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When Should You Buy Your Kid A Laptop?

Posted by Zonk on from the diapers-would-make-the-thing-hard-to-use dept.

GuitarNeophyte writes "Marketwatch News reports that some people say that we should be buying our kids laptop computers well before they get into the higher education realm. Even as early as middle school. From the article: 'These days, it's almost unquestioned that college-bound students will tote laptops back to school. For parents of high school and middle school kids, the decision to invest in a laptop is far from given.'"

30 of 856 comments (clear)

  1. Worked for me by bigwavejas · · Score: 5, Informative

    With the affordability of laptops I opted to purchase my child one as opposed to an Xbox or PS2. My thinking was it allowed him not only to play games, but also familiarize himself with the keyboard, internet, word processing program, etc. He quickly became proficient and amazed me how much I actually learned from *him* about computers. I was a bit reluctant at first letting him use the internet; however, we had a discussion on what's acceptable and I have parental control on the internet. I think in today's society you're doing your kid an injustice if you wait until their high school years to introduce them to this technology.

    --
    "Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
    1. Re:Worked for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm sure your kid would've amazed you with a desktop as well...I figure laptops are not necessary for children to be exposed to the internet & computing.

      & as far as laptops for college? Unnecessary. I hated it when people were play solitaire in front of me while the prof was attempting to teach.

    2. Re:Worked for me by Draknor · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why a laptop, though? As cheap as laptops are, desktops are cheaper and more upgradeable. You can buy your kid a desktop computer during the middle school years, and upgrade it occassionally until the kid gets to high school or college and needs (or wants) a laptop or a faster gaming machine.

      I had a laptop for a bit in high school, purchased used with my own money. It was fun, no doubt, but it wasn't something I really made full use of until college & work. That's when the portability of a laptop really kicked in as a necessity for me. Do students really need that kind of portability?

      At any rate, I do agree with the notion of having a computer instead of an xbox or PS2 - at least, that's worked for me. Of course, a lot of friends had gaming consoles so I could just mooch off of them :)

    3. Re:Worked for me by The+Warlock · · Score: 5, Insightful

      My first laptop I got for my senior year of high school. I didn't have parents who just went out and bought me expensive computer equipment, of course, and that's why I'm kind of laughing at this article.

      The only way for the kid to really grasp the value of his new laptop is if he works his ass off all summer to earn the money to buy it himself.

      --
      I've upped my standards, so up yours.
    4. Re:Worked for me by BaudKarma · · Score: 5, Funny

      13 months is way too late if you want your child to have a solid grounding in computers. I got one of those motion activated mice and ducttaped it to my kids hand at about 2 weeks of age. Mounted a 17" LCD on a bracket over his crib so that he could see the screen. The little guy has amazed me with how much he's learned already.

      --
      It's the land of the brave, and the home of the free
      Where the less you know, the better off you'll be.
    5. Re:Worked for me by garcia · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The only way for the kid to really grasp the value of his new laptop is if he works his ass off all summer to earn the money to buy it himself.

      Well, normally I would agree but in the case of my laptop, which was purchased 12/1996 for the sole purpose of me bringing it to college (tight spaces for desktops) 8/1997, I have to disagree.

      My laptop was about $3600 at the time. I fully understood the true value of the device and the sacrifice my parents made to make it a reality for me...

      My proof? It remains in full working order to this day on my coffee table in my living room -- relegated to web browsing and SSH and plugged into the wall for power (the battery started keeping a charge for less than two minutes in 2002).

      Just because I didn't "work my ass off all summer" for it doesn't mean I wasn't able to appreciate it and care for it properly.

    6. Re:Worked for me by Lally+Singh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I find laptops absolutely essential for college. The problem with desktops at school is that you end up working where you sleep. I find it incredibly useful to have one place to work, one place to sleep, and the rest of town to enjoy myself. One coffee shop I frequent (I mean 6 times a week, for several hours at a time), is filled with fellow students just working on their laptops or books & papers. I really can't work nearly as efficiently when my computer's in the same place I relax or sleep -- I've tried!

      And for every ten folks that has a laptop, maybe one brings them to class. The ones that do it for solitaire would be unlikely to pay attention in class even if there was no laptop. OTOH, I've got friends that swear to using tablet PCs as notetaking devices.

      --
      Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
    7. Re:Worked for me by kannibal_klown · · Score: 4, Interesting
      as far as laptops for college? Unnecessary. I hated it when people were play solitaire in front of me while the prof was attempting to teach.


      If you commute to school, a laptop can help out a lot. If you live on campus, it helps but not as much.

      I was never was that big of a jerk to play a game during class, though once or twice I browsed in Internet wirelessly or did a project for another course. But those times were rare.

      What came in handy for me was being able to get certain work done. Yes, we had PC labs scattered around but only a small handful of them had the tools I used to make my life easier (ie, something more than MS Word and a telnet connection). Also, you usually had to wait around for some jerk to finish checking their hotmail account and using the Java AOL IM to talk to their pals in the next building.

      With a laptop I could just sit in the library or on the Green and work on whatever project I needed to, knowing I had all of my tools and data at my disposal.

      If you live on campus, the benefit is not as great since you could always walk back to your room and use a desktop. But even then, on busy days or when doing a project with a group in the library a laptop can be pretty helpful.

      Now that you can get a Celeron laptop for like 600 or 700 USD on sale from Dell, the expense isn't that high (plus you make sure the kid can't play too many games since his rig can't handle them).
    8. Re:Worked for me by Metasquares · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Laptops aren't necessary (but are still helpful, since labs can be crowded at times) in college unless you're a computer science major. My laptop was invaluable during a system administration course that I recently took. It's also been very helpful throughout my four years, as it gives me the ability to ssh into the school's server and work on my programs wherever I happen to be.

      Laptops are useful, but, as with everything in college, it's up to the student to use them responsibly. If you're the type that will automatically fire up solitaire when the laptop is on, you shouldn't have one or should keep it off during class.

    9. Re:Worked for me by zxnos · · Score: 4, Insightful
      there is a rumor at my college about making notebooks mandatory. it is painfull to go into the any of the labs during finals week and find a machine that isnt tied up rendering someones project. plus kids need to be exposed to this stuff. or finding one that has the software you need, etc.

      i am amazed at the number of computer illiterate 18-22 year olds on campus. i would guess at half of that population, easy.

      --
      always mosh clockwise
    10. Re:Worked for me by _xeno_ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I tried using a laptop to take notes at one point. It just doesn't work. A notepad and paper are FAR superior to a laptop for taking notes. The computer is just a distraction. That's it.

      Actually, I went through several computer "aids" for taking notes. The first was an iPaq. You just can't enter information fast enough (think, scrolling, botched text recoginition, poor tactile feedback as a "pen") to effectively take notes compared with a notepad. The largest problem, though, was that most classes involved diagrams or notations that you simply can't do on an iPaq as fast as you can on a notepad. There's just not enough room.

      So I got a keyboard attachment, since I can touch-type at something like 50WPM or something. (I haven't bothered measuring, it's a wild guess.) This helped with the text parts of notes, but it utterly failed for every class except history. The only reason it worked for my history class was because history involved taking down a LOT of text notes. (And the only diagrams in that class were timelines, which you can "fake" by just writing "Year: Event" on each line.)

      I also tried using a full-fledged laptop in a CS course. It's also completely ineffective due to the "diagram" issue. CS courses aren't all code - most of them involve decision trees or logical tables or some other graphical representation of a concept. (Try drawing a finite state machine using only text. It just doesn't get the message across as effectively as pen and paper.)

      The laptop was useful on campus - but not in class. In class, it was only a distraction. It was insanely useful between classes where you might get an hour off and sit down somewhere and do some homework without wandering back to the dorm.

      Don't get a laptop with the theory it's going to help you in class. It won't. That doesn't mean it can't help you in college at all, but if you try and use it during class, it'll just wind up being a distraction.

      Except in history class. :)

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    11. Re:Worked for me by cfulmer · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm in law school right now and laptops are a must for most classes. Here are some indications of when they'll be useful:

      1. There are not many diagrams, drawings, formulas or charts put on the board. While I can type much faster than I can write, I cannot use computer drawing tools as easily as I can draw by hand.

      2. You need to shuffle a lot of papers. In Law School, you read thousands of court cases. While these are generally edited and aggregated into casebooks, professors often supplement the casebooks with additional cases, articles, &c. Because all the cases are available electronically, I have found it much easier to download them in PDF and use Adobe Acrobat to write them up virtually.

      3. You need to search. Face it, pouring through 100 pages of hand-written notes for something does not work well in class. Computers excel at this.

      4. You're disciplined. There are a million times more distractions on a computer than there ever were on paper. When I was an undergrad (86-90), there were a few people who read the newspaper in the back of class, but that was about it. Now, then can be playing poker, IM'ing each other, reading the news, writing e-mails, etc.... If you're not disciplined enough to keep your use of these things down, then the laptop may be a problem.

      5. Lousy handwriting. Not being about to read your own handwriting makes reviewing hand-written very difficult. The only way that's going to be bad on a laptop is if you're a horrible typist or you use a bad font.

    12. Re:Worked for me by ari_j · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have both a desktop and a laptop. Take either away, and my lifestyle wouldn't work out. I take my laptop to class and take notes (copious notes - 2,000 lines or more of plain text for a semester in one class) on it. I can't read my own writing, and I can type extremely fast, so it works out really well for me. Additionally, I go to the law library and study there most of the time, taking more notes on my laptop. Then I upload them to my desktop (actually, I use Unison to synchronize both machines to a server located elsewhere - nerdiest law student, EVAR) and compile them into study outlines from there.

      Try doing any of that with pen and paper, even if you can write fast enough to keep up with the professor and still read your own writing.

      As to the actual point of this article - buying laptops for kids in high school or earlier - I am not a fan of the idea, for a lot of reasons. But the one that I'm going to mention right now is this: High schoolers are, on average, less mature than college kids are, and tend to lose and break anything that's remotely portable. It's bad enough that they're out crashing the family car, don't send them out with a $2,000 laptop to bust up, too. Your kids can use your "family PC." Kick them off if you need it. If they want their own computer, they should buy one. It's a really good time to learn priorities and responsibility, and you shouldn't spend money to deprive them of the opportunity.

    13. Re:Worked for me by ShadyG · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This is funny, but it's not too far off the mark. I had a tough time keeping up with my daughter's mental development when she was very young. She could identify letters and knew the phonics of each well before she had the manual strength and dexterity to reproduce them on paper. She was frustrated trying to write the things she could read. It was the same problem she had at 5 months when she could sit up just enough to see something she wanted but could not walk over and get it.

      By opening up a text editor on my laptop and allowing her to type, she was able to start "writing" more than a year before she could have otherwise. Look at the keyboard, find the letter you want, press it, and it draws itself. It's like magic!

      --
      Nerd Rock In Progress
  2. Easy Answer by Jackdaw+Rookery · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When your kid is responsible enough to have a laptop and look after it.

    Until then; you get an abicus, son.

  3. Thats easy by el_womble · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You buy a kid a laptop when they are so cheap that you can afford to buy a new one every month. You know they're going to get broken, stolen, lost etc.

    --
    Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
  4. keep their monitor in view by jwachter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Until you trust your kids to browse the internet and use their computer responsibly, give them a desktop and orient its monitor so that it can be seen by you and your spouse when you casually walk by. (BTW this means do *not* let them have a computer in their bedroom!)

    Giving them a laptop to take to their friends' houses is just inviting them to access all sorts of nasty stuff.

    The best possible choice? Set up your offspring's computer(s) in your own home office. What you loose in distraction, you'll gain in piece of mind and time spent with them.

    1. Re:keep their monitor in view by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 5, Funny


      Until you trust your kids to browse the internet and use their computer responsibly, give them a desktop and orient its monitor so that it can be seen by you when you casually walk by

      Funny. I give my clients this same advice, except substitute "Marketing Department" for "kids."

  5. not too soon by Saven+Marek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    a laptop is one tool for education and can be used as part of a kid's schooling, but buying one just for the sake of buying one and giving it to a kid and expecting them to become smart is just silly.

    what question should be asked is "when is a good time to start using a laptop in the context of my kids wider education" and I think that comes way after being able to write and read and do math and critically think what they read and not before

  6. Re:Bully by GPLDAN · · Score: 4, Funny

    Other kids retaliate by stealing the bully's identity and linking him to Islamic radical websites.

    Welcome to the new future.

  7. Used Laptops by RobertB-DC · · Score: 4, Informative

    My first thought was, "When their rich uncle gets out of the poor farm." But I've actually been considering a used laptop from RetroBox -- they dispose of corporate assets and have laptops starting under $50 -- though you'll have to get over $100 before you can get anything over 300 MHz and 128 MB.

    Of course, all you bargain hunters will now swoop in and grab them... where's that "back" button?

    --
    Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
  8. ASAP! by Ingolfke · · Score: 5, Funny

    Buy your kid a laptop as soon as possible so they'll get out of the house and download all of their illegal music, movies, and software off of someone else's access point (not to mention all of l33t spl01ts they'll be using).

    In the future youth street gangs will stand on the street corners with laptops leeching unprotected wi-fi.

  9. Hmm.. by epiphani · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My sister is 12. She can type nearly as fast as I can - and while she does make use of that internet shorthand that I hate so much, I think a laptop would probably be a good thing for her to have. What kind of laptop is a little harder to call. I would probably suggest something limited enough that it would almost work out as an appliance though. Perhaps a linux system designed specifically for school type applications.

    A really good idea would be for school boards to develope a little knoppix type system that could be provided to kids as nessecary - on a DVD-RW perhaps, to allow for saving their projects.

    I'm only six years out of school, but I swear, kids these days are amazing. At 12, most can type quite quickly. When I was in school, at 15 I was one of three students that could type with any speed.

    --
    .
  10. Old Fashioned by shane2uunet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sorry,

    My children will not have their own laptop until they get to about 10th grade.

    Why? They need the basics, read, writing, and math. Having a computer just makes them more dependant on the spell checker, the calculator, etc.

    Maybe it's just an unspoken myth, but computers don't make you smarter. Having access to loads of information doesn't make you smarter.

    Good study habits, excellent reading skills, solid math and logic will get them to where ever they want to go.

    Disclaimer. I use a computer all day as a system admininistrator/programmer. I enjoy using computers, but they don't make me smarter.

    --
    This space available for rent.
    1. Re:Old Fashioned by aetherspoon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe it would be a better idea to just instill the idea that learning is fun in your children. Then you can give them such tools like a spellchecker and calculator and they will fiddle around with them until they learn more about it.

      It drives me up the wall seeing posts like the parent. If you have kids that are driven to learn, they WON'T take the easy way out, they will voluntarily learn on their own (on top of school, assuming you have good teachers and such). You aren't forcing your kid to learn, you are restricting his/her ability to learn!

      But what do I know, I was just someone that grew up with computers and never lost the art of learning.

      --
      --- Ãther SPOON!
  11. Answer: In Cobb County, they won't have to! by 955301 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes, that's right folks. Because I'm buying their kids a laptop. Me and my closest friends, geographically speaking. Our taxes are buying a bunch of kids that I don't have equipment that will be obsolete real soon which most of them will never know how to truly use. Except as email and chat hardware of course.

    http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/7416

    So don't worry about it! Move to Georgia, specifically Cobb County. Sure, we'll force your kids to listen to Creationism being equated to Natural Selection, but they'll be hearing it from an mp3 on their very own iBooks!

    --
    You are checking your backups, aren't you?
  12. Correct Answer by Ingolfke · · Score: 5, Funny

    When Should You Buy Your Kid A Laptop?

    Tuesday, April 10th 2007 between the hours of 9 AM and 11 AM local time.

    1. Re:Correct Answer by (startx) · · Score: 4, Funny

      Tuesday, April 10th 2007 between the hours of 9 AM and 11 AM local time.

      Just about the time OSX 10.5 should be released, and it's even a Tuesday! Is that you Steve?

  13. Too much focus on the tech.. by modi123 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This article (towards the end) has way too much focus on the technology aspect of learning. I would like everyone's attention at this wonderful quote:
    "There's no research that [using a laptop] will ramp up academic achievement beyond adequate desktop access at school and at home," he said.
    I started to have major problems when the article quoted Jeff Mao (coordinator of educational technology for the Maine Learning Technology Initiative):
    "The goal was to put the device into the hands of the student at the point of learning as defined by the student, so that it got away from the old model of 'hey kids, let's go to the computer lab so we can use the Internet now. Then we'll go back to the classroom and stop learning with the computer,'"
    I am in strict belief that there SHOULD be separation of computer time versus in classroom learning. There are many different crucial things lost when you plunk a kid in front of a computer: attention, focus, authority structure, memorization, and so forth. Particularly I have seen this in the work place when giving a presentation; capable adults jacking around with the PC instead of focusing on the talk. Innate respect for the setting is slipping. Make math's time math'stime, and make math+computer time something special.

    Second quote that stuck out for me:

    "Today's kids are totally different. The world they live in is different, and the more we can break down the difference between their life inside the classroom and outside the classroom, the better," he [Jeff Mao] said.
    Wow. I have an army of teachers that prayed I kept my inside/outside classroom behavior to a minimum (let's say the principal and I got to know each other really well). I am a staunch supporter of separation of duties - much like in the work place. I work from 8-5, and anything beyond that is my time. I am talking boundaries here people!

    I don't see what is wrong with a computer lab just being a computer lab, and a classroom being a classroom. If things become too blurred with computer technology then we are going to loose basics in the classroom: spelling, basic math by hand, structured thought, and a respect for authority and setting.

  14. Clamshell iBook...closest thing to kid-proof by MsGeek · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you're going to get a kid a laptop, I suggest you go the cheapest and most durable route possible.

    Voila: http://wegenermedia.com/ibk300bby.htm

    These are clamshell iBooks, which are basically designed for K-12 kids. They are made with that Fischer-Price ABS plastic for a reason: durability. Wegener Media refurbs iBooks. They are a bear to upgrade, so have Wegener stuff the iBook with all the RAM you can (512MB SO-DIMM, bringing the onboard RAM up to 544MB) and a nice fat hard drive. When I got mine upgraded by them, I got a Fujitsu 30GB drive.

    These won't run Tiger without something like X Post Facto to convince Tiger to install, so stick with Panther. Current patch level is 10.3.9. MS Office 2003 will not install on an 800x600 resolution, so look for Office v.X Student-Teacher which is very happy running on a Clamshell.

    This is not a good gaming lappie under X. ATI Rage Acceleration, which allowed these machines to play games like Unreal Tournament (1999) and Quake III Arena under Mac OS 9.x, was not carried over to X. There was a whole class-action lawsuit over this, and if you have an old-school iBook or a Beige G3 or a Wallstreet PowerBook you can get the cost of X refunded if you turn your disks in. However, in some cases, this inability to do 3D Acceleration might actually be a good thing.

    You should be able to get away with a fully loaded Clamshell iBook for about $500. Yeah, you can also get a new Dell Inspiron lappie for a little more. But that Dell will be toast after a few weeks of being toted around in a kid's backpack. They are flimsy even for adults. Give one to a kid and it's dead meat.

    --
    Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.