A photo of Arius taking a selfie, then the selfie he took.
My 5-year-old son Arius was digging through some drawers recently and found my old Sony CyberShot DSC-W110. Decent for photos and some video but got outmoded. Did it still work? Could the battery still charge? Yes and yes.
He showed considerable interest in it right away, and started to learn how to use it off what I could remember and his own trial and error. I was happy to see him fascinated with it and making a creative outlet of it. Hadn’t used it in several years, even before selifes were a thing (the good ol’ days) but he somehow figured out how to take seflies with it. And use the timer. Clever kid.
Arius figured out how to set a timer and take a selfie. I took hundreds, maybe thousands of photos on this camera and never learned how.
Moreover, I just found the experiment interesting: What does a 5-year-old find interesting exactly? His dad. The family cat. His surroundings. They aren’t the most technically advanced, although something about the spooky lighting in some of them is compelling.
Other than a nice diversion, it also reminded me about the importance of appreciating others’ perspectives. What I might find as mundane, Arius sees as fascinating. Things I think of as old can appear new to him. Whatever our line of work, it’s a reminder that our perspective, our knowledge or our point of view is not the same as our customers or collaborators or even our competitors! It’s good to see how somebody else views the world once in a while.
InsideTimsHead 