Mark Zuckerberg Believes You Should Let You Children Play Video Games
According to a Q&A today, Mark Zuckerberg would not be where he is today without the positive influence of video games. In a programming origin story, Zuckerberg spent a New York winter huddled up inside building a snowball-fight video game in an effort to enjoy the weather that his sisters would not play in.
Despite it being a 'terrible game', it's where Zuckerberg got his start.
"I do think this dynamic around kids growing up, building games and playing games, is an important one because I think this is how a lot of kids get into programming. I definitely would not have gotten into programming if I had not played games as a kid."
"Most of the engineers I know, who are some of the best engineers in the world, are self-taught. We need to work on this to get more exposure out to people."
Zuckerberg added, "letting [children] play around with stuff is one of the best things you can do."
Speaking on 'playing around with stuff', Zuckerberg also commented on the use of augmented reality technology but pushed aside HoloLens competition rumours, citing the cost as a dramatic factor; "It's going to take five, seven, 10, maybe 12 years to build that out, to have something that really works and is cheap enough for everyone around the world to use."
Microsoft's HoloLens, on the other hand, will have a developer's kit available Q3 2015.