Something observed in my own household is that computers have replaced cars as the primary object of tinkering. Yes, there are the kids that merely sit around playing video games all day (or worse, as E-Raj suggested, let them pretend to fix cars all day on their computers), but then there are the kids (formerly known as nerds) who are always tweaking, upgrading, and programming. This tweaking may even involve building elaborate cooling systems to crank out an extra 1% of performance. I think it's a respectable switch from automobiles (considering newer cars are far more difficult to tinker with anyway).