What could be the best way to introduce the world of computers to a kid, let’s say of 6 years old, so that he learns to handle it like a toy and stops dreading it like some esoteric, arcane and recondite machine from some eldritch, enigmatic, cryptic and phantasmal world ?

  • entwine@programming.dev
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    2 days ago

    Take away his other toys lol

    Idk what got me into it, but I do remember that I would frequently play around with MS Paint at my mom’s workplace when I was very young. I don’t remember how frequent my trips to her job were, but obviously I didn’t have anything else to do while there. So when we finally got our own computer at home, I immediately knew what I wanted to do on it. From that point I would start learning more and more.

    I don’t have kids, but lots of young children in my family. I’ve tried getting them into computers too, but they also seem scared of them. I think where I went wrong was trying to show off all the cool things it can do too quickly, as they might have gotten intimidated by the arcane rituals I did to make them happen.

    Regarding games, idk. My first exposure to games was on consoles, and I didn’t play any PC games until we got internet at home and I stumbled across flash sites. I remember spending WAY more time looking for funny videos/animations than games.

    So… I have no real suggestions, just a few personal anecdotes.

    • SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip
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      19 hours ago

      I remember when I was a young child one of my favorite things to do on a computer was… Entering numbers into Excel.