Ok perhaps I am a bit old school but why in gods name does a child of 10 need and ipod?
An iPod seems to be the must have gift of this holiday season for my eldest daughter but I am having a great deal of difficulty rationalizing why a child of ten years needs one.
If I am to look at the hard numbers of such a Christmas gift, assuming that each song she were to download was of the best possible quality at 320 kilobytes per second and in the neighborhood of 3 minutes long. A basic 8 gig iPod would hold about 1080 songs.
The problem is, this child’s play list is comprised of about 12 songs! from Miley Cyrus to Taylor Swift, Earth Wind & Fire and Steely Dan (don’t ask me about the last two). My daily incoming emails on my ipod touch take up more room. By the time she has a play list worth bragging about she will want the next best version and anything we got her this Christmas will be passe’
To buy her a iPod at this point would be based more on my own stupidity than her perceived need.
I discussed this with my students today at the end of class and they thought I was unnecessarily mean. They just couldn’t make the connection between the discrepancy between my daughters want and her actual needs. It was a stark lesson in how removed from reality our youth seem to be. Parents are seen as nothing more than dispensers of goods based on our children’s momentary wants.
I think it is safe to say that an iPod is not in our daughters Christmas present. Perhaps one day we will weaken when the play list reaches a number beyond 100 but until then, I love being the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
Mr. (Grinch) Rispin
I have 2 boys at the bright young, or old according to them, age of 7 and 10.
They both started with 0.5GB iPod shuffles and found that they quickly out grew these limited 200 song holding devices. Well they didn’t out grow anything, they wanted the new ones with screens.
So, next was the iPod Nano at 1GB holding almost 450 songs, good for a trip but not a long one like Mexico or Jamaica. Don’t get me wrong, we still take the usual coloring and reading books and a few toys, but still not enough entertainment value while the boys were younger.
I know what your thinking… parents need to interact more with there children. Well to be honest, we interact with or children plenty and have found, as we need, so do they, ALONE time. Time to just do their own INDEPENDENT things, no matter what it may be. Sometimes it is as little as putting on some headphones and listening to them yell out as we chuckle, “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” by Paul Simon or going out and just taking shots on the hockey net(which they do a lot of). Alone time, it is important.
WHOA!! The iPod Nano can do what???
A MOVIE ON THIS TINY LITTLE SCREEN???
I found I could put a movie on these little tiny devices.
WOW! an extra 1.5 to 2 HOURS of HEAVEN over top all of the classic music, and coloring books. Keeping children content on an airplane for 6 WHOLE hours is a chore and this chore just got a little easier all on a little tiny screen. They loved it! We let them each pick there own movie for the trip! INDEPENDENCE!
iPod Touch, hmmmmm, expensive…
But look at the MOVIES! 12 full length movies installed.
Look at the Applications! Endless Apps. think of something… yup there IS an App!
Look at the Music! Over a 1000 songs with Cover Art and lyrics.
Look at… Look at…Just look!! TECHNOLOGY!!
This little thing WILL and HAS changed the look of all Technology to come in the future. What can you do with it? What can’t you do with it? My boys are playing math games and have no idea how much math they are actually learning. Reading? My youngest taught himself to read just he could use this little amazing piece of technology.
Handled properly Technology should be embraced, BUT limited.
Dad has recently bought a 250GB iPod classic that holds close to 450 movies. 450 MOVIES! And these movies, with a $20 cable plugged into ANY TV, can be played and watched ANYWHERE! I took 450 movies on holidays with us! Why? Why not? Did I mention we had all the episodes of Zak and Cody on this thing?!
We use it on Holidays all the time in the evenings just before the boys go to bed and after an entire day of being electronics free. An easy way to wind the boys down after a long hot day at the beach!
LOVE TECHNOLOGY!
Just my 2cents
Dad
Well Dad…. To start of that was one hell of a beauty comment. Secondly, I have to admit the troll managed to get a Nano from the grandparents for her 11th birthday, circumventing my grinchyness. With that said however, her playlist has swollen to a whopping 12 songs so I guess she needed that iPod after all cus lord knows she certainly couldn’t have lived without it.
My anti iPod stance isn’t anti technology as I am as big a technology whore as the next guy. I just refuse to buy into the gotta have it mania, especially when it comes to my kids. So what if they are social pariah because they haven’t kept up with “cool kids” I lived through it, so with they.
Cheers,
Rispin
Mr. Rispy
With all the classic bands you used to listen to, I would have thought you would introduced some your old classics like the Doobies, Moody Blues, Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac and so forth to your youngins.
My boys love all the old stuff, makes ME smile!
My 10 year old’s play list is around… well he has my playlist with a couple taken out and some Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus added.
But, it’s not so much about the music, it’s about everything else the iPod Touch does.
Dad
Wow you remember my playlist! That is impressive there Dad. So do you have any Randy Travis on that iPod classic? What was that song you played over and over??? In our house we have 3 iPods, one iTouch and an iPad which they can use with two docking stations. One of the I pods has all the kids songs, both kids have access to my iTouch and they can use their mothers iPod but her play list includes Celine Dion so I don’t encourage using that one. They don’t need one of their own. It would be a complete waste of MY money. Now that Katie has an iPod of her own via a grandparents gift The discussion is kinda moot but she still doesn’t have more than 12 songs and of those she plays “Waving Flag” 99.8% of the time. I have the same song on two of the three iPods, she simply didn’t need one. The logic escapes me.
LOL, you remember Randy!
Wasn’t sure if u were going to figure out who it was.
Was it the “Civic2 @BD”?
Just my 2cents
Dad