Roving Sign posted:Pine Creek Railroad posted:Gentlemen,
My point was that all the different technology should still be available from both MTH and Lionel, as RJR indicated how many kids in a 6th grade class today actually have an O Gauge Train. I go one further and ask how many have an O Gauge Train that is not a hand me down from Dad & Mom. Again cost can be a real big factor on what is being purchased as a child's play toy. However mobile phones are costly today and every kid seems to have one.
IMO letting a young child have a mobile phone is a foolish and costly error by the parents, and of course the schools letting kids bring mobile phones into school with them is completely insane, unless that child has a true medical problem. It feeds the drug culture in our schools, and furthers the cheating on exams via texting.
PCRR/Dave
Nobody's suggesting you go out a get a cell contract for a kid to do this.
And phones are cheap - for this application.
You just want the phone/tablet device, and the app - which in most cases...is not connected to the internet while running trains.
The phone/tablet should be dedicated to running trains and be considered part of your train gear - and that's where it stays.
Agreed.
I have an old phone (no longer connected to any cell provider) and two tablets that i can run the layout with. These three devices with a WIU cost me less than $200. Three DCS remotes would cost me a lot more.
Texting? what's that? Texting is slow and boring, hello "Snap-chat".
I know where Dave is going with this, I too think it is a concern of how addicted to technology is getting to kids (and some adults). In fact there is petition floating around to proposition these tech companies to curtail their behavior of making these devices so addictive to kids. Almost like cigarettes, scary. But pulling a prohibition style reverse on tech is not the way to solve the problem. It boils down to some basic parenting and setting limits. Tech is okay in moderation and parents need to regulate this. Using a tablet to run a train set is far more interactive than using that tablet to play a game for hours on end.
My kids can use the tablets for operating trains, and that's about all those tablets can do. They don't have internet access, and the trains apps are the only usable apps installed on them.
