Living in Houston, I am reminded of how quickly kids today adapt to the digital environment.

Thinking back 20 years, it was almost unimaginable to see kids under 10 doing something on a laptop.

Having one computer at home was a big deal, and it was usually placed in a corner of the living room for the family to share.

The internet was so slow that waiting for a game to load often led to giving up out of frustration.

As a result, seeing young children search for information on their own felt more like a scene from a movie than reality.

However, the world I see now at 40 is completely different. Nowadays, it's rare to find a Houston home with only one laptop.

Parents have one for remote work, kids have one for homework, and there are often 2-3 laptops lying around as backups. When you add in tablets and smartphones, it's hard to count how many devices are in the house.

Schools, which used to rely solely on textbooks, now commonly see students sitting in class with Chromebooks or iPads.

Teachers upload what they write on the board to Google Classroom or online platforms, and students check that while solving problems.

Kids raised this way truly fit the term 'digital native.' Their typing speed and search skills are often better than those of adults.

While the parent generation still wonders, "Where do I set this up?" kids have already navigated through the menus to find solutions.

When I was young, I had to go to an internet café to play games, and friends would gather to exchange strategies from gaming magazines.

But today, kids can do everything from home with just one laptop.

Games, assignments, video production, and even meeting friends online are all possible.

Sometimes I wonder if this change is happening too quickly, but on the other hand, it feels natural that the times are evolving this way. The world is being reshaped around digital technology, and kids born into this era naturally adapt quickly.

However, from a parent's perspective, there are now many more things to worry about. In the past, it was hard to monitor computer usage, but now with so many laptops and phones, it's challenging to keep track of what they are doing.

What is clear is that kids are learning, playing, and growing in ways that were unimaginable 20 years ago, and that digital devices are always at the center of it all.

These changes are very apparent to me now. We have truly entered an era where kids are one step ahead of us.