I'm in restaurants and I notice kids just old enough to hold a phone spending the entire meal staring at it. Theres no way thats remotely healthy for brain development.
I think there is something different with mobile devices though, I've seen kids using iPads before and they barely manage a couple of minutes in one app or game before they switch out to another. I really how this sort of behaviour is going to manifest when they grow up, are we heading for a generation with zero patience and attention span? I see it even in adults these days.
One thing I got really good at as a kid was being patient. When waiting for an appointment, I'll usually sit there and wait without staring at a screen. It's nice to have a few minutes to just do nothing.
Whew. That was a close.
There's plenty of time in the day to teach a 6 year old to program, no worries. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14909897