Its a dumb reason applied to an adult.
I agree. But this was for his kids when they were kids living at his house. If he want's to maintain the no consoles rule at his house later on, meh whatever. That's his business.
Edit: Also, what makes it reasonable to enforce this while his kids were young was that he actively encouraged learning about PC's, not just consumption through a different "Magic Box".
a s d f j k l ;
That being said, my keyboarding class included copying out bodies of text as well, not just patterns on loop (There certainly was that though).