in an interview apple ceo steve jobs once de livered quite the googly he revealed that his kids didnt know how to work the ipad his companys one of the most popular products simply because they had never used one jobs among the most techsavvy people in the world also confessed that he was a lowtech parent enforcing strict tabs on his kids use of technologythe jobs way seems to have several takers ironi cally among techie parents in chennai who are trying their hardest to keep their children low tech constantly fighting a losing battle against technology especially during vacation time parents now say their latest strategy is time boxing a newage management concept of setting time limits for every activity to increase productivity at the medavakkam home of wipro senior technical manager k sundari for instance the wires are outtvs lie disconnected laptops virtually unused and smartphones only recently made it into their lives i work with technology all the time and i dont want my kids to get hooked to online games says sundari who allows her teenage children access to her laptop only for online tests or project work with enforcing restricted timings for laptop and tv use i realise we are now spending more time together as a family even i spend less time on the computer because of the rules i have set for the kids says sundari adding that this summer she decided to log off and learn swimming with her childrenfor some parents using technology to their advantage works best since its virtually impossible to stop children from using smartphones with parents working from home or their friends in class raving about the new web series parents need to step in and curate what their children watch and play so when aravindhans elder daughter shreya was spending hours playing addictive games like subway surfer and tomb runner and her sixyearold sister followed suit aravindhan had to go looking for mind stimulating games which would give the same pleasures of gaming but would also have problemsolving exercises my 10yearold can now write simple programs and solve algorithmic problems which i had learnt much later in school he says though playtime has become more productive time with gadgets is limited to oneandahalf hours a day and never at a stretch it is boxed into smaller times and mixed with activities ranging from table tennis and karate to drawingthe strategy is to have a schedule in place even for the holidays say parents even though kumaran surendrans sons sanjay and shravan have hit the headlines for being among the youngest ceos in the country having started a mobile app company go dimensions surendran says he and his wife have his boys on a vigilant tech watch there are times they whine for more time to wrap up an app they are developing but we keep to strict time curbs says surendran who works with cognizant technology solutionssanjay and shravan now