If you’re going to put your preschooler in front of a screen, choose a TV
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
So maybe get the Xbox version of Minecraft—or the Raspberry Pi version—instead of the iOS one.
I feel like most people on this site could afford a small gaming machine, though.
Always check if one of your local universities has a "University Surplus" store or similar. Many universities try to recoup some of their expenses by selling their old computer (and other) hardware when they upgrade, and it's usually ridiculously inexpensive to find a decent PC tower that you can toss a hard drive in and have a mostly pretty tolerable little gaming rig. A couple upgrades later and it can be a totally tolerable gaming rig. I've found many decent bargains at my local University Surplus store in the $50-ish price range for a working starter tower with motherboard, CPU, RAM, etc.
None of these are officially allowed mods, for that stuff you need to go to resource packs and/or data packs, which provide a sanctioned, but (AFAIK) is more limited ability to extend the game.
Look into the FTB modpacks (or darkosto’s modpacks like skyblock or sevtech) they (like most modpacks tbh) come with a launcher that selects the correct minecraft version and assembles all the mods.
I’ve been running at least two modpack launchers, and playing around 5-6 modpacks in addition to vanilla since the start of covid and it’s generally quite smooth (had to restore from backups a few times, but the backups themselves were automatically created by mods included in the pack.)
Edit:
If you want an amazing experience from caveman to rocket scientist, try Sevtech: Ages.
If you want to learn how all these techy mods work, try FTB University (maybe FTB Academy first.)
If you want to play on 1.16.5 try FTB Endeavor.
If you wanna try a large stable ungated modpack, try FTB Revelation.
(There are lots of other modpacks that are great, but these I have recent experience with.)
Multiplayer Minecraft just looks like crack for ADHD children.
What makes it addictive? The social aspect?
Our kids (4, 2) love it -- it has great lessons, talks about the topics relevant for them, and never uses the tactics discussed eg overexposed colors, rapid cuts, etc.
Mr. Rogers sample:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tkJduDu1JM
Daniel Tiger sample:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m08BrNDkJjw
Bob Ross:
In comparison Daniel Tiger is much more accessible and offers really good tools for emotional regulation. The main gap is a kind of the ‘everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face’ problem— it’s very hard to use a relaxation tool from TV when the feelings are real and intense.
YouTube existing at all changes the calculus for parents and children these days, I feel.
I have been enjoying a technology arms race with my daughter. She likes full youtube for content that is still benign, but beyond what's available on the kids platform. She started finding ways to circumvent our time limitations at age 3 using Siri and Safari to bypass screen time, and later concealed that she had worked out my unlock password on mine. I eventually make another move to defeat, but I am secretly proud of her and now I'm simply placing another level in the big game.
And the author is an American, resident in New York afaict. Even though the Guardian is a UK-based paper, not all it’s content is not exclusively UK-focused.
TV is entirely passive. Games on the iPad are at least interactive, though games are not all created equal.
I have some concerns that touching glass all the time will be damaging for kids, as much as if not more than the lack of mental stimulation or social growth or physical activity. But I also think that encouraging creative play (lots of building with different materials), playing outside, role-playing and even being "bored" to invent new games and new play is highly beneficial. Reading and even trying to make up stories is also good.
The worst part of screen time is that it crowds out so many other beneficial activities, but I'm not convinced that it's horrible as a "treat" alongside those activities. It's probably better than zero stimulation or interaction at all.
There are fantastic apps for learning on a tablet (reading, writing, counting, simple calculations, reading the clock, etc.) The kids love it to spend some tablet time and they benefit from it. And even if they just toy around in these virtual worlds (Tokka), it's much more creative than just watching the next episode of my little pony.
On the other hand, tv shows, like aforementioned, my little pony, gives them excursions into dramatic topics: friendship, betrayal, pride, ... Even the most trivial cartoon will have some form of story telling and I think kids need story telling that they choosen freely.
I've played plenty of them myself, but there was a long time there that I played way too much of them. A great one will still reel me in, but I prefer experiences that have a built-in end now instead.
Anyhow, my point is that both TV and games can be things you can fill your time with mindlessly.
Numbers and letters are 2D. Any word on learning about 2D objects on a 2D object?
It is one of the best-constructed things I've ever seen: constant amazing songs; great animation; and it teaches kids numbers. No violence/slapstick/jump cuts/toy empire to buy all of. Just amazing.
They don’t need temptation to eat/get garbage thrust upon them by high production value propaganda from giant corporations
/rant
And if that’s too little screen to share comfortably, you can use a PC…
They are learning very fast.