14 ms·
I wish mum's phone was never invented
- castlecrasher2 8y ago> However, one mum pointed out that her teenagers were just as bad, often choosing their phone over family time. Fight fire with fire, that's what I say. My kid is crying? I cry right back!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- liberatus 8y agoPerfect time to quote one of my two 'must have parenting books', The Collapse of Parenting. "To become a better parent, one must become a better person."
- jandrese 8y ago> "To become a better parent, one must become a better person." Screw that, isn't there a quick fix? /s
- eloisant 8y ago"School teachers hate her! She found one weird trick to become a better parent"
- vis52 8y agoParents are the bones upon which children sharpen their teeth
- ionised 8y ago> "To become a better parent, one must become a better person." I've met so many people that for some reason believed the moment they became a parent they also instantly became a better person.
- vis52 8y agoThis goes beyond generations. Technology, especially the widespread technologies like smartphones are something that just happened upon most people. So most people haven't adapted on how to use them responsibly. Just look around the average cafe, you can usually find a group of people sitting together but not talking about anything, they just look at their phones. This also seems to reveal an underlying issue, one which I also experienced. Before smartphones usually, you'd make up conversation, smalltalk, even if you didn't want to talk or had anything interesting to say. These days instead of doing that people just seem to ignore each other and do something that is interesting, using their phones.
- athenot 8y ago> Before smartphones usually, you'd make up conversation, smalltalk, even if you didn't want to talk or had anything interesting to say. These days instead of doing that people just seem to ignore each other and do something that is interesting, using their phones. That is precisely the root of the problem. That means that the interpersonal relationships with friends and family have been hijacked by for-profit organizations pushing "more interesting" content. This contributes to dividing society even more.
- gowld 8y agoOr it means that people have an escape from unwanted interactions they were previously forced into.
- vis52 8y agoAre we really forced into those interactions? It is very rare that you really have to talk to someone, IME. Usually, it's more of a..."I don't really like or have a lot of common with this person but I've known them forever so what the heck"
- chipperyman573 8y agoHow are you forced into a conversation with a group of people you chose to go somewhere with? If you didn't want to talk with them, don't accept their invitation to get coffee
- patorjk 8y agoThe problem seems to be the parents, not the technology. It reminds me of a VSauce episode that brought up the following interesting antidotes: > In 1871, the Sunday Magazine published a line that may as well have been written today about texting. "Now we fire off a multitude of rapid and short notes, instead of sitting down to have a good talk over a real sheet of paper." And the Journal of Education in 1907 lamented that at a modern family gathering, silent around the fire, each individual has his head buried in his favorite magazine. [1,2] If the parents weren't lost in their phones, they'd be lost in something else. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc [2] https://sites.google.com/site/vsaucetranscripts/scripts/juvenoia https://sites.google.com/site/vsaucetranscripts/scripts/juve...
- vis52 8y agoIt's a mix I'd say but technology certainly plays its part. I used to think that I'm the problem but it has been brought up in online studies and people I know more and more. Social networks make me miserable. I didn't have Facebook or Instagram for almost 8 years and I started using Instagram recently. It's a strange mix of feelings but I loathe and look forward to opening the app every time. Most people seem to experience something similar, no matter how hard they try they can't stop comparing themselves to others, hunting likes and other fake internet points.
- chipperyman573 8y agoThat's true, but one interesting takeaway from this article I noticed is that it's the younger generation criticizing the older one - usually it's the other way around.
- rorosaurus 8y ago"It's okay, because it happened in the past, too." is such a weak argument in my opinion. We should strive to present our best regardless of the past. History repeats itself, so take note and compensate accordingly.
- patorjk 8y ago
- osrec 8y agoMy 8 year old cousins are crazy about taking my phone to play games on whenever they come to visit; I literally have to hide it from them. Maybe the kids mentioned in the article were a bit younger (and perhaps their parents are a fair bit younger, with different phone use habits to my uncle, who is in his mid 40s)
- batiudrami 8y agoIt's a completely different issue. I was never allowed a Game Boy and was crazy about them when I visited someone who had one. But I would have noticed if my parents were playing Game Boy and not giving me attention all the time.
- derefr 8y agoA smartphone isn't an activity; it's a virtual place where activities happen. Kids (and, apparently, opinion-piece writers) don't usually understand this. "My mom is on her phone too much!" could actually mean any/all of: • my mom is a workaholic • my mom is always chatting with her friends she had to move away from to give me a better place to live • my mom is flirting on Tinder with my stepfather-to-be • my mom is tired from work and zones out watching Youtube videos • my mom is "addicted" to knowing what celebrities are up to so she has water-cooler conversation to share • my mom is in a self-perpetuating fear spiral, feeding herself every horrible news story she can find even though she hates the feeling of reading them, and should probably see a therapist • my mom is addicted to showing off on Facebook • my mom likes reading books Every one of these activities existed before smartphones; they just occurred in different places/formats. You'd buy tabloids for the celebrity news; you'd watch the nightly news on cable; you'd flirt in bars; you'd travel to visit friends, or have long, nightly telephone calls with them; and you'd keep up with the real Joneses next-door instead of keeping up with the virtual Joneses on Facebook. And you'd be a workaholic by always being at the office, rather than by being home but inattentive.
- Tepix 8y agoPeople are addicted to their phones. It's a fact. Many apps are designed to be addictive, which doesn't help.
- vis52 8y agoWhat Sean Parker says about the whole thing: He explained that when Facebook was being developed the objective was: “How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?” It was this mindset that led to the creation of features such as the “like” button that would give users “a little dopamine hit” to encourage them to upload more content. “It’s a social-validation feedback loop … exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”
- Apocryphon 8y ago
- Jedd 8y ago> "Wow. Out of the mouths of babes! We are all guilty!" responded one user, Tracy Jenkins. Not true, Tracy. Some people - not just children - have long ago identified the addiction and moved to avoid it.
- learnstats2 8y agoThe question was "what invention do you wish had never been created?" This is not a very nice question for second grade - something is generally described as an invention if it solves a problem, so second graders are unlikely to have a realistic sense of how inventions could be bad. The phone is the most visible "invention" to second graders and I find it more surprising that only 4 out of 21 said it - any reasonable answer to the question is likely to viral around the classroom.
- Nasrudith 8y agoI would have expected shots as a common answer as an invention they are exposed to only negatively.
- rhacker 8y agoYesterday I was leaving a grocery store at the same time as another customer who had 3 kids with her. I got into my car and noticed the family getting into the car next to mine.. being a polite guy I kinda waited a bit for them to pack in to the car and also to wait for them to drive off. After about 3 minutes I was still waiting but being polite wasn't watching closely. Finally I had to see why they were taking so much time. The 3 kids were just sitting in the back seat quietly and the mother was just messing around on her phone. soo this is a thing.
- prawn 8y agoDefinitely messing around on her phone? I've got into the car with my kids and spent time using my phone to get directions to something, send messages to organise things, respond to emails, etc. My partner works in social media so is paid to review, post and respond on Instagram/Facebook/etc, including out of hours.
- beastcoast 8y agoMy child learned to say "put your phone down daddy!" from Sesame Street when she was just 4 years old.
- arprocter 8y agoStrange that the BBC quote says 'mum' but the original piece uses 'mom'
- lmm 8y agoThe BBC writes in British English, and that's how the word is spelled here (or, if you consider them to be distinct words, "mom" is not a word). Just as I'd expect the BBC to write e.g. "colour" even if quoting an American source.
- arprocter 8y agoI was always lead to believe that anything inside "these" was a direct quote
- lmm 8y agoMy understanding of newspaper tradition was that quotes can always be edited for clarity or grammar. Some famous quotes go further, e.g. "Crisis? What Crisis?" was printed in quotes despite not being the words Callaghan said.
- univalent 8y agoI was definitely addicted to my phone right around the last election cycle. Podcasts, reddit politics threads, other social media, websites, you name it. Luckily, its an easy habit to kick. I use timers and a tracking app on my phone to monitor pickups and screen time spent. I try to hit 12 hours between opening any social media apps, 6 hours between opening any news apps etc. I've managed to get it down to under an hour a day.
- hcurtiss 8y agoAre you on iOS or Android? I find these tools for iOS are more limited. Maybe I'm missing something?
- joshwa 8y agohttps://inthemoment.io/ https://inthemoment.io/
- graeme 8y agoWhat do you use?
- univalent 8y agoI use a timer app called Timeglass and have timers for 'social' 'news' etc. And an app called Moment which tracks pickups and total time.
- deleted 8y ago
- mathattack 8y agoOnce you’ve juggled a hard career with parenthood, it’s very hard to judge others.
- z5h 8y agoThis is hard. Children can be incredibly boring. I love my kids immensely and they are definitely fascinating at times. But there are games they want to play that literally put me to sleep. Or sometimes my daughter will take 15 minutes to brush her teeth. Should I just stare day after day, week after week? It's BORING. Right now my kid is taking the longest dump and I'm waiting outside of the bathroom. What should I be doing?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jedberg 8y ago> Right now my kid is taking the longest dump and I'm waiting outside of the bathroom. What should I be doing? Oh man I can sympathize with this one. I do the exact same thing -- pull up reddit or HN to bide the time while she contemplates the meaning of life on the can.
- hellweaver666 8y agoomg... this. I just spent 4 days at Disney. My 3 year old picked the most opportune times to need a poo. Like when we got to the front of a queue (after queuing for 4 minutes) and were just about to board he suddenly had the urgent need to go, or when we were sitting down for a meal. And he's a SLOW pooper. He sits there for like 15 minutes and after a few splashes I'm like "are you done?" and he says no, nothing happening for five minutes so I ask again, nope still not done, five minutes later and still nothing at which point I'm like "right kid, it's time to shit or get off the pot already". In the meantime, I'm standing in a cramped cubicle waiting for him to finish so I can wipe his arse and make sure his hands are clean. FML.
- pcurve 8y agoyour candor is hilarious and endearing. I'm sure you are a great parent. :)
- 8y ago
- cm2012 8y agoKids don't need constant attention.
- jedberg 8y agoI solved this problem by giving my two year old my old phone. She doesn't complain and I get to use my phone in peace. She calls me out when I'm trying to use the phone and she wants attention. And in case anyone is wondering, her vocabulary soared after we started letting her use the phone, and most people comment on how advanced her language skills are, so anecdotally the phone seems to be helping her not hurting her, despite all the objections we get when they see my toddler using a phone.
- nugget 8y agoHow would the phone contribute to her vocabulary?
- jedberg 8y agoWe only let her play educational games that build math and language skills, and watch curated videos that do the same (like Sesame Street).
- prawn 8y agoOur son gets occasional use of a mobile device. At 2-3, it was educational games on a phone (or Octonauts if we needed to distract him at a restaurant). Then he went months without even asking about it. He's now 5 and uses an iPad now and then, solely to play Scrabble against the computer. His vocab is very good: he can usually beat the computer and has had 400+ point games. The other month, I noticed him playing against himself rather than the computer. He said it was because it meant he got twice as many turns!
- donohoe 8y agoLanguage skills are one thing. I can help put feel there is a downside you’re missing.
- jedberg 8y agoSo far I haven't found one, nor have I seen any of the downsides that other parents talk about. Maybe it's because we enforce technology breaks on her every once in a while -- when she is poorly behaved she doesn't get electronics the next day or two as a consequence. And sometimes we just keep her otherwise occupied and she doesn't even ask. But I guess we'll see. Every kid is different, so YMMV.
- roryisok 8y ago> However, one mum pointed out that her teenagers were just as bad, often choosing their phone over family time. What a stupid comment. She's basically excusing her own behaviour because her teenagers do it.
- MikkoFinell 8y ago"That is so sad and convicting. Great reminder for us all to put those phones down and engage with our kids more." I imagine a mother posting that comment on her phone, with a couple young children looking at her sadly in the background. She feels good about the change she decided to make in her life, after checking facebook just one last time.
- struppi 8y agoI know, I am saying this every time there is a discussion about social media, but... Deleting the Facebook and Twitter apps from my phone was one of the best decisions in the last 12 months or so. More time for the kids. Less distraction. I still use those services, but only on a computer - so, not all of the time.
- Elvie 8y agoHow about dad's phone?
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- Elvie 8y agoWe have a rule of no phones at the table. Unless it is for a purpose - while in the middle of conversation if there is a question we can't answer we will check the phone. ("what does a giraffe sound like?" "what does the gallbladder do?") Otherwise, yes I will use my phone while the children are in the park in the sandpit or playing around. If I was helicoptering over them all the time, they wouldn't explore the climbing frames alone - and i do keep an eye in case they fall but want them to have the confidence to do it alone and they see how the phone can be useful - want an expensive toy in the shop? let's check the phone and see if we can find it cheaper... - are we lost? let's learn to use a map... - how do you say x or y in a foreign language? so, let's stop the mum (mom) guilt...
- phyllostachys 8y agoThat sounds like reasonable phone use to me whereas the article seems to hint at using a phone instead of engaging.
- buserror 8y agoI wish the BBC stopped downgrading their coverage to the level of the mirror+daily wail websites, and create articles by cut&pasting other bits of 'social media' to make 'content'. As a non-native english speaker, for many years I looked up to the BBC to give me nice, literate -- often bland -- coverage, with excellent use of the language, vocabulary and no notion of dumbing down the language -- on the contrary. These days, it's a race to the bottom.
- pjc50 8y agoHardly anyone has mentioned that there are plenty of families that do, or did, the same thing with the television. Endless vaguely engaging wallpaper. One of the subplots of Fahrenheit 451 (published 1953) is that houses would get wraparound screens with a virtual Family on them that people would engage with more than the real family.
- crashdown 8y ago/r/thatHappened