8 great tech gifts for the kid in your life

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Shopping for kids can be tough when it comes to tech. 

We live in a modern, high-tech world, but staring at a screen for too long will rot your brain. Or so my mom told me.

Some of these products have screens, others don't, but all 8 would make the kid in your life happy. 

Having trouble figuring out what to get people for the holidays? You can check out all of Insider Picks' 2016 gift guides here.  

Puro Sound Labs, The Healthy Ear Headphone

Amazon

Headphones are headphones, right? Well, yes, they all play music, but sometimes at such a high volume that it can hurt young ears. 

Take it from me, a music lover who grew up in the iPod era. I always cranked the music up to 11, and already suffer from some hearing loss — and an aversion to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven." 

Puro created a pair of great-sounding headphones that cap out at 85db. That's loud enough to comfortably enjoy music, but soft enough to not be destructive. It's a happy medium that will satisfy a kid's need to blast music without any repercussions. I tried these headphones and they sound great. 

They're Bluetooth, too, so the kid won't have to worry about dangling, tangle-prone wires.

Puro Sound Labs, The Healthy Ear Headphone, $98.99, available at Amazon

Fire Kids Edition Tablet

Amazon

Most of my younger cousins are cutting their techy teeth on a tablet. Touch is a way more intuitive way to interact with something than a mouse and cursor. 

Amazon's Fire Kids Edition Tablet has a few things going for it. To account for a kid's clumsiness, it comes in a case and a two-year, no-questions-asked warranty. You can feel confident in giving this to your kid. 

It's also loaded with parental controls, so the kid in question can feel like they have free reign on the internet, without that being the case. Because it's a Fire Table, it can access apps like Netflix, so the a kid can watch whatever age-appropriate video they want without having to ask.

Fire Kids Edition Tablet, $99.99, available from Amazon

**This is temporarily out of stock, but will be in stock before Christmas**

New Matter MOD-t 3D Printer

Amazon

This is the first of two non-screen, creativity-inspiring picks. 

I tried the MOD-T  a couple of months ago, and I still think about it on a weekly basis. It's a 3D printer that's designed so anyone can use it. There are a bunch of pre-designed objects you can print, but eventually you can design and upload your own creations. 

The process takes time (hey, the kid can learn the virtue of patience!) but not too long. There's something awe-inspiring and satisfying about starting with nothing and ending up with an object you can actually hold in your hand.

3D printing is still very new; New Matter's product and store are finally making it consumer friendly. As a kid, this would have blown my mind. It still kind of does.

MOD-T New Matter 3D printer, $299.99, available at Amazon

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