The Order of the Bill Gates

I'm working at a high-end computer science and video game camp this summer, and if there is one thing that I have noticed, it's that parents like to spoil their children into oblivion. Some of these poor kids never stood a chance, their developmental years spent gobbling up cheap stimulus in the form of instantly-gratifying apps and video games. There is no doubt in my mind that young children are negatively affected by having smart phones.

The majority of the kids that go through the camp, I've noticed, have the hardest time paying attention to anything that doesn't provide constant stimulation. This goes beyond the regular hyper-activity you'd expect in a child. Without access to their phones or the internet, it only takes them a few seconds before they become nervous and shaky, as if they were going through withdrawals. We turned the internet off last week because too many children were playing games unauthorized, and a twelve-year-old cried to himself until it was turned back on. I confiscated an iPhone, and the rowdy camper immediately started playing with bottle caps he found on the ground. He is fourteen. Our simple, bland life cannot hope to compete with all of the action and information that comes with your modern-day cell phone. These poor saps were doomed from the moment that sleek bit of brushed aluminum and plastic fell into their sticky hands.

Their brightly-colored, hilariously elastic hands.

My son Isaac will not share this fate. I'm taking special note of my experiences at computer camp, so that I can learn from these rich people's mistakes. There are many. The first mistake that I've noticed: no one needs a smart phone when they are eight. They don't have important emails to read or schedules to plan, and they certainly don't need to be able to play games anywhere at any time. The cruel, crushing burden of reality hasn't flattened their imaginations yet. Rocks should be plenty entertaining. A sturdy box should keep them entertained for months. Why does an elementary-schooler need to be able to carry around six emulators and two hundred games in their pocket?
I've decided that once a week, Isaac will be given an assortment of buttons, string, sticks, and glue, and every week I will give him bonus pieces if he is able to use his materials to create a robot. This will likely be impossible, but I want to see what he can come up with.

The second and biggest mistake that I've noticed: The parents allow their children to use Macintosh computers. No, this isn't Apple-bashing, I'm being serious. Roughly 90% of computers used in the world are Windows, with Macs making up around 7%. Windows will almost certainly be an employer's OS of choice. My camp uses them in all but one class. But the majority of the children use OS X or iOS. When introduced to a Windows computer, they fumble around, lose their work, and some times even get lost.  I spend almost as much time teaching them how to use the computer as I do teaching them the coursework. It ill-prepares them for their bright and shining futures as data entry personnel and  office assistants.

I intend to get Isaac started on Windows 95, and maybe upgrade him to Millennium Edition during his teenage years, to get him to spend more time outside. If my careful parenting goes right, he'll look upon the Apple-users with nothing but scorn and hatred, hatred born from a lack of understanding and years of conditioning. Hopefully racism will have died out by the time he's older, so that people can start focusing on the schism between the operating systems a bit more. Maybe someday Isaac can join the Aryan Brotherhood of Windows computers. Maybe, just maybe, he'll even be the founder.