Get ready for your fifth-grader to actually be more tech-savvy than you--they get started very early!

Are you as tech-smart as a two year old?

Probably, but maybe not for long!  

Are you ready an intriguing possibility—that some toddlers are likely more conversant with technology than half of your grown-up, adult friends?  Let’s face it, we all know more than a few people outside of the work “scene” who are barely familiar with modern digital technology—they might be adequate to send eMail [but in many cases, barely at that] but mildly challenged to download a photo or attach a file!  Forget them using a QR code or playing a video game! —that toddlers are likely more conversant with technology than half of your grown-up, adult friends?  Let’s face it, we all know more than a few people outside of the work “scene” who are barely familiar with modern digital technology—they might be adequate to send eMail [but in many cases, barely at that] but mildly challenged to download a photo or attach a file!  Forget them using a QR code or playing a video game! 

Boy, are they different from the new, new generation—as young as two-year olds!  The table below is provided by my good friends at AdAge and it shows the latest research by AdAdgeStat for the Parenting Group—the people who publish Parenting, Babytalk, and Parenting.com.  The data are noteworthy in that they show that young mothers are introducing the wonders of technology—digital technology to be specific--at a younger age to their off-spring that ever before! 

Check out some of the percentages!

Between Gen X [29-42 year olds] and Gen Y [18 to 28 years olds] moms, the percent of early engagement with technology by children by the age of 2 is incredible:  For Gen Y parents, fully a third have used a computer, cell phone, or smart phone; less-so but with still unexpectedly high percents are toddlers use of digital cameras, iPods, and video games.  For Gen X parents the percentages are significantly lower—but newsworthy just the same. 

And that’s sort of the point, isn’t it.  As technology is adopted and used by younger and younger generations of parents, the diffusion of that technology—the sharing by them with the new, little people walking around—occurs at an even earlier and earlier age!

Come to think of it, this all makes perfect sense—how could one expect it to be different?  Nonetheless, it’s still eye-opening to learn that somebody two-years old can perform a sophisticated task that sends some of the members of my extended family for a loop! [In fact, some of these people get paid a lot of money to carry out considerable management responsibility in sophisticated organizations--no, they're not all dopes by any definition.]  Yet, a two-year old conceivably might be more more technology-competent than they! 

Go figure.  

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Follow Keith's biz blog on Twitter for updates and see more of what he's reading about on his Facebook Page. If you are inclined, you can write him at kmurray@bryant.edu.