Sure, new generations interact with media differently. But isn't this article reading way too much into a 4 year old liking to touch things and not having patience? I'm sure I also threw a tantrum every time commercials interrupted my favorite tv shows. (Still do, occasionally.)
I can definitely relate to the death of linear TV. I don't often watch TV. But now I can't bare normal TV because of all the damn breaks that completely destroy the atmosphere or the show I was watching to sell me stuff I don't want.
It's very interesting hearing about young kids trying to interact with "old media" like they would an iPhone or iPad. Swiping a billboard, tapping a magazine cover. To me, these aren't obvious ways to interact with the things I've gotten used to all my life.
Touchscreens bring people closer to technology, but they also separate people from understanding technology. It's great that we have a whole generation of people with iphones, but we also have a whole generation of people who think that if it isn't in the app store, it can't be done, who crack the glass on their iphone and throw the whole thing into the garbage.<p>A touchscreen may give you a more organic connection to technology, but someone with a mouse is an order of magnitude faster at doing almost anything, and someone with a CLI is an order of magnitude faster still at complex tasks. Anyone who used PDAs for years before their first smartphone can tell you about the jarring sense of debilitation that comes when you go from using a stylus to using a finger.<p>As for voice recognition, its incompetence makes it too dangerous for me to use, and probably will for a long time. My phone calling/texting the wrong person at the wrong time is more than capable of ruining someone's life. I'm sure the same goes for many other people. It's like telling a five year old to retrieve a handgun. Behaving properly 98% of the time is not good enough by a long shot.