A recent study released by software company AVG shows that 58 percent of kids between the ages of 2 and 5 know how to play a computer game. Only 20 percent know how to swim.

I felt a pang of gloom reading that for the first time. When I was that age, I had never even seen a computer. I was always too busy overcoming my doggy-paddling tendencies.

While the accessibility of technology to people of all ages is something to be championed, it’s also scary to see it drastically transform the experience of childhood.

When our ages were in the single digits, none of us were plugged into anything. Cell phones were large in size, but not in popularity, and computers were still a little too futuristic for most families. In grade school, we traded off bike rides and after-school kickball with swimming lessons and keyboarding lessons because neither skill was innate.

Now, as 20-something’s, we’re expected to excel in all areas of technology. We not only have e-mail addresses, but we check our inboxes multiple times throughout the day and respond to new messages within minutes like it’s our job. In fact, it kind of is a job — one that pays in endless frustration with technical support with a bonus of cheapened personal relationships.

But kids don’t know that. To them, computers are just virtual toy boxes, and we let them think so, just like how we feed their faith in the tooth fairy. No harm, right?

Debatable. Over winter break, I babysat for three girls between the ages of 6 and 10. When they weren’t watching Disney Channel at full volume in a comatose state, they were in their individual bedrooms, zoning out and listening to their iPods. At first, I was relieved by their technological preoccupations; it made my job easier.

However, it wasn’t long before the job became too easy, and I was bored out of my mind, begging for checkers matches, rounds of Monopoly, or any other activity to remind me I wasn’t on a space station.

It’s hard to blame the kids, though, because they’ve never known anything else.

But we have. As a matter of fact, we might be the last generation to have one foot in each door: Walkmen and iPods, books and Kindles, computer games and swimming pools. And look, we’ve turned out just fine. Nobody was teaching us the ins and outs of computers when we were in diapers, but we know a thing or two now.

There is no reward for rushing through childhood.

Childhood is a whole decade-and-a-half of first times: our first friendships, our first adventures, our first mistakes, our first successes. It’s irreplaceable. Some things can’t be learned if you don’t start young, but computers are not one of them.

Imagine having never joined a little league team, or having never taught yourself to get back on your bike after taking a spill. Let’s say instead of those experiences, you’ve got some impressive Tetris scores. Not worth quite as much, huh?

I’ll always be grateful for my childhood that balanced ballet and beach trips with Game Boys and Snood. I hope you will, too. More importantly, I hope we aren’t the last of our kind.