[HeyLaughingBoy]

This!

My son has grown up in a house of readers and loves to read. He consistently tests above grade level, doesn't have his own computer (allowed to use my wife's occasionally) or TV (only one working TV in the house). Meanwhile, his friend down the street who is a year older and has his own laptop computer, TV, XBox, Nintendo DS, etc. spends his summers in remedial reading classes.

[alexgartrell]

Growing up in a house of readers undoubtedly gave me a massive head start on all of my peers, but I also had my own laptop [1], TV, N64 (it was the 90's), and gameboy and did far above my grade level on reading tests.

If you feel good about not letting your kid mess with that stuff, more power to you, but don't confuse correlation with causation.

[1] Actually I had my first computer, running MS-DOS, well before I could read. That was kind of an exercise in futility though. I did get a laptop later on (elementary school) and I learned and practiced writing HTML on it.

[ryanhuff]

I don't think he intended to imply a correlation. But people do seem to use video games and television as a crutch to keep kids entertained at the expense of more enriching activities.

[robryan]

I think it all depends on if the kid is happy with occasional computer and TV use. Personally I think I would give my kid easy access to the electronic devices they want. If they want to do a lot of reading that's great and certainly encouraging, but there are more paths to achieve similar intellectual curiosity than just reading, computers in general, programming, games, certain TV shows, movies and documentaries.

[pavel_lishin]

My first computer access was to a DOS machine. I don't think it had any effect on my reading skills, since at the time I didn't actually speak English.