A colleague was mentioning how his (American) daughters were getting all caught up with Webkinz:
“Webkinz pets are lovable plush pets that each come with a unique Secret Code. With it, you enter Webkinz World where you care for your virtual pet, answer trivia, earn KinzCash, and play the best kids games on the net!”
There’s some IM involved and he said his daughters were nuts over it.
Yes, girls are natural connectors and communicators and love IM.
But, my daughter has no interest in the Web or IM. Y’see, she’s had a mobile since she was 7 and from day-one grokked SMS.
My thought is: How does giving kids mobile phones with SMS change the way they view things like IM? _Especially_ for kids who have never done IM (that’s the spin – SMS kids of today grew up on IM)?
I guess that they might learn that PC is something fixed to an space and that mobile phone frees their natural need of communication from that physical space.
Hey, my daughter has a WebKinz as well, that she loves. She wants a mobile phone, too, though. I hope you gave your daughter an S60 phone and added the conversational messaging from BetaLabs.
I’m not surprised hat nowadays even kids are able to cope with different techniques. Sometimes they can even help you to solve problems you have with these techniques.
My kids are absolutely in love with Webkinz. It seems they want one every week and the craze shows no signs of slowing down. They want mobile phones, but I don’t think they are mature enough yet to handle them responsibly.
Just a remindar — a very important one: the animal war is raging. Webkinz will retire either the Cat theme or the Dog theme soon. They’re letting us decide … so PLEASE PLEASE vote this week — before it’s too late.