Yes, she is young--just turned 8--and not given a ton of access yet. I would say that she likes the computer but isn't really extremely jazzed about it yet. I'm sure as heck not worried that she won't be into it eventually, though.
Seeing what other people are doing, being exposed to other people's ideas, doesn't make us less, it spurs us on to think more creatively ourselves. And that's an area that I think the internet has really opened up for kids like my ds.
Yes, I see this. I wouldn't have a problem with my kids using the computer like this. I guess the issue is that there are so many ways to use it and a lot of them seem empty-ish to me. Even most of the educational games I see seem light on content and long on noise, gimmicks, and arcade-style stuff. DD isn't terribly into the arcade-style click and pop and shoot and catch stuff, so a lot of it seems boring to her. Anyway, she picks stuff up so fast that I am pretty sure she'd rather get a pen and paper math lesson and pick up a new skill in 20 minutes, then go play freely, than spend an hour clicking about and registering and learning how the game works for what equates to a smaller piece of learning in the end. I remember her K teacher commenting with vague bewilderment that DD "wasn't into the computer like the other kids were." I asked her about it and she said it was fine for a bit but got boring and she would rather go read. It was probably all grade-level stuff.
