Why are our kids smarter? Could it be due to proliferation of remote controls?

I am one of those guys who could not bring himself up to buying an expensive remote to aggregate all the remote controls he has around the house.  Just counted, 7 of those remotes (Plasma TV, DVR, cable box, DVD player, receiver, CD player) are used on a daily basis and majority of them are required even to accomplish a basic objective like watching a DVD.  

Hindsight, this was a blessing in disguise and $200 wisely not spent for another gadget.

My 4-year-old daughter has already figured out how to navigate through complex inputs and outputs to watch her favorite on demand shows, or preview our selected DVR recordings, or dance to her favorite tunes on the CD player.  The surprising thing is that she had no coaching (as I am opposed to her watching TV for more than 1/2 hr a day) as she pursued her dreams of independence for leveraging all the entertainment technologies around the house.  What makes this even more interesting is that she figured this whole complexity out before she turned 3 1/2 and not being able to read a word on her own.  Now she can easily switch the inputs into the plasma TV from HDMI to Component 1 or AV1 or change the receiver input from Video 1 to CD or AUX, or change the cable remote functionality from TV to Cable or vice versa. 

I am not trying to imply that my daughter is a genius - most her friends at her school are the same way.  In contrast to my daughter, my mother - who carries similar genes to my daughter, at least a quarter of the way and a rocket scientist in her own field of biochemistry - still does not get the idea that to switch from the DVD player to the DVR, she needs to change the video input on the Plasma from Component 1 to HDMI input.  For what I have observed, the only real difference is that my mother was born into a world with no remotes.

Now, I am a total believer that this added complexity increases the IQ levels of the new generation, and I will continue to support my daughter’s education by buying new gadgets that make life increasingly tough for basic tasks (e.g., PC) and refusing to buy ones that simplify life (Apple).

I will likely postpone my plans to get rid of everything non-Apple around the house as everything works without requiring much brainpower.  Maybe for my daughter’s benefit, I should ask her to do the next round of restoring the system on my PC which is required every couple of months so that the machine functions. 

Please, Steve Jobs - or other geniuses at Apple -, I beg you to not make life easier for us with your cool and intuitive gadgets, otherwise we will all be putting at risk the new generations' smarts.

Hasan Yardimci