Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/09/26/toddler-stumped-she-cant-wor.html
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All the parents thinking their son is a genius because “he can play with an ipad like a pro” forget that touch interfaces are more direct and much easier to use than “controller based” interfaces, where you have to understand the relation between button presses and movements on the screen and have a much finer hand eye coordination. But probably these parents never grew up playing game boy in the first place 
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ha ha! I’ll be back in 10 years when we see a video (hologram…?) of a toddler who can’t figure out why her dad’s classic car won’t go by itself…
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Wish I had a video of my youngest (now nine) who tried one day to swipe the wall mounted 52" TV. Hysterical parental laughing fits helped not at all. Digital natives indeed.
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The toddler in the video doesn’t look at all confused. She seems to be pretty confident she’s doing it right. Kind of like how gamers used to let their little brothers play along, except their controller wasn’t connected to the console.
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The thought process is understandable for the kiddo (though amusing). But a touch TV is likely the worst thing ever because of finger smudges, especially with grubby kid hands lol.
This reminds me of Scotty from Star Trek trying in vain to talk to a computer.
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She’d rather leave than answer a question that puts her in a bad light.
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And if you don’t mount the tv, it’s likely to fall down on top of the kid after too much pressing. 
Children are so stupid!
/s
The silliest part of that scene was the next bit when they suggested Scotty use the keyboard and he was suddenly a savant on an ancient piece of technology using an unfamiliar operating system.
That would be like having a 21st Century graphic designer confused that an 18th Century letterpress wasn’t responding to his keyboard commands, then whipping together a page layout at blinding speed only seconds later.
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For sure, doesn’t make much sense. I doubt modern day programmers would be savants at Fortran punch cards or some old school programming methods/languages.
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My 18 mo gets equally confused by non touch screen devices - she thinks Macs are broken.
It was rather clever of him to generate a rotating 3d representation of a complex molecule comprising several elements other than aluminium with fewer than two dozen keystrokes.
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I didn’t even know you could DO that in MacPaint.
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I can’t believe they put such a silly scene in a movie about going back in time to bring some humpback whales back to the future to ask aliens not to destroy the earth.
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I don’t want to brag - but I have mad rotary phone skills.
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Totally a thing
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I did go to college with Emmanuel Goldstein - that is all.
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I flew Southwest from PHL to PBI a couple years back, and they have a free streaming thing where they encourage you to bring your devices on board. I had my 2009 Sony Vaio laptop. Dragged it out but I couldn’t get the login to work as described. The Flight attendant called over another who more “tech savvy”.
She repeatedly reached over and touched my laptop screen and was very confused why it didn’t work. This continued even after I told her it wasn’t a touch screen.
She was not a 5-year-old child. She was the onboard tach expert.
Don’t feel too bad, little kid!
Well, there’s you’re problem right there…just because she’s a theoretical physicist doesn’t mean she knows computers!
