A video on how kids use iPad is going viral on social media. As a parent, I have been through that struggle and done the sanitation routine with the gadget a million times.
If you put any object that is used by your child under a microscope, you’ll discover a colony of varying organisms living happily and harmoniously in the environment that the kid has created lovingly. The question isn’t what will you find on the surface. It is what you wouldn’t. Textures and substances sticking to its surface that I cannot define and do not even want to know about. This stage is called 'voluntary obliviousness in parenting' (terminology by yours sincerely). When you simply clean a surface without daring to ask your child the constituents of the grime sticking to it.
Recently, I came across this hilarious video on Twitter, where a chap imitates how kids use an iPad. I have to say, he got the posture, the eating habits, and even the wiping habits spot on. I sent it to a colleague of mine and she told me she sanitises the screen of her gadget twice a week for exactly this reason. Clearly, she has experienced the horror of absentmindedly picking up an iPad and swiping a clean finger across it, to have gluggy, smushy things latch on to her finger.
My mother winces involuntarily, every time my daughter casually lifts our iPad in one hand, without a care in the world: How kids use iPad.
Among the many things that are the recipients of our cleaning drive on a regular basis, iPad is one. Others being television remote controls, cushions, handles of all sorts in the household (yup, even that draw you think your child is too short to reach).
However, cleaning your iPad screen is not only necessary for your personal hygiene, it is important for your child’s health as well. Repeatedly touching a surface with their pudgy fingers, which then land in their mouth, ear, nose, etc, is like giving all kinds of bugs a red carpet welcome.
Another thing that the video gets right is how children hold expensive gadgets. My mother winces involuntarily, every time my daughter casually lifts our iPad in one hand, without a care in the world. I on the other hand would have received a big lecture on not valuing my parents' money, had I given this sort of treatment to a tumbler from the “fancy cutlery” cabinet. But since this is the beloved granddaughter that we are talking about, she gets away with just a polite request to be careful.
The short viral video has got some hilarious responses, with people sharing videos of their kids watching iPad in weird positions or rubbing grimy little hands all over it. “Why do they stand like that?” one person asks. I have been asking the same question for the past many years. I have a very cute picture of my daughter going a split at the age of two while she watches rhymes on my laptop.
I guess gadgets are a part of our memories now, as much as they are a part of our day-to-day life. Our iPad, smartphones etc., will get outdated in the coming decade or so, but we will have these memories to always look back and laugh at. Perhaps, in the same way, our parents remember us being glued to the TV or manhandling the radio or clock during our childhood.
Image Credit: Unsplash
The views expressed are the author's own.
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