Geeks In Training - How Young Is Too Young?

Last weekend we celebrated my son, Cruz's third birthday. Spawned from two geeks, he is naturally drawn to computers and gadgets. Over the past year, he has slowly taken over a few of my most needed pieces of tech gear; namely, my iMac and iPhone. At first it was cute. I was a proud Mama watching over my geek in training as he learned how the slide to unlock feature worked on my iPhone. And when he mastered every button of my MX Revolution mouse, I had a big smile on my face. Then it became a problem. My iPhone battery was constantly drained from him playing hours of Jirbo Bounce, and I barely had time to work on my own projects on my iMac. The solution to the madness was to get Cruz his very own iPod Touch for his birthday.

When I told various friends he was getting his own iPod Touch, I got a lot of different responses. My parents were very cool about it and even paid half of the price of the gift. Other friends started giving me bets on how long the device would last in the hands of a three year old. Sometimes I admit, I even had my doubts on the logistics of his present, but my doubts quickly diminished as Cruz took over my iPhone again, moved my icons around, and then drained my battery. He was definitely getting his iPod Touch.

For the most part, he is gentle with the technology he plays with. We make it very clear that if we catch him mistreating anything, it will go away. I think he understands. For three years old, he is remarkably smart. Yes, I know it sounds like I am bragging, but he mimics what he sees, and my husband and I set a very good example of proper care for computers and gadgets. However, he had been somewhat destructive to a few of his toys and books. I'm keeping my fingers crossed he won't damage his iPod Touch or any other expensive gadget in the house. I would hate to have to write a blog about why it is a mistake to give young children iPods later on down the line.

I also would like to add, I set up a log-in for Cruz on my iMac. I dabbled with parental controls for the first time ever. I have a few things I like and dislike in the way Leopard handles young users. First off, Simple Finder is lame! My son loves all the icons in the dock, but Simple Finder only puts a single applications folder in the dock and not separate application icons. Simple Finder is great in other ways such as not allowing access to the main hard drive or external hard drives on the desktop, but the simplified dock caused my son to have no interest in using his log-in. I had to disable Simple Finder and go into view options to hide the hard drives on the desktop, but if he clicks the finder in the dock and changes it from icon view to columns view, he can then navigate back to access my external hard drives - which he does. (I told you he was smart.)

Another thing I do not like is there is no option to prompt for administrator password to empty the trash. I can limit what applications he has access to, and I can try to control what he can see, but if by chance he does happen to throw an important file in the trash and empty the trash, it could be devastating. I guess that is why we have Time Machine, but it would be nice to have an option to keep him from deleting anything.

So am I crazy for letting my three year old son use my iMac? And is he too young for his own iPod Touch? I guess it depends on the kid, but how young is too young when it comes to our geeks in training?

UPDATE: Poll Results 10/27/08 - 11/3/08

Is 3 years old too young for an iPod Touch?
00% Yes
75% No
25% Meh