You can say the same thing of the long text that are often next to the exhibit in museums. I don't get the point of trying to read some essay while standing in the middle of a crowd pushing. You might as well read the wiki page in the comfort of your home and focus on the actual exhibit in the museum.

This has also been going in in Libraries in Australia. Go to the library - toddlers Rush to play on the computer.

I wouldn't mind so much if it was available for those who wanted it but in my experience it tends to be central and noisy - difficult to avoid if that's not what you're after.

The author is applying a universal prescription to ALL museums based on a single experience at a single museum.

I’m going to call out the science museum in Manchester, and the one in Osaka (Japan) as two of the best ones I’ve been to. Manchester had a whole section of old machines, and a working mainframe computer, and Osaka had a planetarium that was nearly the height of the entire building.

Cory Doctorow wrote one of my favourite sci-fi novels, "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" a few decades (!) ago about a battle between people maintaining the classic rides vs people trying to replace those rides with VR experiences.

It holds up.

Sophie Winkleman (Big Suze from Peep Show) did a good speech on this[0].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V6nucKFK88

If you want to take your kid to a museum then...go to a museum. The Franklin Institute, which they went to, is not a museum. I have the Liberty Science Center near me, which is also not a museum. They have interactive exhibits, planeteriums, and yes, screens. All this is by design, and it is great.

The museum of science here in Boston got a lot less interactive and a lot more screens after Covid. I get that it’s cheaper to develop new exhibits when they are all digital, but my kids aren’t even interested in it. They want to get their hands on stuff.

Nothing really to add, but the NSA museum outside of DC is really cool. I think this is a good example of a museum that works well for adults/kids alike.

Best museums are the ones where the old stuff still works ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MTOz7eOvmg

Like the Tank Museum in Bovington.