7 ms·

The introduction to technology, well, essentially I'm talking about internet, is so early on a kids life that we can't just say "we should control ourselves".

by gkya 10y ago

The introduction to technology, well, essentially I'm talking about internet, is so early on a kids life that we can't just say "we should control ourselves". You can't put your kid in a room full of crisps, sweets, alcohol, drugs, pornography, and expect it to come out ten, fifteen years later as a healthy individual that is not an addict to none of them. This is what we essentially do with the internet. > I myself have seen the effects of good diet, exercise and meditation on a group of people, and it is quite remarkable how changed for the better people are. So there is hope! You're an adult, I am too. We can realize: this is stealing my life. But a kid can't. And stolen days don't return. This is why I'm commenting: we'd rather raise better individuals than letting them do wtf they want and hoping they'll fix themselves later.

internaut 10y ago
I agree. it is pretty sobering. Just yesterday before this thread even started (I work as part-time cleaner) I was polishing a window. Through it I saw some children in a sitting room, one of who was literally standing centimeters away from a giant flat screen television. Glued to it. I thought: "Fuck, they don't have a chance". Their attention spans will be torn to pieces like balls of wool by tiny kittens. Now multiply that effect with the Net + VR and you have an extraordinary psychological effect best compared to a drug. I didn't have a television in my childhood. I read countless books, and without them, I wouldn't be sitting here, I wouldn't have done any of the things I could reasonably consider inventive or innovative. They might not be world changing things, but they were mine and my life was better for doing so. I was speaking to a friend who has children a few months ago. He was in the process of uploading photos of his family to Facebook. I asked him whether he considered what he was doing to be a moral act, since he is for practical purposes feeding his children's biometrics into a system that they personally have not, and could not, opt in to. He was poleaxed by the thought. He was about to say something along the lines of 'well everybody's doing this' but I could visibly see the thought struck him that "wow, that's actually a really bad line of reasoning I was about to make". Instead he agreed with me, uncomfortably, but he got it. I don't know how you get millions of people to have that kind of realization. I do think parental responsibility has a huge role though. My parents got rid of the television in the 80s. It was the right thing to do.
- Fr0styMatt88 10y ago
  The thing that disturbs me about this argument is that IMHO it's a slippery slope towards "back in my day, we didn't have this new-fangled stuff". We have to be extremely careful that our arguments have more substance than that. That requires a lot of introspection, to be honest. See, my grandparents worried that the new technology that my parents grew up with would somehow make them dumber (growing up with radio, parents getting television); my parents' generation worried that the technology we grew up with would be bad for us (too much computer, too much gaming, too much Internet). The upcoming generation of parents will grow up wondering whether VR and AR is going to ruin their kids' chances. Yet kids ALWAYS adapt. They don't view smartphones or tablets as anything particularly out of the ordinary. It's just their ordinary. I'm certain their brains will build on top of this foundation. That's the thing - brains are extremely adaptable. All of us adapted. There's a term for this worry - it's called 'Juvenoia': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc http://time.com/19818/whats-really-wrong-with-young-people-today-juvenoia/ http://time.com/19818/whats-really-wrong-with-young-people-t... Now, I'm not saying that this is a discussion that shouldn't be had - it certainly should. I just think we all need to be mindful about where our concerns might be coming from.
  - gkya 10y ago
    I never said myself that tech per se will make kids dumber. What I say is, there should be measures governing their exposure, just like there are for other things. Just like an alcohol drinker and an alcohol addict are different, an internet user and an internet addict are different too. Just because some or most are not addicts, we can't dismiss the addiction altogether.
    - Crespyl 10y ago
      It's just that it seems a bit unfair to decry (or place undue burdens upon) the vast majority of responsible alcohol drinkers because we've found a few people who have an unhealthy relationship with it. Recognizing potential dangers is a far cry from saying that there's a risk of "losing the century" because of easy access to technology and entertainment, and it strikes me as rather belittling to the younger generation. Millennials and their children are still humans, after all, and are just as intelligent, motivated, and adaptable as every generation before them.
tremon 10y ago
You can't put your kid in a room full of crisps, sweets, alcohol, drugs, pornography, and expect it to come out ten, fifteen years later as a healthy individual that is not an addict to none of them I know this is bandied about a lot, but is this actually proven? With the exception of drugs, all of those you mention have been within easy reach for me (actually, as a Dutchman, even softdrugs were just one step away if I'd wanted to). Yet I don't consider myself addicted to any of those.
- gkya 10y ago
  I'm not a native speaker of English, so I wonder: does kid not mean person not yet adolescent? I'm referring to 0-14 yrs olds when I say kid. If we agree on that, and you still say, it's not proven, we can try, well then I can't do much than hoping you either don't have children or no child's responsibility is on you otherwise.
  - nkassis 10y ago
    Reading his post I believe he meant the above mentioned things were within reach of him as a child (I don't believe he meant now as an adult). " I can't do much than hoping you either don't have children or no child's responsibility is on you otherwise." That's a strong statement to make. Implying he's unable to raise children because he'd like to see evidence that the internet actually has a negative influence on children.
    - gkya 10y ago
      I interpreted his message as he did not only want evidence for the internet, but also the other stuff I mentioned, and their effects on kids. I'm sorry if that wasn't the case.
      - tremon 10y ago
        No, I did not mean I wanted evidence of their effect on kids. I want evidence that "putting your kid in a room full of $bad_stuff" always leads to addiction, since that strikes me as nothing more than scare stories. Good parents can raise their children correctly even with $bad_stuff present around them, that was the point I was trying to make.

by gkya 10y ago

internaut 10y ago

I agree. it is pretty sobering. Just yesterday before this thread even started (I work as part-time cleaner) I was polishing a window. Through it I saw some children in a sitting room, one of who was literally standing centimeters away from a giant flat screen television. Glued to it. I thought: "Fuck, they don't have a chance". Their attention spans will be torn to pieces like balls of wool by tiny kittens. Now multiply that effect with the Net + VR and you have an extraordinary psychological effect best compared to a drug. I didn't have a television in my childhood. I read countless books, and without them, I wouldn't be sitting here, I wouldn't have done any of the things I could reasonably consider inventive or innovative. They might not be world changing things, but they were mine and my life was better for doing so. I was speaking to a friend who has children a few months ago. He was in the process of uploading photos of his family to Facebook. I asked him whether he considered what he was doing to be a moral act, since he is for practical purposes feeding his children's biometrics into a system that they personally have not, and could not, opt in to. He was poleaxed by the thought. He was about to say something along the lines of 'well everybody's doing this' but I could visibly see the thought struck him that "wow, that's actually a really bad line of reasoning I was about to make". Instead he agreed with me, uncomfortably, but he got it. I don't know how you get millions of people to have that kind of realization. I do think parental responsibility has a huge role though. My parents got rid of the television in the 80s. It was the right thing to do.

Fr0styMatt88 10y ago
The thing that disturbs me about this argument is that IMHO it's a slippery slope towards "back in my day, we didn't have this new-fangled stuff". We have to be extremely careful that our arguments have more substance than that. That requires a lot of introspection, to be honest. See, my grandparents worried that the new technology that my parents grew up with would somehow make them dumber (growing up with radio, parents getting television); my parents' generation worried that the technology we grew up with would be bad for us (too much computer, too much gaming, too much Internet). The upcoming generation of parents will grow up wondering whether VR and AR is going to ruin their kids' chances. Yet kids ALWAYS adapt. They don't view smartphones or tablets as anything particularly out of the ordinary. It's just their ordinary. I'm certain their brains will build on top of this foundation. That's the thing - brains are extremely adaptable. All of us adapted. There's a term for this worry - it's called 'Juvenoia': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc http://time.com/19818/whats-really-wrong-with-young-people-today-juvenoia/ http://time.com/19818/whats-really-wrong-with-young-people-t... Now, I'm not saying that this is a discussion that shouldn't be had - it certainly should. I just think we all need to be mindful about where our concerns might be coming from.
- gkya 10y ago
  I never said myself that tech per se will make kids dumber. What I say is, there should be measures governing their exposure, just like there are for other things. Just like an alcohol drinker and an alcohol addict are different, an internet user and an internet addict are different too. Just because some or most are not addicts, we can't dismiss the addiction altogether.
  - Crespyl 10y ago
    It's just that it seems a bit unfair to decry (or place undue burdens upon) the vast majority of responsible alcohol drinkers because we've found a few people who have an unhealthy relationship with it. Recognizing potential dangers is a far cry from saying that there's a risk of "losing the century" because of easy access to technology and entertainment, and it strikes me as rather belittling to the younger generation. Millennials and their children are still humans, after all, and are just as intelligent, motivated, and adaptable as every generation before them.

tremon 10y ago

You can't put your kid in a room full of crisps, sweets, alcohol, drugs, pornography, and expect it to come out ten, fifteen years later as a healthy individual that is not an addict to none of them I know this is bandied about a lot, but is this actually proven? With the exception of drugs, all of those you mention have been within easy reach for me (actually, as a Dutchman, even softdrugs were just one step away if I'd wanted to). Yet I don't consider myself addicted to any of those.

gkya 10y ago
I'm not a native speaker of English, so I wonder: does kid not mean person not yet adolescent? I'm referring to 0-14 yrs olds when I say kid. If we agree on that, and you still say, it's not proven, we can try, well then I can't do much than hoping you either don't have children or no child's responsibility is on you otherwise.
- nkassis 10y ago
  Reading his post I believe he meant the above mentioned things were within reach of him as a child (I don't believe he meant now as an adult). " I can't do much than hoping you either don't have children or no child's responsibility is on you otherwise." That's a strong statement to make. Implying he's unable to raise children because he'd like to see evidence that the internet actually has a negative influence on children.
  - gkya 10y ago
    I interpreted his message as he did not only want evidence for the internet, but also the other stuff I mentioned, and their effects on kids. I'm sorry if that wasn't the case.
    - tremon 10y ago
      No, I did not mean I wanted evidence of their effect on kids. I want evidence that "putting your kid in a room full of $bad_stuff" always leads to addiction, since that strikes me as nothing more than scare stories. Good parents can raise their children correctly even with $bad_stuff present around them, that was the point I was trying to make.