Why can't you do both?
Did they also study how much you learn about using a computer by stacking bricks?
What if they found that kids who only play with bricks suck at Tetris? Would that be a cause for concern?
Children should be interacting with the physical world because they’re little animals who should be interacting with their surroundings to learn how they work, just as you and I should be using our bodies because it feels great and helps our minds to work.
Using a computer is an abstraction that can wait until after children have a solid model for how the world works. Computers are tools, wonderful, fascinating, useful tools, but Tetris isn’t even 3D, generalising from actual blocks to Tetris is not going to tax the imagination of anyone.
I'm pretty sure we recently saw a study that showed a lot of kids being tech illiterate despite growing with and regularly using a bunch of gadgets.
Turns out playing with a screen doesn't teach you computers.
Honestly, some people just treat computers as magic despite using them every day and having it explained what it's doing. We don't need to expose kids to computers more -- it's literally impossible not to -- we need to get them to -- or not squash -- their desire to ask 'why', 'how', and 'how can this be changed'.
That's a poor measure of somethings value.
Do you have elderly parents you support with their computers? Then maybe you know what I am talking about.
I am not saying kids shouldn't play with bricks. The whole premise of the article seems silly. Nobody claims kids should play with computers instead of bricks.
As for becoming computer savvy, I've seen kids pick up quite a lot from playing with computers. They quickly figure out how to find and launch the games they like, for example. And they also experiment, for example rearranging the UI. Then there is Minecraft.
What does using a computer here mean? Playing video games? Staring at YT videos? Or coding?