Why an iPhone could actually be good for your 3-year-old

Came from the Boston Globe in 2009 but relivent to today

Parents who hand smart phones to their preschoolers as a distraction are shocked to see how quickly the kids become pros. They may worry about such early screen time. But for this generation of “mobile kids,” portable, wireless technology promises to improve the way they learn

Most parents, grandparents, and baby sitters will be able to relate: You’re in a supermarket line that refuses to budge, and your preschooler is about to lose it. Or you’re at a restaurant, and he won’t let the adults complete a single thought. Or you’re on a crowded airplane, and he’s getting antsy, and you begin to feel the disapproving glares from the grumpy businessman to your left and the eye-rolling retirees to your right.

Hoping to distract him, you hand him your cellphone, figuring it will buy you a few moments of peace. It’s no mystery why little kids race to elevators to make sure they get to push the button. They crave power. Yet if your cellphone is a no-frills Nokia or a stripped-down flip, you know the peace will be brief. A preschooler can press the numbers on a phone only so many times before losing interest.

Unless, of course, it’s an iPhone. Hand one of those -- or a similar smart phone -- to a 3-year-old, and you’ll see how profoundly different the experience can be. If he’s never held an iPhone before, he will examine it from all angles. He’ll touch the big circular button under the screen, then he’ll touch all over the screen, then every button he can find hiding on its slim sides. In other words, he’ll do exactly what someone should do when encountering a new piece of technology (provided there’s a service plan to cover the inevitable drops and damage). Because the iPhone is perfectly sized for little fingers and is operated using colorful icons and an intuitive touch screen rather than a mouse or keyboard, the preliterate preschooler has no trouble making it his own. Before long, he’ll be swiping across the screen with the confidence of a college kid in a coffee shop, leaping from app to app. And he’ll be completely engrossed.

I say this as someone who doesn’t even like the iPhone. I have never worshiped at the altar of Jobs, and have, in fact, always preferred the dowdy PC. Whenever I borrow my wife’s iPhone and try to bang out a text or an e-mail, my thick fingers seem to produce every letter except the one I want. But I can see how quickly our youngest daughter has become a pro with the device, despite being just 4 years old and unable to spell anything more than her name

She belongs to a new generation. These “mobile kids” are the purest breed yet of natives to the wireless world where the rest of us are refugees. Their fluency with technology and expectations of instant access to everything will eclipse even those of their older siblings and cousins, the “digital kids” weaned on desktop computers wired to the Web. This is why my 4-year-old is incredulous when I can’t honor her request to replay the Taylor Swift song we’ve just heard on the car radio. She simply can’t comprehend how something electronic could be beyond our personal control, even if we’re talking about public airwaves.

Want more! go to http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2009/11/01/why_an_iphone_could_actually_be_good_for_your_3_year_old/?page=full
Its really a great article.