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
Yes.
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.
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.
The kid learning to hack on a PC are gone. Computers no longer provide opportunities to tinker
Absolute nonsense. The opportunities today are vastly better than when I was a kid. There are tons of programming tools to download, and more than can run in a browser. A kid can buy a Raspberry Pi Zero, with a full Linux stack, including dev tools, for $5.
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
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.
While I'll completely agree with the availability of tools has generally increased; as has the access to information to tinker and create more. It just doesn't translate to more tinkering or even exploring.
I tried the very route you speak of with a Kano raspberry pi kit, my kids have hardly touched it. We use the little orange keyboard on the living room pc the most. The main go-to is YouTube in a browser, and Minecraft. My son, who is 9 at the end of this year, only coded one house with my help so he could instantly produce a built house on the fly. I tried to get him to do more but he shows no interest. Same with my daughter, who is two years older. The problem I see is lack of interest and motivation - this stuff becomes like homework/schoolwork; and the more I explain the more they tune me out. I was the kid who got excited when someone gave me a book about how to code on my Commodore 64. I've yet to witness that level of motivation in kids today.
I've witnessed the neighboring kids struggle to find the power button on a custom built pc in my kitchen, as well as holding down the power button during shutdown cuz it did not shut off immediately. Don't get me started on what I've witnessed millennials do at work. I scoff at the notion that we're raising the tech elite, quite the opposite really.
As long as the appity apps continue to be convenient, hardly anyone except those already astute in the ways of a tinker will bother to explore anything under the hood. And as long as the next kid gets their dopamine fix via fortnite or any other like-minded avenue and things 'just work,' I cannot fathom this younger generation venturing too far outside their comfort zone; yet alone creating the next Facebook or anything for that matter.
As far as the main topic in question, screen time should absolutely be limited, depending on the child, and their usage. So if kids are using it for productivity or school, they should absolutely be given leniency to get said work done. Personally, I've got parental controls that set a curfew so they are not awake all night buried in a screen. Make sure kids get adequate rest, very important.
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)
And send the $5 to the online store how?
My kids have three options:
1. Paypal
2. Debit card
3. WePay
My daughter has had a debit card since she was 8 (3rd grade). Giving a kid a bank account and a debit card is a great way to teach them responsibility and money management. When she was 10, I helped her connect her account to Paypal so she could make online purchases. She has a WePay account in RMB on her cellphone, so her grandparents can give her hong bao.
And use said $5 Raspberry Pi Zero through what display, when the parent allows three hours of screen time per week?
I don't limit my kids screen time. I believe in "positive" parenting ("You have to do A, B, & C") not negative parenting ("You can't do A, B, & C"). Once my kids are done with their schoolwork, their chores, and work assignments, they can do what they want with the rest of their time.
They have built numerous projects using Raspberry Pi kits, and their tech knowledge is far beyond where I was at their age.
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.
"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.
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.