Kids Today: More 3-Year-Olds Can Play Computer Games Than Ride a Bike

These days, you don’t really have to ask kids to get off your lawn. Chances are, they have no interest in being on your lawn in the first place and are playing computer games inside instead of wreaking havoc on your manicured grass. According to a new study by Internet security firm AVG, today’s kids are learning computer skills long before they are learning life skills.

After polling 2,200 mothers with Internet access across the U.S., Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, AVG discovered some interesting trends about how young kids use the Internet:[list type=”BW”]

• More young children know how to play a computer game (58%) than swim (20%) or ride a bike (52%)
• 28% of young children can make a mobile phone call, but only 20% know to dial 911 in case of an emergency
• 69% of children aged 2-5 can operate a computer mouse, but only 11% can tie their own shoelaces
• 19% of two- to five-year-olds can play smartphone games – twice as many as can tie their shoelaces [/list]

While AVG calls tying shoelaces and riding bikes “life skills,” one could probably argue that those are just regular skills kids learn as they grow up.

While these statistics look somewhat shocking at first, though, does it really come as a surprise that two-year-olds are able to play “basic” computer games? Playing a computer game that is designed for little kids, after all – and I assume the researchers aren’t talking about playing Call of Duty here – doesn’t really take a lot of skill (and let’s face it, mothers are easily impressed by their kids’ abilities). Riding a bike, on the other hand, takes a lot more skill than just basic hand-eye coordination.