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Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION
On toddlers and technology
Remember these? A Sony employee looks at Walkman products, including the first Walkman (top shelf, second from left) at a 2009 display commemorating the music player's 30th anniversary at the Sony Archive building in Tokyo, Japan. An on-the-go music experience was an innovative idea back in 1979. Thirty years on, teens like Scott Campbell (below) expect a little more from their music players. (SHUJI KAJIYAMA / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)
It's garnered nearly 2.5 million views in less than 2 weeks, helped along by the kind of provocative title that's catnip for online media watchers. (Would that all parents could get this kind of buzz about their baby videos.)
"A Magazine is an iPad That Does Not Work" features a toddler giddily running her fingers over an iPad screen, then getting puzzled and frustrated when the same maneuvers don't work on the pages of fashion glossies.
The poster's ultimate conclusion -- "For my 1 year old daughter, a magazine is an iPad that does not work. It will remain so for her whole life" -- was a little excessive for one Poynter writer, who pointed out his own daughter doesn't see a magazine as an iPad that doesn't work "any more than she thinks of a painting as a TV that doesn’t work."
Regardless, it's a fascinating reminder of how differently young children experience new technologies, compared to those of us who can remember a time without tablets.
A couple of my favourite projects on the same vein:
"Giving up my iPod for a Walkman" - in which the BBC gives 13-year-old Scott Campbell a Walkman in exchange for his iPod for a week. "When I wore it walking down the street or going into shops, I got strange looks, a mixture of surprise and curiosity, that made me a little embarrassed," wrote Scott.
Some other gems: "I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly." Also: "It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape."
"Once upon a time ... technologies of the past" - a group of French children are handed a host of dated technologies, from a Gameboy to an old HP computer mouse, and invited to puzzle over what the gadgets might be.
Warning: watching these kids try to make sense of a floppy disc (Camera? Bank card?) may be a little depressing for anyone who's ever used one.
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About Lindsey Wiebe
Lindsey Wiebe grew up on a farm in rural Manitoba. She took her first run at getting hired by the Free Press at the age of 13: after winning a prize in a creative writing contest sponsored by the paper, she figured she’d be a shoo-in.
It’s not clear whether that letter ever reached the newsroom, but Lindsey got her foot in the door a few years later, joining the Free Press in 2006 after graduating from the University of Winnipeg and Red River College joint communications program. She’s gone on to work as a news and environmental reporter, surviving on local produce in a Manitoba November for a series on the local food movement, reporting from Afghanistan on the role of Canadian soldiers in reconstruction efforts, and heading up the Green Page, a monthly sustainability series. Most recently, Lindsey took up the newly-created role of social media reporter at the (also newly-created) Winnipeg Free Press News Café. She also works as a weekend online editor, setting aside her love of Saturday morning garage sales to help keep this site current.
Lindsey’s previously worked as a weekend radio reporter and casual researcher for CBC Manitoba, a programming coordinator at a local writers’ association, and most recently, an English language assistant in a high school in France (the latter while on a leave of absense from the Free Press, or ‘année sabbatique,’ as she learned to call it.).
Lindsey’s writing interests range from the journalistic to the creative: she’s shared her poetry at events including the Winnipeg International Writers’ Festival, the Winnipeg New Music Festival, and Prairie Fire Wordfest, and was a former organizer and host of the long running Speaking Crow poetry series and the now-defunct Winnipeg Poetry House.
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