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A child learns first from their parents. I feel sad for kids when I see parents involved with phones while walking a baby carriage or attending a soccer game. P

A child learns first from their parents. I feel sad for kids when I see parents involved with phones while walking a baby carriage or attending a soccer game. Parents show by their actions which is more important, people or tech.

stephengillie 8y ago
Would you feel better if the parent were deeply involved in a newspaper or book? How about if the parent was constantly screaming obscenities at the referee? Parents aren't honor or duty bound to pay rapt attention to every second of their child's life. It's one human caring for another, and few humans have identical interests.
- someguydave 8y ago
  Thank you for saying this. The amount of moral judgment wrapped up in technology use reveals more about the judges than the judges.
- friday99 8y ago
  Or they could just be present in the actual social situation they were attending. All of the options you suggest seem preferable to staring at a random glowing magic square in their hands.
- wffurr 8y ago
  No, in either of those cases. Those are also awful things for a parent to do at a child's soccer game. The issue with screens is due to the addictive quality of experiences on screens (tuned by highly paid experts to increase "engagement"!) causes more people to turn to their screens than would otherwise be distracted by other things, such as newspapers. So instead of tolerating your child's soccer game because bringing and reading a newspaper would be a hassle, seem antisocial, and not be that much more interesting, one can just whip out their pocket computer and have some bright colorful beep-boop gamified but ultimately meaningless experiences much more engaging than the game.
  - stephengillie 8y ago
    The addictive screen argument is almost as tired as the argument that video games are bad. It's like the argument about students starting out the window, or at a ceiling, during a lesson. The answer is not to remove the windows, nor is "scolding the ape" a good solution. The real answer is to compete on engagement, and make the lesson more interesting than what's outside the window. Likewise, the way to have more people engaged in a sporting event is to make the game more engaging. But then more people yell obscenities at the referee. In the end, all of this "screen time" nonsense is just a dumb way for some people to feel better than other people.
    - slededit 8y ago
      > make the lesson more interesting than what's outside the window Powering through boring material is an important life skill. You can be bored to tears by your boss or your job but you still have to do it. A person will learn better from an engaging teacher, but someone with no experience learning from dry content will be woefully unprepared for that first experience.
    - wffurr 8y ago
      Windows aren't designed by teams of highly paid experts to drive engagement metrics. There is no way ordinary life can compete with that.

stephengillie 8y ago

Would you feel better if the parent were deeply involved in a newspaper or book? How about if the parent was constantly screaming obscenities at the referee? Parents aren't honor or duty bound to pay rapt attention to every second of their child's life. It's one human caring for another, and few humans have identical interests.

someguydave 8y ago
Thank you for saying this. The amount of moral judgment wrapped up in technology use reveals more about the judges than the judges.
friday99 8y ago
Or they could just be present in the actual social situation they were attending. All of the options you suggest seem preferable to staring at a random glowing magic square in their hands.
wffurr 8y ago
No, in either of those cases. Those are also awful things for a parent to do at a child's soccer game. The issue with screens is due to the addictive quality of experiences on screens (tuned by highly paid experts to increase "engagement"!) causes more people to turn to their screens than would otherwise be distracted by other things, such as newspapers. So instead of tolerating your child's soccer game because bringing and reading a newspaper would be a hassle, seem antisocial, and not be that much more interesting, one can just whip out their pocket computer and have some bright colorful beep-boop gamified but ultimately meaningless experiences much more engaging than the game.
- stephengillie 8y ago
  The addictive screen argument is almost as tired as the argument that video games are bad. It's like the argument about students starting out the window, or at a ceiling, during a lesson. The answer is not to remove the windows, nor is "scolding the ape" a good solution. The real answer is to compete on engagement, and make the lesson more interesting than what's outside the window. Likewise, the way to have more people engaged in a sporting event is to make the game more engaging. But then more people yell obscenities at the referee. In the end, all of this "screen time" nonsense is just a dumb way for some people to feel better than other people.
  - slededit 8y ago
    > make the lesson more interesting than what's outside the window Powering through boring material is an important life skill. You can be bored to tears by your boss or your job but you still have to do it. A person will learn better from an engaging teacher, but someone with no experience learning from dry content will be woefully unprepared for that first experience.
  - wffurr 8y ago
    Windows aren't designed by teams of highly paid experts to drive engagement metrics. There is no way ordinary life can compete with that.