Is babysitting children with computer entertainment "a bit... Kerry Katona"?

"There's this lingering suspicion that any and all “electronic entertainments”... are a bit ... chavvy. A bit ... Kerry Katona."

I think I'm in love with Caitlin Moran. It's funny, because as a barely adult late night TV presenter and journalist haunting my music adolescence I found her precocious and irritating. Possibly because I was... precocious and irritating. But we've both grown up, she's has kids and now she's provided me with a great fifteen minutes' entertainment and something to write about. Win.

Among chat about cyberpenguins, she touches on the subject of if it's okay to let children be babysat by the computer. Is it not a bit "chavvy", she asks? Arguing that most child-based social networks (as in the case of the ones involving snuffling around looking for fish) are probably perfectly safe, this nevertheless raises all sorts of worries in people's minds. Not just for parents and teachers, either; there are actually some people out there who have concern for the next generation without having anything directly to do with it (I know! Weird).

“Whatever happened to playing with your real friends instead of ones in 2D?” one mother asked. Presumably this playing would be with wooden toys, out in the street, with jumpers for goalposts, etc.

Well, this all presupposes that your child has any friends and I, for one, find that quite offensive.

As you can grasp, Caitlin argues that it's not all doom and gloom, and I agree with her. There are caveats, and I've complained long and loud about the exploitative direction social networking sites for kids are going in; perhaps I particularly picked on Barbie Girls because I can't stand pink (yes, I know).

I still think that if you can have a healthy limit on the nerdy pursuits and mix them up with more active and creative pasttimes, your children will be as well-balanced as any. Then again, I probably think that because I have no children and no desperate need for a break from entertaining them. But I have been a teacher and worked in educational software; that plus what I do for a living now means some sympathy for the excitement and learning technology can inspire.

Besides which, I had a Gameboy and a NES, but most of the reason I was lazy and indolent is because I had a book in my hand. Why is that okay? Well, because it's considered academic, but I wasn't (always) reading classics and great works of literature. Sometimes it was just junky yet enjoyable fiction. So if we're going to lay into gadgetry, we should probably lay into reading as well, I've come to realise, and I'm not going to do that because I firmly believe that there are really, honestly, the world would be a better place if more people spent time at home with their head in a good book. For a start, it would mean less traffic so I could actually get to places on time.

My generation is the technological middle ground, and as a result we can't decide whether it's bad for you or not. We did have computers in school, but it was MS DOS when I was 10. The first computer program I played was Logo. I remember getting a Windows 95 upgrade for my first computer when I was 15, and taking a black and white dot matrix screen Apple laptop to university that could have eaten 15 MacBook Airs and had room for afters.

My 1989 Gameboy still works, despite the screen peeling away; my older sister still plays the game of Tetris which came with it. I remember the joy that came from having my very own hand held games console! Imagine! So it would feel churlish and also educationally unsound to deny the next generation the joys of things more complex and amazing than this at a younger age. Sure, they might not appreciate it as much, but they're going to have to grasp these concepts and use this stuff at a greater level of complexity than I ever have.

I've decided, I need to lighten up. Okay, little girlies, you can have your Barbie Girls, and all the pink crap that comes with it. But the deal is, you have to grow up to be Belinda Gates and Svetlana Jobs. Done?

Alexandra Roumbas is Deputy Editor of Shiny Shiny. She only just got herself a Nintendo DS and if she's allowed to while away the hours flinging catapults and chopping imaginary leeks, then her future children should be.