Are toys for men or for boys?

With so many new "toys" around nowadays it’s hard to figure the aim of the toy market.

My 9 year old son Jack got a visit from Santa recently. Santa was very good to Jack – he got him an IPod and a PSP – the exact same as I got. I grew up playing games and totally love the PSP – it’s like the toy I dreamed of when I was younger, and now that I have my IPod I don’t know how I suffered the bus to work without it.

But how old do you get before you forget about kids toys and move on to big boys toys? It only seems like yesterday that I was shopping at kids stores for Jack. The last present I remember going into town to get him was one of those kids easel things for doing his paintings (one of these things: http://www.elc.co.uk/category-530). And now, only a couple of years later he’s playing with the same things as me.

Is he growing up too fast? Am I not growing up fast enough? Or is it just society that is moving so fast for us that age differences are starting to disappear into the past?

Can technology become the bridge over the generation-gap? Will the future bring the ultimate toy/gadget that will be the essential of everyone young and old? I’m continually astounded nowadays at some of the new products that are constantly hitting the market. Yesterday I was browsing online and came across the new Sony "walkman phone" (http://www.sonyericsson.com ). This is where I see it all going – the "everything in one" phone. The new walkman phone does more than just a phone – it’s also your IPod, and your PSP. The walkman phone has the same amount of memory as my IPod (2Gb) and can do everything my IPod does – it comes with a USB cable for downloading from your computer, and can hook up to play your MP3s in your car, just like the IPod. It also plays games – games of better quality than the games I grew up with!

I thought that the PSP was what I dreamed of having when I was a child, but it was actually one of these things – a gadget that is everything you want, and fits right into your pocket. What next can technology produce to astound me?

I think that Jack will be showing me the next thing that technology has to shock me. When I was a child there were adult things, and children things. But not today – now we have the same things; and Jack can beat me at any game when we link up our PSPs, and he also showed me how to put my music from my computer to my IPod. Maybe the question isn’t whether technology will bring kids into the same level of adults, but does it put children on a much higher plane to us??

Toys
An early learning toys category