Let’s Let the Kids Get On the Information Superhighway

As leaders of the electronic communications industry, politicians and media pundits conjure images of the coming information superhighway, the only people left out of all this talk are those most likely to be its first travelers--kids.

As tomorrow’s users of the new technology, kids are already telling us they won’t be satisfied with programming like “Gilligan’s Island” on demand and a bunch of souped-up shopping channels. They are asking us for more. And it is time that we listen.

This isn’t the first time business leaders have overlooked the needs of kids in charting the course of technological change. The $7-billion video game industry was spawned by kids’ curiosity, sense of self-discovery and instinctive grasp of electronic technology. But the industry has ignored those very attributes in manufacturing and marketing their products. The result has been a steady stream of video games, some very profitable, that quickly settled on delivering G-rated violence and a mindless way to pass the time.

By marketing to the lowest common denominator, they and other manufacturers have failed to tap the vast potential that interactivity holds. Interactive media enables kids to do more things--access information, communicate and play--in ways that never existed before.

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Most companies have taken little, if any, advantage of opportunities to give kids interactive technology that empowers them to explore their world through entertainment and education in an active and creative way.

In experiments conducted by Nickelodeon and other companies, kids have already demonstrated their ability to push the use of television to its technological limits. We call these “dirt roads tests,” and they indicate that the true programming breakthroughs that surface in the next decade are likely to come from kids. They need plenty of guidance and encouragement from creative adults whose goals are to shape programs that meet kids’ emotional and psychological needs and take advantage of the way kids think and play.

We should also learn from other interactive pioneers who have made “kid input” a key part of their programs. The Hueneme School District, a school system in Oxnard, has drawn on such input in developing a phenomenally successful CD-ROM-based curriculum. Shop classes, for example, have turned into high-tech laboratories where boys and girls design animation and build robots, cars and buildings with computers.

Likewise, Hueneme’s computer-aided performance gains in science, math, literature and language have been remarkable. Since 1984, when they first introduced technology into the classroom, Hueneme students’ statewide test scores have increased from below the 40th percentile to the 92nd percentile. Based on the experience at Hueneme, it is clear that interactivity could have a major impact on education--both in the classroom and at home.

Taking a lesson from the shortcomings of the video game industry, America’s corporate leaders need to aim higher. They need to listen closely to consumers in developing software and programming that not only entertains, but also informs and enlightens. And they need to start by talking to kids, because they will play a critical role in our interactive future.

Unlike adults, kids have little vested interest in the past and are not creatures of habit. They are more inventive and more willing to accept change than their elder counterparts.

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What this means is that we need to spend a little less time arguing about who will pay for the new technology and a little more time talking about the programming it will carry. As anyone who has bought a personal computer knows, the hardware is just a starter; it is the software that makes magic things happen.

Let’s ask consumers--the kids in particular--what they prefer to see and how they want to interact with the new technology as it develops.

If we fail to learn from our mistakes by continuing to allow bottom-line concerns to take precedence over human needs, the information superhighway will surely not fulfill its potential. But if we take a different path, consumers may lead us to unimagined and wondrous possibilities.