Otherwise, while your strategy worked when I was a kid -- back in the DOS/early Windows days we had to actually figure out how stuff really worked out of necessity, and often without help from the Internet because we weren't online yet -- those days are gone. The expectations of easiness are too high now, and kids would just get frustrated and bitch about wanting to go back to a "just works" tablet or phone instead. They really need some additional killer feature to be excited about, that they can't get with a generic device running a web browser, in order to be motivated to explore.

My kids have Raspberry Pi 400s but are too young to get into reading the guide book that came with them yet, so even under (what I consider to be) those ideal circumstances they mostly ignore all the local software and just try to play the web-based games they found out about from school. 😕

In other words, even a Raspberry Pi isn't a guarantee of fostering real computer literacy, but I still think it gives the best chance (better than a generic old PC, and way better than a consumption-oriented tablet/phone).

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Don't take this the wrong way but sound like a grumpy old millennial.

You don't need DOS or a Raspberry pi to learn tech. What you need is the right mindset and a desire to tinker. If your kid is "bitching" they simply don't care to learn about tech. Don't force it down their throat as that is not going to end well.

They are interested they will learn by simply tinkering and playing around. You should avoid giving them guidance as that doesn't teach critical thinking. Let them figure out how to do whatever. It might be improving the frame rate in Minecraft or it could be doing some sort of programming project. It could even end up being desktop customization or digital art.

I also think it is perfectly reasonable to tinker with a mobile device or tablet. You can do all sorts of things especially with some of the apps from F-droid such as Termux.