Slashdot Mirror
Should Parents End 'Screen Time' For Children? (indianexpress.com)
The New York Times reports that in Silicon Valley, "a wariness that has been slowly brewing is turning into a regionwide consensus: The benefits of screens as a learning tool are overblown, and the risks for addiction and stunting development seem high." One Facebook engineer doesn't allow his own kids to have any screen time, according to this article shared by schwit1, and even Chris Anderson, the former editor of Wired, believes screen time is addictive for children.
"On the scale between candy and crack cocaine, it's closer to crack cocaine," Mr. Anderson said of screens. Technologists building these products and writers observing the tech revolution were naive, he said. "We thought we could control it. And this is beyond our power to control. This is going straight to the pleasure centers of the developing brain... I didn't know what we were doing to their brains until I started to observe the symptoms and the consequences... We glimpsed into the chasm of addiction, and there were some lost years, which we feel bad about...."
Tim Cook, the C.E.O. of Apple, said earlier this year that he would not let his nephew join social networks. Bill Gates banned cellphones until his children were teenagers, and Melinda Gates wrote that she wished they had waited even longer. Steve Jobs would not let his young children near iPads. But in the last year, a fleet of high-profile Silicon Valley defectors have been sounding alarms in increasingly dire terms about what these gadgets do to the human brain. Suddenly rank-and-file Silicon Valley workers are obsessed. No-tech homes are cropping up across the region. Nannies are being asked to sign no-phone contracts....
John Lilly, a Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist with Greylock Partners and the former C.E.O. of Mozilla, said he tries to help his 13-year-old son understand that he is being manipulated by those who built the technology. "I try to tell him somebody wrote code to make you feel this way-- I'm trying to help him understand how things are made, the values that are going into things and what people are doing to create that feeling," Mr. Lilly said. "And he's like, 'I just want to spend my 20 bucks to get my Fortnite skins.'"
What do Slashdot's reader think? Should parents end 'screen time' for children?
Tim Cook, the C.E.O. of Apple, said earlier this year that he would not let his nephew join social networks. Bill Gates banned cellphones until his children were teenagers, and Melinda Gates wrote that she wished they had waited even longer. Steve Jobs would not let his young children near iPads. But in the last year, a fleet of high-profile Silicon Valley defectors have been sounding alarms in increasingly dire terms about what these gadgets do to the human brain. Suddenly rank-and-file Silicon Valley workers are obsessed. No-tech homes are cropping up across the region. Nannies are being asked to sign no-phone contracts....
John Lilly, a Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist with Greylock Partners and the former C.E.O. of Mozilla, said he tries to help his 13-year-old son understand that he is being manipulated by those who built the technology. "I try to tell him somebody wrote code to make you feel this way-- I'm trying to help him understand how things are made, the values that are going into things and what people are doing to create that feeling," Mr. Lilly said. "And he's like, 'I just want to spend my 20 bucks to get my Fortnite skins.'"
What do Slashdot's reader think? Should parents end 'screen time' for children?
Everything in moderation.
Especially moderation.
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
Another tech fad. So trendy, so brave, so edge, so savage!
No.
And wean them up over time.
You would really need a whole community to make this work without breaking the illusion, but in exchange you would get a good balance of time outside and gradual screen time to help acclimate your children to technology as they grew older. If I hadn't started using computers when I was 3 I probably wouldn't be as knowledgable or intuitive with them as I am today, and speaking from people I know who did start much later, most are unable to reach that level of mental acuity if they didn't start early (although many did on other subjects instead.)
Helping them learn the balance of work/life/screentime is important, but just as important is training them on how a life before/without electronics is, in case they ever have to return to one, especially in regards to memorizing facts and details that they don't have a computer to look up for them.
Have kids and you'll see that less screen time equals less headache and screaming from the kids. This is a no brainer. If the study says anything different than that, then no kids were and nobody who has ever been around a kid was involved in the study.
the AMA states "no screen time before the age of 2" and so we waited until age 5 or so. Don't pacify your kid with the cell phone!!
I had a childhood friend who had TV and candy was severely restricted to him. A good idea, but it meant that he treated TV and candy as 'crack cocaine' whenever he was given free access to them.
I imagine there's a fine middle ground between unrestricted access and no access whatsoever.
Also, we need to acknowledge that that screens will not be going away anything soon.
Used for schoolwork a certain number of hours a day. Dumb/flip phone, no need for appitty apps when you're 10 years old.
Why does Tim Cook have any say what his nephew does?
Much? Lol
Make sure to ban them from all technology so that they are completely unemployable and have difficulties integrating with the workforce.
Yes.
In my online experience, I've read about parents who enforce screen time limits that are so tight that a student would struggle even to complete homework for an AP Computer Science class or any other homework that the teacher requires to be typed. This leaves inadequate time for a child interested in learning to program to do so.
It is also important to recognize categories of things that cross activities and also make sure that categories are limited. Social interaction is a category and I would rather more of that be in person than online but I also want the category limited. Most of adult life is not social interaction. The proportions of where you spend your time should be similar from childhood to adulthood. We are training our children to be adults, not children. Work at home and school should be the majority of the time just as it is for adults. My child spends most of her screen time on learning apps and videos that I place in the work class (and none on social apps or pure entertainment games). She also helps me clean and perform repairs around the house. She's only two and was putting real screws into holes with a phillips screwdriver today while I was replacing a door knob. Balance, balance, balance, but similar balance to the adult goal.
So these things are really pacifiers... for all ages.
How about growing up and letting them grow up too? No? Too busy looking at a screen yourself, are you?
Not all tech is crack, it's just what Silicon Valley likes to make.
This is no different than when Pablo Escobar famously told his son never to sample the product.
The problem is not screen time, it's unmoderated screen time without an overarching purpose.
When I was a child in school, the schools were in the process of upgrading from aging Apple II systems to newer Macintosh systems. We had decked out Apple II labs in the elementary school and the middle school, alongside the newer Mac lab in the middle school. The Apple II systems booted off the floppy disks that contained the programs we were using them for. When in use these systems were effectively dedicated to a singular task. There was a wide array of edutainment software (RIP MECC) that turned learning into simple games that were *fun*. Education was not solely provided through these instruments, but they were an additional tool to provide more framework for learning. There was no world wide web connection on the Apple II. We weren't introduced to that nonsense until middle school, after we had experienced focused task usage on the earlier machines.
I believe this progression to be incredibly important and totally lost on the people who design modern educational tools using technology.
I thought it was common knowledge that drug dealers donâ(TM)t use their own drugs.
Whenever a hard parenting question comes up, I always ask myself, What Would Elon Do?
Then I do the opposite.
Children should not be allowed to use computers of any sort until they are able to build their own.
[-- Trust the Monkey --]
Would you ban your children from going into the forrest to collect berries and mushrooms during agricultural age or working in factories during industrial revolution? Well then, banning them from online opportunities does not serve them any better during information age. Sure there are downsides, but Internet has benefited humanity just like all innovations throughout history. Keeping out children from benefitting as well doesn't do any good.
What I hear, here, is that the kids should have their screen time limited, but the parents have that shit under control.
Once I went on a trip with a boy-scout crew where we spent a week on an island with no services. When we got back, the kids spent the rest of that day playing pick-up games of soccer, some weird simon-says thing, etc. The parents/chaperones all set in ordered ranks with their heads in their phones.
I'm not saying that kids should be allowed free reign, but this is not a problem with our youth, this is a problem with our society. If you want your kids to spend less time on their screens, put your own damn screens away and spend time with your kids.
Have kids and you'll see that less screen time equals less headache and screaming from the kids. This is a no brainer. If the study says anything different than that, then no kids were and nobody who has ever been around a kid was involved in the study.
SPOT ON! Our up and coming two year old granddaughter tries to physically interact with characters on kids TV shows by trying to hand plastic toys an food to the characters on the screen. She becomes oblivious to the real world around her and becomes instantly belligerent if you turn off her session of tv or internet prattle like the seeming innocent ever present "baby sharks" currently taking over the minds of little children and this generation of screen addicted parents. But driving some grand parents and some parents who actually interact with their children nuts!
We are not far away from the day when our kids will not understand that there is more to life than looking at a screen and poking at it to interact with other humans is all there is in life. Taking a cell phone away from away from anyone over the age of 10 will be outlawed because it will be considered child cruelty by today's generation of so called connected and tech savy young people.
many of the people are just not good parents
A computer or device screen is no more evil than a window in your home or car.
However, things can be seen via those windows that may be detrimental to a child. In the Age of Television, we could choose between cowboys and indians killing each other or Mr. Rogers. Sesame Street seemed a good choice for many parents.
We could make similar choices today. Unfortunately, given an internet connection and no supervision, we can assume many children will make challenging choices. Social media is extremely compelling to them. Frivolous (and violent) games can be tempting. Educational materials not so appealing. It's possible that 8 of 10 hours that children spend online are not beneficial to them.
Time is also an issue. 8 hours of daily screen time combined with 0 hours of physical activity is seriously out of balance.
It's not the screen, it's what's on it, what they do with it.
It's the choices we and they make that can be harmful.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Looking around me, it seems it's not just the kids glued to their screens. Perhaps it's a good example for parents to set to also stop using it like crack cocaine.
Most of people on here are so autistic and off putting that they still haven't even touched a girl much less put their penis inside one.
How many of you grew up on a C64, 486, apple 2, etc? Screen time has been a fake threat for as long as television has existed. I bet before TV there were people talking about the dangers of radio, and before that people probably talked about the dangers of books...
This issue is less about kids than it is about their parents.
Forbidding something for most children simply creates a black market that they will find a way to fulfill, so no, ending or forbidding screen time alone would be some weird form of parental fascism.
That said, the role of being a parent is to do what is necessary and beneficial, which isn't always popular. Not being popular is fine, but parenting must be done in a way to earn and maintain respect, and harsh rules and fear ain't it.
What I discovered was that video games increased aggression in my son, especially after the age of 12. Your son may kill zombies in harmony with the universe while floating in the lotus position, so your mileage may vary. The more aggressive, the poorer his performance in everything, especially school. Screen time always seemed to turn into some form of video game or time-suck social media black hole resulting in an alarming level of anger and frustration. So I gave my son a hypothesis, that humans and domesticated red foxes would behave in a similar fashion - increased adrenaline levels from any source, including video games would decrease social interaction and increase aggression, and reducing external adrenaline-causing sources like video games would have the opposite effect - more social behavior, increased curiosity, and easier learning.
If he agreed to abandon video games and significantly reduce social media, I would agree to work with him to keep him engaged in extra-curricular activities. The long story short - after about a year of this, with me spending far more of my time than I had originally anticipated in helping him with projects and pursuing his other interests, he told me that he thought my hypothesis was sound, and that reducing video games and social media had made him a calmer, happier person. At first he was angry and upset and he though I was full of shit, and he told me so. After a year, he thanked me. He's now living on his own, pays his own rent, and has a very active social life.
His younger brother saw all this shit going down from a much younger age and simply elected to avoid video games and social media all on his own, which saved me a lot of ass-pain, except I spent just as much time working to keep son 2 engaged in extracurricular activities.
If you can man-up and be a good parent then yes, less screen time will likely be very beneficial. If you simply cut off screen time and don't give them an alternative, expect something awful to grow in the shadows that might be far worse.
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
Send them to online codecamps, try and inspire their inner geek. If you tried that on... Musk, Woz, or Jobs we wouldn't have the tech we have today. :)
[($)]
We have never limited the screen time for our kids, except when it is time to go to bed or as a punishment. We also play the games with them and sometimes watch youtube with them.
I have also let them play with fire.
When there are no limits, I have observed:
- If they are bored, they will spend the whole day on computer
- If there are any kids outside playing, they will leave the computer and go outside to play with them
- Both have learned English (not their mother tongue), the younger one about 200 words before school.
- They have become pretty good at using keyboard and mouse, yet neither is interested in learning the 10 finger system to write fast, and neither is seriously interested in programming the way I was when I was at their age. This could be because computers nowadays already have so many games ready.
- Both are doing exceptionally good at school, e.g. both are in the top 2 of their class in Math. I think that is more related to my way of parenting and to their genes than it is to games. Just wanted to mention that we have not seen that this has any negative impact to their school. And despite them playing violent games where blood is visible and heads fly, there has been no violent episodes at the school.
The Slashdot editors should be more specific on what they mean by the term "screen time". Are they referring to the concept or to the app?
The second problem with this Slashdot article is that screen time is part of a much broader issue. It needs a context, which is, how do parents want their kids to develop their minds and bodies, outside of school, sports, and club activities.
The tech industry should point the finger at themselves. If they are developing apps in order to draw kids' attention to ads, then the answer to this article is fairly emphatic. Yes, protect kids from being inundated with ads by limiting their screen time. Encourage kids to concentrate on homework, as well as sports and club activities.
A much more difficult issue for the tech industry to tackle is how to create an economic model, which is ad free, non-invasive for kids, and which helps kids develop their minds. In this sense, having a high ratio of worthwhile apps makes screen time a much more difficult issue to quantify.
"Old man yells at clouds"
I have two kids, 6 and 3. They've had their own tablets since they were on year old. We put no limit on the amount of time they spend on them.
The future is not the same as your own youth.
it's in my head
There are several underlying problems, and preventing kids from using technological devices probably won't solve them. We can't on one hand say 'we need more STEM' (which typically means nothing of the sort, but rather that we need more programmers) and on the other hand keep our kids off technological devices.
If games or other content is geared to cause addiction, just ban that and jail content creators. I mean that semi-seriously. Just like governments are banning loot boxes now there's need to look more deeply into how content is affecting people, and try to stop it at a global level, not leave it up to individuals.
It's also rather hard when a lot of people are expected to work 50 hour weeks + commute, when both parents are expected to work, deal with all the bureaucracies of life on top of that (including stuff like their kids' school and extracurricular activities), spend time with their kids on top of that and then also try to stay sane. Some people can do it, but it's rather hard.
What I'd say is:
- If research proves something is definitely bad for kids, laws should prohibit it.
- Reduce work hours to allow parents to actually raise their kids.
- Educate parents on raising kids and the various stuff in their life. Offer free counseling.
- Direct parents to content that's good for kids. Help create such content. There's good stuff out there, it's just hard to find.
- I'm sure I had some more ideas.
The short of it is, if things are bad, think seriously about making them better and considering what you're working towards.
On the flip side, I'm convinced that our society is moving towards a society of content creators and consumers. This isn't bad. Many jobs will eventually be taken by robots and AI. Which is where considering what we're working towards comes in. Trying to simply move back in time to when technology didn't shape our free time won't work.
Don't pay for intangible stuff, and block all ads. Draw the line at $0. Don't give them credit card information. Block payments via the phone bill. App's not free? Then you can't install it. Find an app that is free. F-Droid is a good start. Install the free-to-play game if you must, but never ever pay for anything in-game. It's not fun that way? Then uninstall. There is no clearer way to see that the vast majority of these offerings is abusive than by looking through the eyes of someone who will not pay a dime. Even the dumbest kids will learn after the tenths free game that is no fun without paying up. Adults too.
I encourage all other parents to do this, as it will give my own children an immeasurable advantage once they join the workforce.
bend like the reed
Yeaaaaah, that really sounds like science.
And he's like, 'I just want to spend my 20 bucks to get my Fortnite skins.'
In the real world we call this "fashion", where people - particularly girls/women but not only - spend lots of money on clothes, shoes, makeup, hair, accessories etc. that serve no functional purpose. If a boy wants to spend $20 on Fortnite skins it's useless, worthless virtual trinkets. Go figure. I'm a gamer and I'm perfectly aware that gaming is a "waste" of time and money but so are most hobbies and interests and if they have a useful aspect that's not what decides whether it's fun or not. I'm against the theory that young people should not get to do stupid things with their money. When you're 13 and have an allowance that's exactly the time to go broke because it's not really a big deal. For example I remember back in my youth we had these lottery machines, you could put in ~$0.25 and win ~$2.50. It was a totally fine way to learn that gambling away your money isn't very smart.
Today you have to be 18+ to gamble, wasting a few quarters is as serious as drinking beer, smoking and driving a car. While we do have a lot of sensible young adults we also have some that seem to have been extremely shielded and now have the full freedom to take up loans and go really, really broke. Give them a loan. Make them pay it back. Give them chores to get extra money. If they want to work their way to $20 for Fortnite skins, let them. My theory is that a lot of things you should let them learn through experience, parents can lecture all they want but chances are pretty big that you run out of time without the kids maturing and they go "Free at last, now I can finally do what I want with my money" when they turn 18.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
No screen time for children is basically the same as "no pencil and paper time" 100 years ago.
Or "no reading time" back then.
Eliminating computers from a child's education is essentially the same as requiring a child to learn to read and write with a stone tablet and a chisel....
By all means teach your kids enough critical thought to understand that just because it's on the internet doesn't make it true (just as you were (presumably) taught that just because it's printed in a book doesn't make it true).
But don't force them to learn to use 19th century tools just because they might be exposed to a falsehood on 21st Century tools. Because, ultimately, they'll be exposed to falsehoods with the 19th Century tools also (note, by the by, that the Wizard of Oz was NOT a travelog, it was fiction (AKA false))....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Would you ban your children from going into the forrest to collect berries and mushrooms during agricultural age or working in factories during industrial revolution?
Because the berries and mushrooms are more than likely poisonous and the machines will maim them.
Computers coupled with the web are worse than television - more than likely what they'll find is crap and will poison their minds.
strikes me as the same sort of pretentious holier-than-thou attitude that certain parents (or even people in general) have always loved to try to lord over other people
like the guy, when the topic of conversation turns to some amazing TV show that everyone loves, sticks his nose in the air and solemnly declares "I don't own a TV" as if that alone somehow makes him better than all the philistines that do
Between monitoring and controlling.
One does not imply the other. In either direction.
A rev limiter on a car does not control where you go and, if you're a good driver, places no meaningful limit on how long it takes to get there.
Real teaching doesn't tell people what to think, real teaching is about guiding people into thinking. It doesn't matter how they think or what they think, as long as they can show their working and the logic is sound.
Parenting isn't that different. Optimize, maximize real freedom and real will, minimize stupid harm and pessimization.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Both are true until observed. I
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I see so many parents in public with their children, where the parents give all their time and attention to their phones and completely ignore their kids. What kind of message do the kids get about self-worth when they are losing out to a phone, since their parents love their smartphones more than they love their kids?
We have people with a foot in the before and a foot in the after doing what such people do: lamenting the change from their own childhoods. But the fact is that a virtual world is and will continue to be developed. The "computerverse" will continue to advance and people will be drawn further and further into it. The past is dying/dead. In the 1980s, when I first projected such a change, I called it to myself the "Reality Rebellion." It was a scifi story I wanted to write (never did, I'm not a writer) in which people withdrew more and more from the physical world. People had computer chips inserted in their brains at birth along with a network of connections to the various parts of the brain. People could choose a way to alter the real world to live in various artificial worlds while moving in the real world. It doesn't matter what you think you are eating as long as you eat enough. You can see a rocket ship coming down the street instead of a car as long as you get out of the way. The world became simple, bland, white (green screen?), because the mind/system painted it as you selected in your brain as you moved through your day - a castle, a mansion, a place on Mars. Why not rebel against reality when reality is so painful for so many people? In any case, that is where it is going in the far future, or something like that. Computer augmented reality. And there are people choosing to live in virtual worlds already, as primitive as they are today. They have "property," get married, have "sex," have "children," own "things." They get real-life mad if you "trespass" on their "property" images. They work, have "jobs." Obey the laws, or not. Anyway, people living in their cellphones, or computer games are doing essentially the same thing, living in a virtual reality controlled by the priests of technology at Google, Facebook, etc. It will continue developing.
E Proelio Veritas.
Three channels of usually black and white TV and yes we were addicted. I quit cold turkey in junior high school. Multiple drug addicted friends, all of them RIP, told me "TV prepared me for drugs". This is the modern world.
and laptops, but we did have one portable tv. I remember coming home one day and
seeing my two usually active, curious, verbal kids staring at the thing, silent, nearly motionless,
as if they were drugged. Scared the heck out of me, and we kept their tv time to a minimum.
They're 20-somethings now, done with college, working in Civil Engineering and Computer Science.
...this smells to me a lot like the hypocritical fucks of the 1960s.
"We had free drugs, free sex, and demanded the world be nothing but peace love and happiness...but then once we started to grow up we realized 'oh shit there might be consequences to those shitty life choices' so we'll forbid them to our kids..."
-Styopa
The same thing was asked about TV in the 80's, and computers in the 90's. Ultimately it comes down to if it is impeding on higher priority things in life like school then yes it needs to be restrained. If they are doing well then there is nothing wrong with it.
Born 1987. Grew up with a single mom who had Atari when I was born. Later got the first Nintendo.
I played it every day for hours. Took it to houses where I was babysat. Great Grandpa would buy me cheat magazines when filling up his water jugs at the supermarket. I called the 900 line for cheats and got told not to.
Got into computers in 1995 and was hooked. Learned basic, qbasic, visual basic, python, and later java in high school. Started slackware linux around 1999. Played with ssh, webservers, mosix clustering in my moms basement.
Turns out everything I did was actually in my best interests. Got "discovered" at Defcon and hired away from $9/hr building computers to 60k+ as a an engineer. Never had to go to college, doubled that income to 120k in 5 years, then was "discovered" again to go make 250k+ for wall street working remotely from a cheap part of the world.
Id say my life is great considering I didnt even graduate high school or attend college all because my parents didnt stop me from using technology at a young age or tell me it was "wrong".
Whether its TV, tablets, phones, video games etc, the common thread through all of this is that parents rely on these technologies to babysit their kids while they work.
that they need to be treats only. Maybe once a week or once a month or once a year.
We limit TV time to 1 hr a day. The kids will share their allotted time to get 2 hrs.
We block youtube and other video sites.
School work always comes first. The kids share a public computer in the den. No TV there. The den, kitchen, and where we eat areas are a great room, so no hiding. Someone is always there.
No computers or TVs allowed in bedrooms. That applies to Mom and Dad too. We leave our phones downstairs. Mom and Dad do have tablets which are used for reading in bed.
The kids will get tablets when they are older, but those won't have network connectivity in their bedrooms and all internet for them is blocked after 8pm.
Our youngest learned to read because the older sister did. Teachers actually complained that she was reading before 1st grade.
We don't allow any listening devices in the house. Last thing I need is for the kids to talk to a music player.
I agree: "Plenty of kids can make their own decisions without parents hovering over them."
I agree with this, also: "The answer is not being a neurotic control freak and making all their decisions for them."
I see many parents who have little ability to relate to a child. Their children try to avoid their parents as much as possible, using all the methods available to them.
On the flip side, I'm convinced that our society is moving towards a society of content creators and consumers. This isn't bad.
Two questions:
1. Why use those words, which FSF considers loaded, instead of "authors" and "viewers"?
2. In the scenario that you imagine "isn't bad", are the authors and viewers the same person? Or are there measurable advantages of an entry barrier for viewers to join a small set of people allowed to be authors?
There's nothing wrong with computers, but kids have to play to be healthy.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Remember the good old days? When your parents were afraid that this rock and roll music would fuck up your brain and make you a useless idiot? Maybe you're older and TV is the culprit. Or younger and game consoles and D&D would turn you into a drooling moron? Or even younger and your mom would routinely raid your room to find some "killer games"?
Every single generation had its demon that destroys our kids, turn them into raging maniacs or listless vegetables or some other reason why they would turn out to be a lost generation. There was even a time when Tom Sawyer was threatening to destroy our youth. But the youth that grew up with that stuff grew up and guess what, the world didn't end. And those now grown ups knew that this isn't a threat to development because, well, they grew up with it. But they also saw that their spawn wasn't the way they wanted, so some new demon had to be found. One that wasn't around when they grew up, something new that's strange to them but beloved by their kids, and since they don't understand just what their kids would like about it, it has to be evil. Addictive. Because it sure has to be addiction if they can't figure out the appeal while their kids can't get enough of it.
So the torch of being the scorch of civilization was passed on to radio, later TV, then rock and roll, D&D, computer games and now we're at tablets and phone games. Did you notice something lately? Namely that the "killer computer games" narrative kinda died out? That's because the kids that grew up with those "killer computer games" grew up now and are the new parents, while the number of parents that never played games but have "unruly" teenagers at home gets smaller and smaller. Be prepared to not hear anything about the dangers of computer games anymore in a decade. Maybe by then we also can get rid of those ridiculous censorship of games in a couple countries.
But don't worry. By then we will have a new demon we can stick our fault with raising our kids to. Because seeking the cause for your kids' being assholes and idiots with yourself is complete unfathomable.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Bad parents and the alt-right always blame everything but themselves. Before mobile devices they blamed cable TV, before cable TV they blamed broadcast TV, before broadcast TV they blamed radio, begore radio they blamed comics, before comics they blamed books.
The real problem is these parents spend too much time focused on themselves and not enough time involved with their children. The brain of a child is wired to seek out stimulus and reward, its called play and its how they learn, and without a parents direct personal involvement they are left seeking that stimulus and reward in other things. If parents were satisfying their childrens needs personally no amount of screen time would be addicting.
Bad parenting is the cause of most problems.
Given how lots of kids games and shows have educational elements, the kids are getting more advanced and ready for school work at younger ages.
"Screen time" has done nothing but good in terms of my children's early development, in terms of every academic assessment (and I don't give a shit about the fluffy stuff). Don't browbeat me with anecdotal complaints, anecdotes in this case are all that matter to me. Sample size=2, it is fine and I have only two samples to worry about.
Social networks? Absolutely I forbid them for at least a hundred reasons, but I won't be able to forever and I am not sure I should try.
The screen is whatever you want it to be. Mine's always a book. If you put me on an island for a week, guess what? I'm going to bring a solar panel and my electronic books.
And lo and behold, I'm going to read all those books on my screen.
Screen time means nothing. Get over it.
The only thing that matters is what you are actually doing. The goals you pursue and the way you pursue them matter. Which tools you pick to get it done generally don't matter.
Stop talking about concrete vs steel and start talking about whether you are building a bridge or a skyscraper.
do nothing. Unless this results in changes to software this is just PR.
They mention tablets and phones. Those are locked down, consumer only focused devices with centralized 'stores' for software which is somewhat vetted and even then, the elevated privileges are heavily restricted. This means the devices works and rarely breaks.
Thats bad for learning. Give them a screen that is rooted or is just a PC. Tell them to go nuts, break shit and then learn how to fix it. The problem is not the screen, its the walled garden of being always told they're winning with terrible input controls and no opportunity to fail.
Ha. My wife commented recently that our eight year old niece, her brother’s daughter, seems to get along better with me than with anyone else. I pointed out that I’m the only one who doesn’t try to please her all the time, and says no to screens unless we are being social with each other (e.g., split-screen video games). If she wants to hang out with me, she gets 100% of my attention, but she has to give 100% of her attention too. Funny how that works.
That's why you old people are clueless.
Writing all this crazy shit just because I want a fortnite skin.
Fuck your old man talk. You think you have the right to say shit just because you control that 20 bucks? Fuck you!
That shit better turn in to a 100 loot box or I will freaking never talk to you again and leave you to your lonely desolate existence or rather non existence.
I would not be encouraging my kid to get on facebook, play modern games, or similar. I probably wouldn't buy such crap either. Computers aren't the problem. The problem is shitty companies and self-serving ass holes who let themselves get roped into shit they shouldn't. I've never signed up for facebook. I've largely avoided Google outside of search and gotten off it to some degree. I never used my gmail account for anything other than a free backup drive (ie encrypted). I am working to ween myself off YouTube by investigating decentralized solutions like Peer Tube and LBRY.io. I refuse to 'sign in' to make comments. Fuck those who demand social security numbers, drivers licenses, and other solutions to steal my privacy and security. And the same goes for regulations like the GDPR which remove the control from the individual and puts my privacy in some bureaucrats hands. No thank you. If I don't trust the company, product, or service I won't use it, and I will work toward getting off the platforms that I might use that are shitty. That includes cell phones. I already limit my usage to crypto currency apps (I don't invest, in NH and online plenty of good uses for it and places to spend it) and a few other free software communications applications (only utilize a fork of Android that removes much of the privacy invasive crap, but honestly cell phones are tracking devices and compromised at the modem level so nothing you do is really safe from government).
Each generation has its complaints about the prior one. You see it in the posts here, with current parents comparing what we do today with the self centered hypocrisy of the boomers, and the occasional boomer complaining about the short sighted intolerance of the greatest generation.
Our kids are going to hate how we raise them.
Will they feel we allowed tech to raise them, that we were too focused on our world, our own issues and technology? (This is similar to our complaint about the boomers.) Or will the complaint be that we held the world back and were too afraid of the changes technology were bringing to see clearly? (Similar to the boomers complaint about their parents.)
We don't know.
I have been a developer for over 30 years and as such my life has been deeply entwined with emerging tech. I have a 6 year old kid and they were not allowed to see any television until they were two and then for no more than an hr per week. Even then, I picked the shows very carefully and they were downloaded and devoid of commercials. It was things like nature shows or geography and such. We never left them with the show by themselves and were always involved and used them as conversation primers and not as a nanny. As far as tablet/phones are concerned, at five we allowed use of a tablet for conveying certain concepts that were too hard to do using RL. Even then, it is limited to two hours per week. We then fill their time with many and varied other activities of a mix between, cerebral/physical, solo/social, competitive/collaborative, and more. They will not have their own device until they are driving their own vehicle. Devising and executing what I consider a healthy and fruitful activity and education schedule for a kid is extremely complicated, full of subtlety, attacked from all angles, and time consuming. This is not something that most people understand or have the agency required to accomplish. I'm afraid that the net result for our society at large will be dire.
"This message was sent from an Apple
Or is it just that when you are used to being feed... working to get fed gets too much?
I'm not trying to say it's not addictive or bad... I wonder if the real culprit is the screen or the effect it bring.
I know screens are BAD... I myself have a big issue with screens... but I wonder is it the screen itself or what it brings thats the danger?
"I can be easily entertained with my TV so why should I go outside and play when I can just sit and enjoy."
I know that this is MY issue... why bother doing manual thing when I can sit and let the TV do the work you know.
I dont have kids so I dont have to take a firm stance on the thing but I wonder...
I believe there has been research showing that too much exposure to even TV, let alone computers and video games, in very young children, has negative effects on their development, am I right? That alone should be enough.
However I think it goes deeper than that. Some people seem to have children without actually thinking far enough and deep enough to fully grasp the awesome responsibility it represents; you're creating an entire new human being, and what that new human is exposed to as they grow will shape how they develop, both physically, mentally, and emotionally. Too many people, it seems, have children unthinkingly, and don't make the raising of that child a high enough priority. Using the TV or the computer as a babysitter is not a great idea. Letting schools or the State in effect raise your kid for you is avoiding your responsibility as a parent.
Yes, I know, I'm being very harsh here. But look around you at the world we're living in, and how many people, fucked-up in one way or another, are living in it. You can make the 'nature versus nurture' argument, but how someone is raised has a great bearing on what sort of adult they turn out to be, and no one can deny that.
I had "everything under control" until Fortnite came out. It's like EverQuest all over again!
"Screen time" has done nothing but good in terms of my children's early development, in terms of every academic assessment (and I don't give a shit about the fluffy stuff).
You mean the fluffy stuff like getting along with their peers? Is it all about academics?
Just curious: what's their diagnosis?
I feel sorry for your control group child. :(
Heh, captcha=subset.