Flickr as Toddler Distractor

Published by jim on 11/4/2005 in

This morning, I accidently stumbled on perhaps the most brilliant use of Flickr and Flickr Tags ever. I had a call to do from home this morning which required I simultaneously juggle El Duder and maintain and explain a map of the new IP routes for our office relocation. Dilemma: how to occupy a toddler while juggling half a dozen subnets in my head.

Since the dude is all about trucks, busses and trains these days, I went to the computer, fired up Firefox, went to Flickr and searched for all pictures tagged as “bus” and hit “show slideshow.” The distraction-effect was amazing. Jay totally ate it up so we moved on to “dumptruck.”

We don’t do any TV with the dude but we do have an old laptop setup in the Living Room to display photos while streaming audio to the stereo cabinet. Now all I need is a tag-specific Flickr screen saver for OSX and we can have hours of visual stimulation for the dude. I think I could definitely rig the TiVo to do this pretty easily but plopping the dude down in front of the tele isn’t really high on our list.

Anyway, parents: let me know if you come across any other tags that are toddler-specific.

17 Responses to “Flickr as Toddler Distractor”

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  1. 1 Laura BC
    11/7/2005 at 12:03 am

    Thanks for sharing the toddler method. Your advice on “baby crack” has been great in crucial moments…
    LBC

  2. 2 h
    1/5/2006 at 3:58 pm

    I watched the “bus” slideshow, and this one sure was something I’d be concerned about:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/rmulhern/82562368/

    I guess it might not mean anything to a kid young enough to be entertained by it?

  3. 3 Cait
    1/5/2006 at 4:44 pm

    thank you for the tip. Kitties on parade!

  4. 4 James
    1/5/2006 at 4:55 pm

    First time reading this site, and I think the fliker tags are a neat idea. Someday when I have kids (probably after I get married, and only after I find a girl) I hope fliker is still around. Perhaps I can sell this idea to my little brother (who actually went through the whole girl/married/kids thing).

  5. 5 James
    1/5/2006 at 4:57 pm

    Oops. Eye ka’nt speell flkr.

  6. 6 jim
    1/5/2006 at 5:32 pm

    h:
    yeah, i mentioned that problem over at parenthacks. It would be great to find a work around for it. Some elite team of parent taggers or somesuch to make sure the snaps are kid friendly. In the meantime, the right arrow key advances to the next slide instantly ;-)

  7. 7 Eric
    1/5/2006 at 7:42 pm

    My little ones have enjoyed Flickr slideshows of “zoo” photos.

  8. 8 Jay Sundu
    1/6/2006 at 12:12 am

    This is a really cool idea. I’ve used Flickr to entertain my 3-year old by showing her pictures of herself and our family. I never thought about having her browse through a tag. I’m sure she would love to see some ‘princess’ tagged pictures.

    Like others, I’m a little concerned about the potentially explicit pictures that may come up. Hum….maybe I should join that elite team of yours :)

  9. 9 chris
    1/6/2006 at 8:49 am

    to keep myslef busy from myself, i like to look at the slideshow “topless”

  10. 10 silas
    1/6/2006 at 1:53 pm

    Great idea. I just tried “airplane” (so-so) and “ocean” (great)

  11. 11 D Baird
    1/6/2006 at 2:15 pm

    Have you tried Slickr? You can use it to create A Flickr Screensaver - Shows images from a user, group, tags……

    http://cellardoorsw.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=28

  12. 12 jim
    1/6/2006 at 3:43 pm

    Slickr looks great . . . if you’re unfortunate enough to be a windows user ;-)

  13. 13 -
    1/10/2006 at 11:04 am

    Can’t wait to have kids..till then I’ve bookmarked your site for the savvy tips EVERY parent should be required to know.

    cheers!

  14. 14 river belle
    1/17/2006 at 11:07 am

    Does anyone on this blog know any more about the possible new Metallica album? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

  15. 15 nav
    1/17/2006 at 1:54 pm

    Yes… And I still can’t believe Lars Ulrich is trading in his drum set for a xylophone!!!

  16. 16 Saviz
    2/25/2006 at 4:08 pm

    Hi,
    This is a brilliant idea. I had simillar thoughts awhile back and actually developed a screensaver (see it at http://artangco.com). Given your idea I might make some changes in my screensaver. Basically our kids always want to touch the keyboard because they see us behind the computer. But if they touch the keyboard usually something gets deleted and messed up. What I created is an interactive screensaver I call Alphabet Fun with MaeMae and Jakey (My kids names :)). It allows your toddlers to do whatever they want on the keyboard without messing your computer and yet it reacts to their touch and shows fun little skits about the alphabet. You can try it out at http://artangco.com

    -Saviz

  17. 17 Davendra
    3/14/2006 at 7:36 am

    Flickr Screen Saver

    http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/28479

  1. 1 furilo » Nuevas distracciones para niños pequeños
    Pingback on Mar 20th, 2006 at 9:13 am

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