“No way, my daughter is too young to do that”

Over the holidays I was visiting my girlfriend’s family which included a lovely 18 month old. This particular 18 month old did typical 18 month old baby things, ate typical 18 month old baby food, desires typical 18 month old baby things, like mommy & daddy, and played with the family dog, like a typical 18 month would.

Trying to win brownie points, I attempted to amuse the 18 month old with typical, yet wildly unsuccessful, baby-talk. In the midst of pinching her cheeks my iPhone buzzed. I took it out of my pocket, slide the screen ‘on,’ checked the text message and clicked the phone back to sleep. As soon as the screen went black the otherwise unamused 18th month year old perked up with interest.

She reached as far as she could with her tiny hands, made a little cry, and huffed a bit before I handed over my phone. If she threw it, it would land on the couch. If she drooled on it, the protective film would protect it, and if she fed it to the dog, it would get a little slobber-y. No biggie.

Instead of any of those things, this ‘typical’18 month year old looked at the blank screen, pushed the ‘on’ button at the bottom of the phone, slide her tiny finger across, and opened the home screen! Wh-wh-what?!? This 18 month old then began sliding back and forth between screens, opening application, and closing them by pushing the round button at the bottom and returning to the home screen! This surely is not typical…right? How can a child who has yet to speak a complete sentence and learn to walk completely know how to work the fundamentals of an iPhone?  Did Apple just do that good of a job with its UI?  Surely not.

A recent statistics showed that that more than one-third of 10-to-11-year-olds in the US owned a mobile phone in 2009, compared with 20% in 2005 – a 13% growth in 4 years.  In the 10-11 year old market, this is huge! Ownership among kids ages 6 to 11 rose from 11.9% to 20% over the same time period. (see the report here: leep.it)  This means, on average, ¼ of 6 – 11 year olds own a mobile phone.  All I had was an etch-a-sketch and a Rubik’s cube, and these kids have Androids!

Though I inherently know stats such as the ones above and have been spouting them off for years, it wasn’t until I saw the interaction between an 18 month old and the technology that I truly grasped the reality of the world and, to be grandiose, the future.  This most likely atypical, yet personally astonishing realization has me thinking about how technology has become such a necessity in everyday life that its use can be picked up by kids as easily as they pick up how to walk.

Anyhow, click the link below to watch the video! The hand that is turning off the phone is my hand; nothing in this video has been doctored. Enjoy!

iPhone