down, not advance us, as most would assume.

It’s pretty much available to him whenever he wants. We don’t make extraneous attempts to put it away or out of his reach. This is very much on purpose, where we want to teach him that things like the iPad (at least to him) is ubiquitous technology. To a baby that age, it’s really not anymore amazing then a TV, or even an etch a sketch or some multi-LED light up toy. But even at this age, they’ve become desensitized to things like TV’s, toys, appliances, etc. We’re essentially training him to only use things when he needs to, not just because they’re there, and it seems to be working.

My parents didn’t let me watch TV on my own until high school, and now, I watch TV more then I would like. My son doesn’t glance at it a fraction of the time (unless Wiggles is on). It’s white noise to him. As is the iPad is quickly becoming. He comes to it when he needs something (like Wiggles on Netflix), but leaves it alone if I’m using it, or if it’s just lying there.

It also helps that the iPad is virtually indestructible to a toddler. Not to mention noone even really uses it anymore, so it’s basically become a childs play thing (take that fanbois ;P)