Is the time spend on the computer used wisely or is it used as entertainment? How do you know the difference?

I think it depends on whether they are productive or not on the computer. The Japanese have a name for kids who are no longer productive - Hikikomori.

I spend upwards of 18 hours a day on my computers starting when I was 13. But I also had other interests that I pursued including sports, girls, friends, clubs, etc.

It exists in all societies.

http://davidpurcell.blogspot.com/2007/10/hikikomori-japanese-educational-system.html

I really regret some things that I did not do at that age that I could have - due mostly to our financial situation - such as piano lessons, guitar, etc - as well as an even broader and more formal education involving travel. I was fortunate that my mom had a lot of Liberal Arts books around on history, politics, culture - including the some very challenging non-fiction books of the day - and she loved Jazz - which gave me entry into non-scientific ideas.

If I had to do it all over again, I'd put myself in a rigorous program that had both a classics side (Greek/Roman/Chinese/Japanese) plus the Mathy side. Once that foundation was laid, then around 10 introduce computers and other fields and allow greater freedom to explore since the discipline and broad base is there.

The big problem with learning from the internet is that most of the world's ideas are not online nor do you learn from interacting with an expert. The facts are superficial and the answers are canned. Its one thing to figure out how to get a short cut to using a software package or fixing a bug, but its another thing to grasp the cruelty of the Athenians or the beauty of Hilbert Spaces. Its very easy to search for a fix than to struggle with coming up with it on your own.

The knowledge gained from the internet is mostly very, very fragile unless its backed up with some very hard work offline learning the details and the problems in the field and the limits of the tools they are working with.

Those who get very good at searching it or doing the quick fix have very little depth in the fundamentals and get found out catastrophically. Nor can they handle being unsure. It can be very humiliating for some of today's "internet generation" to get humbled in public by someone who learned all or most of their stuff offline. Its very easy to do.

They also tend to stick to what they know and what they know is very narrow - and as a result - their ideas are not that original at all - and usually too concrete. They also do not know what completed work or good code looks like - and that most bugs are the sign of a deeper issue.

How do you appeal to kids like this?

I suppose if you REALLY want to know something, you will pick up a book, learn it, correspond with the author, seek out thoughtful commentary, connect one work to another, find the unresolved issues, and learn to think abstractly.

If you cannot just walk away from the internet for a week and just read books, the there is a real issue.