Pause for the annual holiday season hand-wringing: our kids are materialistic! But the more troubling part this year is that they don't just want the coolest bikes and the giggleinest Elmos, they want electronics, just like Mom & Dad.
A piece from yesterday's New York Times points out that Amazon's Hottest Toys of 2007 list is loaded with high-tech gadgets like MP3 players, digital cameras, and mini computers. It then pads that observation with anecdotes from parents, tut-tutting from nervous pediatricians, and menacing sound bytes from toy flacks. The gist: our kids want high-tech toys, they won't settle for rounded, plastic facsimiles of the real thing, and they're all going to be fat, lazy, selfish, and get carpal tunnel syndrome because all they do is stare at screens and peck at keyboards.
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