Ask HN: Which (if any) computing device for a 6 year old?

If you can postpone the general increase of screen time I’d recommend that. Screen time comes at the cost of time spent developing social skills, motor skills, physical strength and in general trains disassociation habits and shortens attention span.

At 6, brain development is still very active so if I had a child I’d have their brain get trained by physical and social interactions.

Edge case here, as our daughter (similar age) has numerous disabilities including low vision:

We bought an iPad for family use. We use it for videochats with relatives, for watching PBS (Xbox doesn't have an app for PBS yet), for watching How It's Made videos on YouTube, and some games and activities we do together (or at least parallel play, namely for the drawing apps). Our daughter doesn't seem to care much about the tablet, thankfully. It doesn't pull her like videogames pulled me for so many decades. We don't know why this is the case.

Linux (you guessed it): there are some decent educational options. Check the Software Manager - Education section in Linux Mint, for example. I know this from looking to see if anything would be a good fit for my classrooms (I used to teach) and for our daughter. Settled on no in both cases, mainly because flash cards and table games are so much better for socializing and occupational therapy / motor skills.

I would put off significant computer training for as long as possible. Those who benefit from us using computers have an incentive to make these "magical" devices easy to use, and one way to not fall into the trap of being a product or being used is to not need these devices in the first place. They're an extraordinary luxury that I also mentally prepare to do without (easy for me to say, as I'm of the Star Wars generation, grew up with a rotary phone and countless hours exploring the woods, helping in the garden, trading labor for meat, and sleeping outside, and I had a hand-me-down Commodore 64- a squandered opportunity as I just used it for games and didn't learn to program anything). I far prefer reading to my child, playing made-up word games, and walking & talking outside, observing all the life and death around us.

I would say skip it and spend more time doing simple, rich things together that cost little to no money.

Another concern: how quickly do you want your child to increase the number of exploited people they benefit from? These devices come at significant cost to other lives on earth.[0] I wouldn't have agreed to buying this tablet if I hadn't been convinced by my spouse and our daughter's medical team that it might help augment her vision development. If your child has no relevant disabilities, I say skip it.

[0] Blindboy Undestroys the World, episode 2: how many slaves do you own? ( https://youtu.be/za3QJFWLv_M )

Thanks. You got me thinking back to when I started programming. Realised it wasn't until 9 or so. There's no rush is there.

I gave my son my older PC (Sandy Bridge i5, nvidia 750Ti). It has both Linux and Windows installed. On Windows, we have parental control setup. He mostly plays Minecraft, World of Tanks and watch YouTube. He also has my old mobile where some educational apps are installed, but he mostly prefers PC.

Benefits of PC

  - easy to install games from my steam account or internet
  - better sitting posture with desk and chair
  - cheaper than new device and bigger screen
  - he learned how to use keyboard and pc in general
  - we do some 3d printing projects on his PC
  - we play together on minecraft with private discord server
  - he is saving money for upgrades
  - very hard to damage by accident

I bought second hand Dell XPS 13 for our 6 year old. I installed Fedora, GCompris and Firefox. There are a few apps that school uses like Purple Mash and Mathletics and that's what opens up in Firefox. It works flawlessly.

No need for tablet, touchscreens, etc. PC/Laptop is an amazing thing for a child if you set it up properly.

Your other half has a plan.

You have objections.

I would go with the plan.

It is the simplest thing that might work.

And your child can have both a laptop and a tablet.

They call that a win win.

Good luck.

Nah mate. Following discussion of the above, we are now going with an iNothingAtAll for the time being ;-)

That is reasonable.

Do you have a plan yet for when they grow out of that choice?

The internet will wait.

Your child’s ambitions will increase.

The groundwork you lay now is what future complexity will rest upon.

Your child’s TikTok access will only be limited to the access of their friends.

My parenting advice is know how committed to the work of locking things down you really are (not how committed you think you should be).

And recognize that people with strong opinions are likely to be more committed to that than you and/or be part of a culture with different norms for parent-child relationships.

The answer that you want is what you want. Your child is not you.

What does your child want?

Ice cream for 3 meals a day, obviously.

We all grow up to want a pony an M&M’s for breakfast as adults.

how about an amiga 500 or some other non internet connected computer with games and programming tools/basic

i think internet is not necessary.

other than that learning skills is more important than consuming all the garbage out there

Whatever you do, keep it offline.

Kids should never be exposed to the Internet.