The plan is simple: I want to give my next generation an active point of view on technology by walking them backwards through it. Less throwing them in the deep end, more handing them the clay before the code.

I’ve had a light play with this plan - nothing forced, nothing structured. Just reaching for the older option whenever the moment naturally comes around. So, when the kids were after some Mario, instead of streaming it I put the DVD on. We dug into the DVD extras (all 2 of them) - and we had a little go on Super Mario All-Stars on the side.

But this week, a disappointing trip to the cinema for Toy Story 5, which I’d been hoping would be the nice support for the DVD/SNES Mario experience… but ended up not working with the Rabbit Hole ← Time Machine message at all, which was a shame.

So consider this the first field report.

First, the good news: the casual Mario experience was fun

Like I said, I’m not forcing any of this. We’re at “Step 0.1”… just easing the odd bit of physical media in when the moment allows.

For something so small and low-key... The Mario DVD hit hard, the DVD menu, the scene selection and the couple of extras that were on the disc were enjoyed by all.

But what surprised me - or rather, that the kids never noticed…

They didn’t clock that the resolution was nowhere near Netflix. They didn’t notice that the sound was, frankly, rough - it genuinely surprised me how bad “Dolby Digital 5.1” could sound off that disc. None of it registered with them.

What registered was that their imagination caught fire.

The gap is the feature

Here’s the idea, and it runs under everything that follows.

When you’re served a complete, photoreal 4K 3D world, everything is already filled in for you. Every blade of grass, every reflection, every sub-frequency of sound. There’s nothing left for you to do. You become, as the researchers put it, a “guided observer.”

But a rougher, lower-fidelity thing - a chunky 2D world, a worn DVD picture, a crackly disc - leaves gaps. And the brain can’t stand a gap. It rushes in to fill it.

This isn’t a hunch. It’s the same principle running under three completely different fields.

Comics call it closure. Scott McCloud’s whole theory in Understanding Comics is that the empty space between panels - the “gutter” - is where the reader’s imagination does the work. The artist draws the axe raised. The reader is the one who makes the blow land. As McCloud puts it, nothing exists in the gutter except what the reader chooses to put there.

Reading calls it gap-filling. Literary theorist Wolfgang Iser argued that a text is full of deliberate blanks. A book says “a dark, drafty hallway,” and you build the temperature, the light, the dread. No two readers ever picture the same one. You’re not a consumer; you’re a co-author.

Neuroscience has even measured it. A 2023 University of York study, led by Dr. Sebastian Suggate, tested more than 200 young adults and found that people had measurably weaker visual imagination right after watching film clips than after reading - a temporary dip lasting around 25 seconds. The researchers’ point is that reading forces the brain to construct imagery, while film hands it over ready-made. Hand the brain finished images for long enough, and the imagination muscle starts to soften from disuse. To be clear though as a dyslexic kid, I don’t agree with the book Vs film argument. I think it is just about using a medium in the best way for different brains and again telling a story that allows for imaginative leaps.

There’s even research on kids specifically. Give them a polished, finished-looking toy or screen and they go passive - they admire the colours, the polish, the literal function. Give them something rough and visibly unfinished - a cardboard box, a 2D sprite, a low-fi sketch - and they invent. They build stories onto it, precisely because it isn’t done yet and there’s room left to do it. This goes back to the first post and Jude’s Clay and the Code.

That’s exactly what I watched happen with a rough Mario DVD. The low fidelity wasn’t a flaw the kids tolerated. It was the door that let them in. Along with some of the other frictions in the media, setting up the film on the PS3, the film menu etc.

The gap is not a defect of old media. The gap is the feature. Hold that thought - because it’s also the lens I watched Toy Story 5 through.

And then there was Toy Story 5

So a few weeks later, with that Mario result still fresh in my mind, I had high hopes for Toy Story 5. On paper it should have been a gift to this project: a film literally about toys versus tech, physical play versus the screen.

I was disappointed.

The film felt functional.

There was no magic to fire.

Don’t get me wrong. For very short moments, the message was lovely. The movie keeps saying that play just isn’t the same with tech, and when it lets that breathe, it’s nice.

But a Toy Story film can’t just say that. It has to feel like magic, the way Toy Story felt in 1995.

Adults having fun vs. adults freaking out

Here’s the cleanest way I can put it.

The films that lit a roaring fire in me as a kid, and then made me feel like a kid again as an adult = Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc. felt like you were watching a room full of adults having completely unhinged, imaginative fun. That joy was contagious. You could feel it leaking out of the screen. And crucially, they left space for you.

Toy Story 5 didn’t show me that. It showed me a room full of adults freaking out about screens.

I kept waiting for it to cut loose, to show some genuinely mad imagination beyond Lilypad. Instead, a big chunk of the emotional weight goes into a wedding imagination demonstration. Kids have more in them than that. And so does Pixar.

The whole film felt less like a story for children and more like a reminder aimed at parents. Which is telling, because the night out reminded me that play is already strong in kids. Mine were more captivated by the board games in the cinema reception than by the film itself.

Even the Taylor Swift song - and we are all fans - hit no imaginative chord… No magically replays when we got home.

You should feel the fun

It is the after effect that really led me to writing this.

When the credits rolled, there was nothing. No re-enacting a scene in the car. No “what if our toys did that when we left.” No arguing over who’d be which character. Although one of my kids did say “I want that pink camera”. My kids had wanted to leave halfway through - and when it ended, they just made one comment and then nothing else was mentioned… it was all left in cinema screen 5. Zero follow-up. And honestly? Same for me. I walked out feeling oddly empty with a problem thrown at me I already knew was a problem.

The films that lit me up as a kid and led to follow-up never ended when the film ended. They spilled out. They became play in the bedroom for weeks. The gap they left was so big you had to keep filling it.

Toy Story 5 left no gap. We walked out, and that was that.

I think it’s a process problem.

The process was the problem

There’s a diagram in Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc.

There is a clean, straight arrow, marching neatly to a completed plan.

Then there is a more open curious journey towards the plan (when rabbit holes are welcomed). A scribble that doubles back on itself, gets lost, climbs, falls, wanders - that is where true value is unlocked.

Catmull’s whole point is that the magic comes from curiosity. Pixar films don’t start as finished messages. They start as a “what if,” and then a room of people spend years discovering what the film is actually about. The plan is just the excuse to start wandering. The good stuff is found, not scheduled.

Early ideas are necessarily ugly, incomplete and wrong. The job isn’t to execute them perfectly. The job is to improve them through discovery.

You can really feel the difference in the final film. A film that was genuinely discovered leaves gaps, because even the people making it were finding their way. A film that just executed its plan fills everything in, because there was nothing left to discover. It hands you the thesis the same way bad media hands you every pixel.

That’s exactly what I felt. Toy Story 5 had no real feeling. The straight line. The plan, delivered on time… The most expensive Toy Story film of all time - delivered.

What the great ones discovered

Look at what the earlier films started as - and what they became:

Every film in that top group started with a “what if” and then went on a two-year scribble to find its soul. None of them set out to lecture you about their premise. The premise was the doorway, not the destination.

Toy Story 5 mostly walked through the doorway and then stayed in it - pointing at it, telling you about doorways. The one time it did wander off (Bonnie and Blaze) you can feel the difference instantly. That moment breathes. It’s the rest of the film that stays put.

We know what magic looks like

What really exposed Toy Story 5 for me happened before Toy Story 5 even got into the swing of things. The opening of Toy Story 5 was just an on the nose reference back the best scene of Toy Story 2 - Watch below for all the original feels.

Then think about the opening of Toy Story. Randy Newman’s “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” The cloud wallpaper. The slow pan down into Andy’s room, into a play scenario, into the birthday setup. Three minutes. No dialogue doing the heavy lifting. Just pure magic.

Those two clips are better than anything Toy Story 5 sets up in its entire runtime - I mean it is a high bar but still.

And this is the part that ties in with my main point. Toy Story was the first ever feature-length film made entirely with computer-generated imagery. It was, at the time, the most radical piece of screen technology on the planet. A genuine revolution.

But the tech was never the point. You don’t watch that opening and think about polygons and render farms. You think about being a kid in your room with your toys. The technology was completely invisible. It didn’t show off, it didn’t lecture, it didn’t make itself the subject. It just quietly enabled the story. It got out of the way of the magic.

AND Toy Story (1995) was made by a near-bankrupt studio with a fraction of the tools, a render farm held together with hope, and a tiny team who didn’t even know if the thing would work. Toy Story 5 is the most expensive, most resourced, most technically capable film Pixar has ever made. Every constraint that boxed in the original is gone.

Imagination doesn’t run on resources. More render power, more budget, more polish - none of it generates wonder, Steve Jobs realised that. Wonder comes from the wandering, from a room of people chasing a “what if” until they find something true.

Toy Story 5 makes technology the literal subject - Lilypad, screens, tech versus toys.

The film that was the magic of technology never directly talked about it. The film that directly talked about technology forgot to be magic.

Tech, at its best, is the render farm behind the cloud wallpaper. Invisible, in service of the story, enabling play rather than being the subject of it. The moment it becomes the subject - the moment it starts pointing at itself - you’ve lost the room. You’ve stopped showing and started telling. As Jessie says to ‘Smarty Pants’: “That wasn't play, it was just a game."

That’s the exact line I want my kids to feel in their bones. Not “tech is bad,” but “tech is just a game, it’s not in and of itself play, it needs to disappear and fuel human imagination.” A game cartridge that just works and gets out of the way (no Downloadable Content required). A worn VHS that asks nothing of you but to press play and to feel the story.

This is why I’m playing offence, not defence

The Rabbit Hole ← Time Machine was never about taking tech down a peg. It’s not a “versus.” It’s not about telling anyone that screens are bad.

It’s just about showing. That next to real imagination, next to a random rambling conversation, next to unexpected out-of-the-box magic, the screen passively pulling you in is nothing. Zero by comparison.

Toy Story 5, for all its talk, was a film playing defence. A fully-resolved reminder of what we stand to lose, with no gap left for the viewer to fill. The straight-line plan, delivered on time.

But that’s not the game. Don’t play defence. Play offence - Fight - wander, fall down rabbit holes and have fun out loud, and leave the door open behind you.

I’m confident an OG Nintendo can be shown to be more magical than modern Mario. Not by saying so, but by doing it. A chaotic round of Mario Party - no online, no accounts, just a room of people laughing. That’s offence. That’s the contagious joy, and it’s full of gaps, because half the fun is the stuff happening in the room around the screen.

Less 4K. More 2D and gap-filling. Less perfect resolution, more space for the imagination to do the work. I’m not being a snob about pixels. I’m trying to keep the door open, so the kids can be the co-author and not just the audience.

The one thing I loved, and wish they’d gone further with

To be fair, there was a real gem in Toy Story 5 - the one moment when it felt like the film actually wandered: the message about finding your people, your fellow weird, and being comfortable enough to let it out. Bonnie and Blaze.

I loved that, and I think so much more could have been made of it. More weirdness. More expressiveness. Because that’s not just a kids’ message. It’s an adult one too.

That “boring middle” is exactly where tech tends to drag us. Frictionless, optimised, algorithmically averaged-out - the ultimate everything-filled-in-for-you. The antidote is weirdness and expression, the willingness to leave a gap and let something strange grow in it. And again, the only way to teach that is to show it, not tell it.

Where this leaves the curriculum

So, the update.

This trip didn’t shake the plan. It gave it a backbone. The Time Machine isn’t really about media formats at all. It’s about experience, effort. It’s about content that doesn’t push a tidy, fully-resolved message at you, but pulls you in and leaves a gap big enough for an imagination to climb through.

That’s the through-line under every step of the curriculum, I now realise. Vinyl crackle, VHS glitch, 2D sprites, T9 text on a Nokia. They’re all gappy. They all make you meet them halfway. And whatever you build to meet them is yours.

So when the time’s right, we won’t be chasing the flashiest thing. We’ll likely sit down with Toy Story on VHS, on a CRT. Or something like it.

This was never about old. It was about gaps.

That’s the fire I want to light. Not by reminding anyone what they’re losing.

By leaving a gap, and showing them what they can fill it with.

As a Strategist working deep in the trenches of tech x AI, and as a father to five-year-old twins, I understand the fear. The online world can be hostile, intrusive, and addictive.

However, the debate currently feels stuck in a binary. For some reason, we find it hard to hold two truths from both sides of a discussion at the same time - which, in a lot of cases in this world, leads to more complex problems as opposed to solutions.

One side may argue that removing access altogether is the silver bullet. The other side argues that we don’t need bans if we just “educate kids properly.”

My take? You need both.

Banning access without education just delays the car crash until they turn 16. But education without safeguards is like teaching a kid to swim in a shark tank (the shark being a trillion $ megalodon).

We don’t teach road safety by banning roads forever. But we also don’t teach it by blindfolding kids until they turn 16 and then pushing them into rush hour traffic. We have speed limits (regulation) and driving lessons (education).

There are already great initiatives trying to bridge this gap. EE PhoneSmart, for example - a project from a past client of mine - is designed specifically to educate kids and parents before that first phone is handed over. It treats the phone like a vehicle that requires a license to operate. That is the kind of thinking we need more of.

I recently engaged in a debate regarding this “coddling vs. exposure” dilemma. My argument is simple: We need strict guardrails on a societal level, but within our homes, we must change how we expose children to tech.

We need to stop treating technology as a single monolith and start treating it as a history lesson.

The “Vodka Shot” Theory

If you haven’t read Jonathan Haidt’s work - whether it’s his book The Anxious Generation or even just following his Instagram account - it is worth the deep dive.

The data is increasingly clear, and Haidt’s work highlights a stark reality: There is currently no research that supports giving an under 16-year-old a smartphone with unrestricted access to social media apps.

When we hand a child a device loaded with TikTok or infinite-scroll gaming, we aren’t giving them a tool; we are giving them a dopamine pump. It is passive consumption at its most aggressive.

I wouldn’t worry about letting my children have a sip of wine at the dinner table when they are older. But I wouldn’t line up vodka shots for them as their first experience with alcohol.

Short-form, algorithmic social media is the digital equivalent of those vodka shots. It hits too hard, too fast, and without any appreciation for the craft or the consequences.

This is why we need the “Both” approach. We need the regulation (the ban) to stop the vodka shots being served to children. But we need the education to teach them how to appreciate the wine.

Screens Are Not the Enemy (The Zombie Factor)

I want to be clear: This is in no way a lecture to parents on being “screen-free.”

In fact, I am sure my kids watch more TV than many of their peers. I am not hiding screens from them. But we need to distinguish between Storytelling and Zombification.

When my kids watch an hour-long pantomime on CBeebies, or watch Lillefinger on Minisjang (the Danish public broadcaster), the experience is active. You can see them engaging with the plot, singing the songs, and appreciating the strangeness and the craft of the production.

Compare that to the mindless, algorithmic churn of YouTube Kids - channels like Kids Diana Show (nothing against them personally it’s just their type of content is mindless). There is no craft. There is no story. It is just colour, noise, and editing that triggers a trance state.

Jonathan Haidt breaks this down perfectly in one of his Instagram posts. He argues we must distinguish between:

1. Good Screen Time: “Story Time”

• What it is: Watching movies or long-form stories (30+ minutes) on a TV.

• Why it’s good: Humans are natural storytellers. Long-form narratives teach morality, present ethical dilemmas, and offer “powerful vicarious learning.” It is usually done socially (with family) and requires sustained attention.

2. Bad Screen Time: “Fragmenting Time”

• What it is: Using a personal device to scroll through short content.

• Why it’s bad: It lacks narrative. It encourages a constant search for the “most interesting thing,” training the brain to expect a new dopamine hit every 15 seconds.

The Long-Term Consequence: Haidt warns that if children spend hours a day on “fragmenting time,” they are training their brains to maximise interest at every second. This makes normal, slower-paced activities - like sitting in a classroom or having a conversation - feel “extremely painful” because they aren’t hyper-stimulating.

My “Time Machine” is designed to teach them to love the Story, so they don’t get addicted to the Fragment.

The Curiosity Crisis (Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up)

In my day job, I am obsessed with Mitch Resnick’s “Lifelong Kindergarten” approach from the MIT Media Lab.

I spend a lot of time working top-down with adults, clients and partners - trying to re-ignite curiosity. To unlearn the rigid structures they are used to and use AI in a playful, unstructured, explorative way.

But with our kids, we have a chance to work bottom-up.

In this week’s podcast, Jude Pullen spoke about the concept of “Incurable Curiosity.” That is the goal.

My fear is that if we give kids access to passive, short-term dopamine hits too early, we are curing their curiosity before it even has a chance to set. If the algorithm gives you what you want before you’ve even asked a question, the curiosity muscle atrophies.

We need technology to be an enabler of curiosity, not a blocker. We want them to ask “How does this work?” not just “What is next?”

The Rabbit Hole Approach: Clay to Code

This is why I loved speaking with Jude Pullen on The Rabbit Hole Experience. Jude sits at the intersection of high-tech engineering (working with NVIDIA) and tactile reality.

We discussed his concept of “Clay to Code.”

Jude’s project takes school children down to a riverbank to dig up raw clay. They cleaned it, fired it, and glazed it. They learned the provenance of the material. They learned that things come from somewhere.

If we want our children to survive the AI era, they need to understand that the shiny interactive screen is just a tool, that evolved from other tools, like clay.

Imagination doesn’t perform best in a frictionless vacuum environment with a single tool… There won’t be ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas’ Volume 2 that says - don’t allow your mind to wonder, don’t explore other environments with other tools, constantly keep high on dopamine with zero space between thoughts and feelings.

My Plan: The Rabbit Hole Time Machine Curriculum

My plan isn’t to be a Luddite. It’s to be a historian. I want my kids to have an active Point of View on technology.

However, my kids are five years old. They aren’t ready for the PS2 or the VHS storytelling yet. They are currently in Step 0.

Recent stats from a Sky News report this week (Jan 2026) were alarming: Nearly a third of children starting school try to swipe or tap physical books like a smartphone.

If a child tries to “swipe” a book, they have learned the interface of a machine (the code) before they have learned the interface of the physical world (the clay).

So, here are some first thoughts on some steps to help kids form an active POV around tech:

0. The Era of Reality (Paper, Mud & Boredom) Current Status: Active (Ages 0-6) Before they touch a screen too much that responds to every movement (I appreciate zero touch screen experience would be almost impossible :), they must master materials that ignore them.

• The Rule: Minimal tablets. Minimal smartphones. (As much as we can in order to prevent this way of interacting with media being the normal basic expectation)

• The Alternative: Pens, paper, screenfree-toys, mud, and physical books.

• The Lesson: Physics.

• If you swipe a book, nothing happens. You have to turn the page.

• If you press a piece of paper, it doesn’t light up. You have to draw on it.

• We are establishing the “Base Reality.” As Jude Pullen said: “Clay to Code.” You cannot understand the Code if you haven’t held the Clay.

1. The Era of Friction & Feeling (Vinyl, Cassette, VHS) We will play the same song on Spotify, then on a CD, then on Vinyl.

• The Experiment: We will listen to the “warmth” of the vinyl crackle. That over played track/ movie, we will watch a VHS and see how and why the picture “glitches”.

• The Lesson: Imperfection is human. Digital is perfect and replicable, but analog ages with you. A scratch on a record is a memory; a corrupted file is just an error. We learn that “newer” isn’t always “better” - sometimes it just lacks soul.

2. The Era of Ownership (DVD & Blu-ray vs. Streaming) We will watch a movie on Netflix, and then watch the same movie on 4K Blu-ray.

• The Experiment: I will explain that even “4K” streaming is compressed - it’s like trying to fit a swimming pool through a garden hose. The disc is heavy. It holds more data (has great bonus material / Easter Eggs). It is the “Reference Print”.

• The Lesson: Control. When you stream, you don’t own the film, and you aren’t seeing the true quality. The platform controls the delivery. Physical media teaches them that quality often requires physical space.

3. The Era of “The Complete Game” (PS2, Wii Vs Online Gaming) My kids won’t be in online lobbies. We are going to cover the full history of Sonic and Mario and beyond thanks to PS2, Wii and 8bitdo (there are many ways to do this, this method just aligned with my favourite hardware - I am very much a 90s, early 2000s Sony guy).

• The Experiment: We will compare these to a modern “Free-to-Play” game. On the PS2, the whole game is on the disc. There is no store. You cannot buy a “skin.” You unlock things by playing, not by paying.

• The Lesson: Incentives. I want them to ask: “Why is this modern game asking for money?”

• PS2 Era: The business made money when you bought the game. They wanted you to have fun so you’d buy the next one.

• Modern Era: The business makes money when you stay addicted and buy extras.

4. The Era of Utility (Nokia 3310 & Sony Ericsson) Before they touch an Android or Apple operating system, they will use a “Brick.”

• The Experiment: They will send a text using T9 predictive text on physical buttons. They will play Snake. They will experience 3G speeds (or whatever the oldest service is I can get them on when the time comes:).

• The Lesson: Intent.

• Buttons vs. Touch: Physical buttons are for communication. Touch screens are for consumption.

• Snake vs. The App Store: Snake is a game you play for less than 20 minutes (with some exceptions). The App Store is a bottomless pit designed to never end.

• They need to feel where the features started. They need to understand that a phone was originally a tool to connect with a person, not a portal to connect with the entire world at once.

• P.S. I’m a big fan of everything HMD is doing in this space

5. The Era of Specificity (Sony Cyber-shot & MP3 Players) Before they get a device that does everything, they will use devices that do one thing.

• The Experiment: We will take photos on a Sony Cyber-shot (I loved those things). We will listen to music on an MP3 player (and a Sony MiniDisc Player).

• The Lesson: Frictionless isn’t always better.

• When you use a Cyber-shot, you have to decide to take it with you. You are making a choice to be a photographer for the afternoon.

• When you have a smartphone, the camera is always there, leading to the mindless snapping of everything.

• They need to feel the difference between a “Tool” (a dedicated device) and a “Swiss Army Knife” (a phone designed to never leave your hand).

6. The “Black Box” Era (The Cost of Free) Once they understand the history, we look at where we are now: Social Media. And we ask the big question: “Is it Free?”

We will look at the timeline of the Value Exchange:

• Vinyl/DVD/PS2: You pay money -> You get a physical object, art, and ownership. (A clear trade).

• Streaming: You pay a subscription -> You get temporary access. (A rental trade).

• Social Media: You pay nothing -> You get infinite entertainment.

The Lesson: If the product is ‘free’, what are you paying with? Because they have played Mario and Sonic and held a vinyl/ DVD, they will understand that nothing is made for free.

• What does the app get? Your data. Your time. Your anxiety.

• What do you get? A distraction.

By knowing where we came from, they can see the trap in where we are.

Rabbit Hole Time Machine: "The future is whatever you make it." - Doc Brown

I am realising that if we want the next generation to handle the AI era - to handle the constant tech Rabbit Hole that needs to be explored with incurable curiosity - we can’t just throw them in the deep end as passive defenceless bait.

We risk producing young adults who are digitally naïve - vulnerable to manipulation in spaces they were never taught to navigate.

So, I’m putting this out to the burrow: parents, educators, and the curious.

I am working on formalising this approach - specifically the entry levels - curating the games, the hardware timeline, and the storytelling needed to explain tech to kids in an engaging way.

I’m calling it the Rabbit Hole←Time Machine.

If you are interested in this initiative, or if you just want to know how to set up a “Friction Tech” environment for your own kids, I want to hear from you. Email me directly: raibbithole@gmail.com

Let’s figure out how to build better pilots, not just better passengers that help boost YoY engagement metrics.

Listen to the full conversation with Jude Pullen on The Rabbit Hole Experience Podcast, Season 2, Episode 2.