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I know you're arguing in good faith, but I think you're wrong and socialist_coder is right. Maybe this is a different way to look at it: have you seen parents

I know you're arguing in good faith, but I think you're wrong and socialist_coder is right. Maybe this is a different way to look at it: have you seen parents at the bus stop, say, playing on their phones and not paying attention to their kids? (I say "their" but this is almost every parent, some time or other.) That's new behavior that didn't exist before smartphones, because it couldn't. Maybe those people were just as bad at parenting 25 years ago, but their bad parenting wasn't enabled and encouraged nearly as much -- the technology just wasn't there. I agree that "time spent on smartphone" is a very blunt metric -- any single easily-measurable number would be. But I also think it's a relatively good one. At least in the same ballpark as "time spent watching TV". Sure, what you watch on TV is relevant, but if you watch TV for 8 hours a day, that's very likely to be unhealthy.

derefr 8y ago
My hypothesis here is that before smartphones, those parents literally weren't there. Smartphones (and other modern contrivances allowing for remote work and remote socialization) have turned households with one 10%-visible breadwinner and one 75%-visible homemaker into households with one 40%-visible breadwinner and one 95%-visible homemaker. Parents are at home more now. But that doesn't mean that they have any more time+energy available to give their kids than they always did. Before smartphones, a working father might head after work to the bar, to avoid his own family until he's calmed down from how frustrated his boss makes him. After smartphones, the same father might instead head into his study with a bottle of whiskey and talk to his friends (who are also getting drunk in their own homes) on a group-chat, or over a game of Fortnite. Before smartphones, a stay-at-home mother might have to run errands for a few hours: going to the bank, going to the grocery, going to attend a continuing-education class; and she would perhaps leave her child at home, or ask someone to babysit them, depending on the age. Now, instead, she's setting up some bill-payments and transfers in a banking app, then picking through a grocery-delivery app, and then watching an online lecture and participating in a forum as part of an online continuing-education program. In both cases, the parents are now spending more time at home than they were before—but no more (or less) time paying attention to their kids than they were before. If you measure the delta (time where you're near the kids but ignoring them), it looks like it's going up. But this is as misleading a statistic as the one that says seat-belts increase injuries: no, they don't, they just turn fatalities into injuries, and nobody was counting the injuries sustained during fatalities. Nobody was counting time spent outside the home as time spent ignoring your kids.
- iainmerrick 8y ago
  Nobody was counting time spent outside the home as time spent ignoring your kids. Of course people were counting that! I recall a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon where Calvin phones up his dad at work and asks him what he's doing. "Don't you think a game of Calvinball would be more fun?" (It would be, of course, so Calvin's dad heads home to play.) Or just think about the cliche of a politician retiring "to spend more time with his/her family." Your examples sound great and noble but not really very realistic. Realistic is parents checking Facebook and Instagram at otherwise idle moments -- "idle" when they could be paying attention to their kids. You are probably right that historically, many fathers were absent a lot of the time. That has definitely changed a lot but I don't think smartphones are the cause. Even if everything you said is correct, there could still be a significant difference between "my dad isn't here a lot of the time" and "my dad ignores me a lot of the time" (smartphones greatly enabling the latter). Neither is great, but the latter in particular risks setting a dangerous example to kids when it comes to them learning how to socialize with others.
walterstucco 8y ago
> That's new behavior that didn't exist before smartphones, But it was totally normal to Drink and drive while driving your kids Introduce them to alcohol at very young age and make fun of them if they couldn't handle it Smoke around yours and other's kids physically and verbally abuse of them in public Stuff them with crappy junk food because "time is money" and snacks are faster and cheaper than real food In US it's still totally ok to go shooting with your kids All of that because they couldn't take a break from what they liked to do instead of what the situation required them to do And we're saying smartphones are worse?
dragonwriter 8y ago
> have you seen parents at the bus stop, say, playing on their phones and not paying attention to their kids? (I say "their" but this is almost every parent, some time or other.) That's new behavior that didn't exist before smartphones, because it couldn't. I saw plenty of people at bus stops or similar places with kids ignoring them long before smartphones. Sure, the use of a smartphone while doing so is new, but it doesn't fundamentally transform anything.

derefr 8y ago

My hypothesis here is that before smartphones, those parents literally weren't there. Smartphones (and other modern contrivances allowing for remote work and remote socialization) have turned households with one 10%-visible breadwinner and one 75%-visible homemaker into households with one 40%-visible breadwinner and one 95%-visible homemaker. Parents are at home more now. But that doesn't mean that they have any more time+energy available to give their kids than they always did. Before smartphones, a working father might head after work to the bar, to avoid his own family until he's calmed down from how frustrated his boss makes him. After smartphones, the same father might instead head into his study with a bottle of whiskey and talk to his friends (who are also getting drunk in their own homes) on a group-chat, or over a game of Fortnite. Before smartphones, a stay-at-home mother might have to run errands for a few hours: going to the bank, going to the grocery, going to attend a continuing-education class; and she would perhaps leave her child at home, or ask someone to babysit them, depending on the age. Now, instead, she's setting up some bill-payments and transfers in a banking app, then picking through a grocery-delivery app, and then watching an online lecture and participating in a forum as part of an online continuing-education program. In both cases, the parents are now spending more time at home than they were before—but no more (or less) time paying attention to their kids than they were before. If you measure the delta (time where you're near the kids but ignoring them), it looks like it's going up. But this is as misleading a statistic as the one that says seat-belts increase injuries: no, they don't, they just turn fatalities into injuries, and nobody was counting the injuries sustained during fatalities. Nobody was counting time spent outside the home as time spent ignoring your kids.

iainmerrick 8y ago
Nobody was counting time spent outside the home as time spent ignoring your kids. Of course people were counting that! I recall a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon where Calvin phones up his dad at work and asks him what he's doing. "Don't you think a game of Calvinball would be more fun?" (It would be, of course, so Calvin's dad heads home to play.) Or just think about the cliche of a politician retiring "to spend more time with his/her family." Your examples sound great and noble but not really very realistic. Realistic is parents checking Facebook and Instagram at otherwise idle moments -- "idle" when they could be paying attention to their kids. You are probably right that historically, many fathers were absent a lot of the time. That has definitely changed a lot but I don't think smartphones are the cause. Even if everything you said is correct, there could still be a significant difference between "my dad isn't here a lot of the time" and "my dad ignores me a lot of the time" (smartphones greatly enabling the latter). Neither is great, but the latter in particular risks setting a dangerous example to kids when it comes to them learning how to socialize with others.

walterstucco 8y ago

> That's new behavior that didn't exist before smartphones, But it was totally normal to Drink and drive while driving your kids Introduce them to alcohol at very young age and make fun of them if they couldn't handle it Smoke around yours and other's kids physically and verbally abuse of them in public Stuff them with crappy junk food because "time is money" and snacks are faster and cheaper than real food In US it's still totally ok to go shooting with your kids All of that because they couldn't take a break from what they liked to do instead of what the situation required them to do And we're saying smartphones are worse?

dragonwriter 8y ago

> have you seen parents at the bus stop, say, playing on their phones and not paying attention to their kids? (I say "their" but this is almost every parent, some time or other.) That's new behavior that didn't exist before smartphones, because it couldn't. I saw plenty of people at bus stops or similar places with kids ignoring them long before smartphones. Sure, the use of a smartphone while doing so is new, but it doesn't fundamentally transform anything.