Four Out of Five Toddlers Use the Internet

The article refers to children under the age of 5. Not toddlers. Pre-school is probably a more accurate description.

My boy has been playing with touch devices literally his entire life. It started as a baby when we let him hold our iPhones. He learned to unlock them very early - I can't remember how old he was. Maybe around age 1 or so. Not long after, he learned how to adjust the volume, mute, and sleep/wake it intentionally. Then we got an iPad 1 around the time he was 15 months old. He immediately translated what he already knew from the iPhone to the iPad and only had trouble with the slide-to-unlock which, on iPad, doesn't stretch edge-to-edge and so he had to learn to be more accurate.

A few months after getting the iPad 1, he had pretty much fully figured out the iOS interface and was getting into everything including apps like Mail and Twitterrific and deleting and modifying things he shouldn't have been. So in the interest of not losing data but still allowing him access to the iPad, my wife and I basically stopped using the iPad for anything but casual games we didn't care much about and removed our accounts from all the apps. Then we loaded a bunch of toddler-focused apps and let him claim the device as his own. (Within reason.)

Since then he's become a pro at the iPad. When the 4.2 update enabled multitasking, I was pretty sure he'd be confused by it. He had come to learn that he could just push the home button when he got lost in an app and then restart it (since the app would relaunch fresh). Within a few days he learned instead to attempt to work his way out of confusing parts of apps without relaunching them. (Sometimes asking for help.) After a few more days, he accidentally discovered the double-tap on the home button and started using that to switch between apps!

The iPad has taken a serious physical beating in this time. We have wood floors and it was not uncommon for him to drop the iPad off the couch or push it off a table just to see what happens. He has also attempted surfing on it. The metal is riddled with little dents and huge scratches. It was a bit painful to see such a beautiful device abused, but it was also fascinating to see just how rugged the thing is. Eventually, though, he managed to drop it on some concrete and cracked the top corner of the screen. The crack is outside the touch area, though, so we taped it up and got a case that wraps around the corners a bit to try to avoid it getting worse. The screen is almost perpetually a little sticky and a little dirty (like his face) but it doesn't deter him.

He's remarkably adept with it now and he's only 27 months old. He navigates Netflix to find things he wants to watch by their cover art (he obviously cannot read yet), he can count to 20 thanks to a math app, knows maybe 1/3rd of the alphabet and can kind of draw some letters thanks to an alphabet app, can do 10+ piece puzzles thanks to a couple puzzle apps, and more. His daycare teachers are frequently amazed at his abilities at physical puzzles, counting things, and controlling any sort of gadget he might get his hands on (like their CD players or two-way radios) relative to his peers.

The iPad is now integrated directly into our nightly routine. During "quiet time" we enable airplane mode and let him play any non-internet apps (read: anything but Netflix) for about 30 minutes before we put the iPad away and read a story from an actual book, sing some songs, and finally go to sleep.

I'm not sure if there's ever been such a great single educational tool for toddlers as an iPad and I'm thankful that Apple manufactures such well-designed (and surprisingly tough) products.