12 ms·

Worth. Every. Penny. I went to my parents house with my son. He was 4. They turned on cartoons. Then he said, "Dad why'd you change the show? I don't want t

by bargl 7y ago

Worth. Every. Penny. I went to my parents house with my son. He was 4. They turned on cartoons. Then he said, "Dad why'd you change the show? I don't want to watch this." It was a commercial. I had to explain commercials to my son. It was at that moment I realized how much of my tv watching as a kid was commercials.

saluki 7y ago
Same my son grew up on Netflix, we were watching the Super Bowl on OTA tv when he was 5 and he asked the same thing, what's this? Oh that's a commercial. He also picked up that when we search a toy on amazon, afterward there would be an ad on the side of YouTube for the same toy, he pointed and asked how they did that. This was around the same time, he was 5 or 6.
lmkg 7y ago
To be fair, my favorite show growing up was Transformers. So technically even the show itself was a commercial.
- Insanity 7y ago
  That probably goes for a lot of shows for kids :)
  - smhenderson 7y ago
    I'd say if a kids show is not on public television it most likely is a commercial for a toy or a vehicle for a number of other ads for unrelated toys. And even for me and my five year old, there is plenty of Danial Tiger gear out there to buy! The difference is they make and sell the toys but they don't advertise them during the show. It's not much but that subtle difference is what allows me to sit down and watch 30 - 60 minutes of these shows a few times a week with her. As others have mentioned, even NetFlix "sells toys", just not overtly like network TV does. But just watching PJ Max, Trolls, etc. makes my five year old grand daughter want everything she sees when we go to any store that has these shows' stuff for sale. Both of them are still better than numbing their minds with 8-12 minutes of intense, flashy commercials for every 30 minute show they watch though.
- bargl 7y ago
  I don't know how many PJ Masks toys and shirts I've bought based on that show. The thing that got me as a kid was seeing all the cool food everyone else got that my parents wouldn't give me. I just wanted hot pockets in my house like they had. Kids will always want toys like the shows they like. But the other stuff isn't necessary.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- TallGuyShort 7y ago
  Transformers is great advertising - it delivered good entertainment value, it made the toys more fun to play with because your imagination had already seen a bunch of Transformers stories play out. Contrast this with cable TV ads if you haven't watched cable TV in a while. Annoying, gimmicky, manipulative. I don't have a problem with commercials on principle - I have a problem with how they're implemented. Banner ads on website that give me good content for free? Great! Informing me there are hot MILFs in my area while I'm pair-programming with my boss? No thanks.
- mgkimsal 7y ago
  I'm always reminded of the Mattel and Mars Bar quick Energy Chocobot Hour whenever I think of Transformers... https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Mattel_and_Mars_Bar_Quick_Energy_Chocobot_Hour https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Mattel_and_Mars_Bar_Quick_E... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HErRwSpla0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HErRwSpla0
- cortesoft 7y ago
  Yeah, all my favorite shows from my childhood in the 80's were created to sell a toy.
turk73 7y ago
I have had the same experience. Also, some relative gave us some kids' VHS tapes and I still had a player so I figured why not? Well, let me tell you why not: Nobody has time for rewinding to take place and the low-quality video and audio is quaint, but it's dead tech. The VCR and all the tapes got recycled shortly thereafter.
- silversconfused 7y ago
  Really? We love our VCR. How else are you going to watch beauty and the beast without suffering through human again?
- lostlogin 7y ago
  > Nobody has time for rewinding VHS could be stopped where you wanted to stop. Who hasn’t played the frustrating dance where streamed video buffers, plays some other part or jumps back to where you were. VHS rwd and ffw buttons just worked.
brixon 7y ago
Granted, my son now wants toys based on this "new" show he was watching and is sad to find out that toys for this are no longer made and the only ones that exist are collectibles.
pastor_elm 7y ago
were the ads really all that bad though? I don't remember asking for much more than video games, board games, hungry hungry hippos, McDonalds, Sunny D, etc. Kids today get crazy ads on Instagram and are asking for Supreme shirts, Yeezus shoes, Kylie Jenner makeup kits.
- standardUser 7y ago
  Yes, they were that bad and were getting worse. By the late 90's, most ads directed at young children were reminiscent of a bad acid trip. Flashing lights and colors, non-stop quick-cuts and people literally screaming over and over for you, a child of 6 or 7 years, to BUY THE THING! YOU GOTTA HAVE IT! COLLECT THEM ALL! It was absolutely terrifying and we should all be collectively ashamed for allowing it to persist and to happen in the first place. Here's a random example I just found on YouTube (first 30 seconds): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXzR3-w3vEQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXzR3-w3vEQ
  - owlninja 7y ago
    My kids have literally zero disposable income. I'm not saying I enjoy ads or that we need more, but HN goes really over the top against advertising.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      > My kids have literally zero disposable income. They can ask to use yours, though, which is what most kid-targeted advertising looks to cause.
      - owlninja 7y ago
        And you just say no?
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        Sure, you can, but most parents don't say no every time, and that means sometimes asking's going to pay off. Some of the "kidfluencer" content out there is clearly aimed at giving kids talking points to bring to their parents. Before we banned YouTube from the house a few years back, I had a couple experiences where my kids would come and give me canned marketing copy - "it's fun and educational for the whole family!" sort of nonsense - they'd clearly cribbed off a video. One specific example of this I can remember: "EvanTube". Started off cute and relatively non-commercial, but turned into very clearly paid marketing. https://www.fastcompany.com/3045807/meet-the-father-son-team-making-13-million-on-youtube https://www.fastcompany.com/3045807/meet-the-father-son-team...
anoncow 7y ago
After subscribing to YouTube Premium, I had a similar revelation. Now if only we could have a google ad-free subscription which would turn off all google search and display network ads, our lives would be so much better! What if we could have cities outlaw advertising on billboards and instead collect a small tax to make up for the lost revenue, how much would our quality of life increase? That makes me wonder, if we could ever get to such an utopia, what avenues would advertisers have left to sell products to us?
- dimensi0nal 7y ago
  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpa...
  - eswat 7y ago
    I actually forgot YouTube had ads until someone showed me a video on their laptop this past weekend. Was painful to watch them try to dismiss it.
    - vonseel 7y ago
      I find uBlock works well at blocking YouTube ads but occasionally I get a static screen in the video player that says something like “Service not available at the moment.”. YT seems to be intermittently blocking UBO users.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - yzssi 7y ago
        I use ubo and I've never, ever had that happen to me. My two cents.
legohead 7y ago
Brand marketing towards children is a real and effective thing. There was a study done on wrapping basic food (carrots/apples) in McDonalds branding and kids said it tasted better [1]. Always seemed scary to me. Glad my kids don't have the same amount of brainwashing as I did. However, we have our own generational problems to deal with, like YouTube "merch" begging, clickbaiting, etc. Now that I think about it, maybe I'd rather they'd see TV adverts... [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/kids-think-food-in-mcdonald-s-wrapper-tastes-better-study-1.635688 https://www.cbc.ca/news/kids-think-food-in-mcdonald-s-wrappe...
Raphmedia 7y ago
In Québec, the Consumer Protection Act prohibits commercial advertising directed at children under 13 years of age. One negative effect is that this has made it very hard for genuine educational companies to grow. It is hard to market a product that teach kids to code if you cannot show the product to kids.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > It is hard to market a product that teach kids to code if you cannot show the product to kids. You show it to their parents, don't you?
  - Raphmedia 7y ago
    You can but even then you risk not following the rules correctly. > The Consumer Protection Act prohibits advertising that targets children. To determine whether advertising is directed at them, the Act stipulates that it is necessary to take into account the context of the advertisement’s presentation and the impression it gives. > The Act also provides three criteria that correspond to the following questions: > • For whom are the advertised goods or services intended? Do they appeal to children? > • Is the advertisement designed to attract the attention of children? > • Are children targeted by the advertisement or exposed to it? Are they present at the time and place it appears or is broadcast? [...] > Goods or services essentially intended for children and that therefore appeal to them. Ex.: certain video games, toys or candy primarily consumed by children. > The ad must not: > • be designed in a way that appeals to children; > • be broadcast or distributed in a place where or at a time when children are normally reached. [...] > The fact that an advertisement or advertising method appears to target adults does not mean that the advertisement is intended exclusively for them. Following an analysis of the two other criteria, an advertisement that attracts the attention of children can still be considered as advertising directed at children even though it seems to target adults because of its verbal or written content. That may be the case if the product advertised appeals to children. - https://www.opc.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/media/documents/consommateur/sujet/publicite-pratique-illegale/EN_Guide_publicite_moins_de_13_ans_vf.pdf https://www.opc.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/media/documents/consomm...
mcphage 7y ago
I had that same experience with my daughter—it was Thanksgiving, so we put on the Macy's Day Parade 'cause hey, giant balloons. And then a commercial came on and she asked me to put the balloons back.
83457 7y ago
Did you tell this story years ago on hn? Someone did and I've mentioned it to a few people since. (although I guess it is a common situation)
- jerf 7y ago
  Even just in my own personal life, I've heard similar stories from more than one person. I've also both heard and personally witnessed with my own kids them trying to manipulate the primary TV of the house like it's a touchscreen, so I'm sure that's a story that's independently happened many hundreds of thousands of times by now, if not millions. (I don't have a cute story, though. They just tried it once, I told them it didn't work that way, please stop smearing the TV with your hands, and they stopped. No cute questions or comments about the TV being "broken".)
Circuits 7y ago
Funny that they say it's saving kids all this time.. as if adults aren't the main consumers of Netflix media.
sdegutis 7y ago
Why not go further and get rid of TV? The problems it creates seem to greatly outweigh any little benefits. And most of the benefits can be gotten with books anyway, which also has more benefits.
- stlark 7y ago
  What about documentaries like Planet Earth? Would find it hard to believe that a book could replace that. TV is fine in moderation.
  - sdegutis 7y ago
    I've never seen or heard of that documentary and probably neither have my kids, but we seem to get along just fine without it. Also we don't have TV and less than a year ago got rid of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, our home internet connection, our mobile internet connections, and our landline telephone. I find that now we read a lot more books and talk a lot more and explore the world around us more often and more actively. And we all like to share the exciting new things we learn about, them from school and us from reading at home. So there's no shortage of learning from lack of TV.
    - filoleg 7y ago
      Genuinely curious, how are you planning to handle the future in which your kids go to college and move out of your house? Do you feel like they will be adequately prepared to deal with the world that has internet, Netflix, smartphones, etc.? To me, this situation reminds of all those sheltered kids with overprotective parents, who went off the rails once they got to college, because they were not prepared to handle well all those new options they were "protected" from by their parents.
      - sdegutis 7y ago
        Right now is the time for us to teach them self-control and self-restraint, and we do that in little ways that get bigger over time. As all virtues, if you sharpen it against one thing, it'll be sharper for the next thing. Those devices will probably be one of those ways they can practice as they get old enough, but with supervision of course. The idea is, if you give a kid a solid foundation for a happy life by the time they're a young adult, so that they have a formula and a recipe for a life that they feel completely satisfied with, they won't feel unfulfilled and like life is missing something when they become adults, which is the biggest motivator for people adopting bad habits, especially the bad habits of their peers. So that's my job. Give them a good, full life now, and teach them how to navigate life while making it good and full in wholesome and rewarding ways. Then trust them to make these decisions as adults. And guide them through it the whole time. My job won't end when they're 18 or 81. I'm always their father and role model and guide, til the day I die.
mysterydip 7y ago
Same thing with mine. Not being able to choose an episode or show, and being stuck with whatever the channel wanted to provide, was a foreign concept.
amelius 7y ago
On the flip side, commercials can teach a kid to be patient, and that it can not always have instant/continuous gratification.
- MichaelDickens 7y ago
  If that's your goal, wouldn't it be better to just pause the TV every 10 minutes or so for a few minutes at a time? That would have the same effect in terms of delaying gratification, and it's strictly better because you're not exposing your child to commercials.
  - mobjack 7y ago
    Pausing the TV every 10 minutes is much harder as a parent on many different levels. Commercials can teach kids about long term instant gratification when it comes to toys. If they want something they see on TV, then they can wait until their birthday/Christmas to get it and decide which ones they want most. They can also learn that often toys on TV seem more fun than they are in real life. They can learn to be more skeptical when it comes to advertising through experience. Commercials are not really the problem. It is spoiling kids and buying them something every time they demand it that causes issues.
- EpicEng 7y ago
  There are much better ways to teach that.
- aqme28 7y ago
  You could apply that same logic to pretty much any hardship that builds character. It's not a good argument.
- PascLeRasc 7y ago
  I agree with you, but I downvoted to build your character. You're welcome!
- ACow_Adonis 7y ago
  Can't the same be achieved just by limiting/ scheduling screen time? (And a while host of other parental techniques incidentally)
anpmat 7y ago
Couldn't agree more, and when a lot of kids are doing that you can imagine how much of an effect it has on peer pressure and what is considered a cool toy to have.
not_a_cop75 7y ago
Until it's not and they advertise anyway. Netflix has adopted the pay and advertise anyway model. The advertising in this case is the product you've already paid for, which is still annoying and bothersome. Apparently, they are trying to work off the success of AOL.
m463 7y ago
I think a lot of "shared experience" stuff in the network tv era included the ads. I still remember advertising songs and things like the big mac ingredients.
- SiVal 7y ago
  "Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun!" I hadn't thought of that one for decades. I could feel bad about not memorizing Shakespeare instead, but I also have MANY numerical constants in permastore from the same era, so I can't complain too much.
sitkack 7y ago
I came to say something similar. My child gets irate when she sees an ad, esp when she plays a free to play game on the iphone and I forget to put the phone in airplane mode. her: "Dad, what is this? I want to play my game" me: "Oh sorry, that is an ad, let me fix this." her: "I hate ads!" She is basically the same with trailers.
Fnoord 7y ago
One of the reasons I got Netflix, and one of the reasons why I want to get rid of cable TV (I can't get internet without cable TV). However I am getting tired of the autoplay functions in Netflix. They. Are. Annoying. Commercials for children are a cancer to society. They're a distraction and a waste of our precious time. Parents don't want it (they got enough on their hands as it is), children don't want it (it isn't content, they get manipulated). While I will protect my children (and myself) from any commercials, its also good to teach them that not everything they notice is truth or can be achieved/bought.
mcv 7y ago
When I was a kid, our evening TV was always Sesame Street -> Klokhuis (a pop-sci-ish program for kids) -> Jeugdjournaal (news presented in an accessible way for kids), and after that it's my dad's turn to watch the real news at 8. All those shows still exist, and recently we did that again, and we were all baffled by how much commercials we had to watch. Dutch public TV has commercials, and that's looking increasingly odd now that we're all so used to Netflix. My son was calling to skip it, but we couldn't.
Angostura 7y ago
I remember my kids similar confusion/annoyance when they first strayed from the BBC children's channels - CBeebies and CBBC

by bargl 7y ago

saluki 7y ago

Same my son grew up on Netflix, we were watching the Super Bowl on OTA tv when he was 5 and he asked the same thing, what's this? Oh that's a commercial. He also picked up that when we search a toy on amazon, afterward there would be an ad on the side of YouTube for the same toy, he pointed and asked how they did that. This was around the same time, he was 5 or 6.

lmkg 7y ago

To be fair, my favorite show growing up was Transformers. So technically even the show itself was a commercial.

Insanity 7y ago
That probably goes for a lot of shows for kids :)
- smhenderson 7y ago
  I'd say if a kids show is not on public television it most likely is a commercial for a toy or a vehicle for a number of other ads for unrelated toys. And even for me and my five year old, there is plenty of Danial Tiger gear out there to buy! The difference is they make and sell the toys but they don't advertise them during the show. It's not much but that subtle difference is what allows me to sit down and watch 30 - 60 minutes of these shows a few times a week with her. As others have mentioned, even NetFlix "sells toys", just not overtly like network TV does. But just watching PJ Max, Trolls, etc. makes my five year old grand daughter want everything she sees when we go to any store that has these shows' stuff for sale. Both of them are still better than numbing their minds with 8-12 minutes of intense, flashy commercials for every 30 minute show they watch though.
bargl 7y ago
I don't know how many PJ Masks toys and shirts I've bought based on that show. The thing that got me as a kid was seeing all the cool food everyone else got that my parents wouldn't give me. I just wanted hot pockets in my house like they had. Kids will always want toys like the shows they like. But the other stuff isn't necessary.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
TallGuyShort 7y ago
Transformers is great advertising - it delivered good entertainment value, it made the toys more fun to play with because your imagination had already seen a bunch of Transformers stories play out. Contrast this with cable TV ads if you haven't watched cable TV in a while. Annoying, gimmicky, manipulative. I don't have a problem with commercials on principle - I have a problem with how they're implemented. Banner ads on website that give me good content for free? Great! Informing me there are hot MILFs in my area while I'm pair-programming with my boss? No thanks.
mgkimsal 7y ago
I'm always reminded of the Mattel and Mars Bar quick Energy Chocobot Hour whenever I think of Transformers... https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Mattel_and_Mars_Bar_Quick_Energy_Chocobot_Hour https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Mattel_and_Mars_Bar_Quick_E... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HErRwSpla0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HErRwSpla0
cortesoft 7y ago
Yeah, all my favorite shows from my childhood in the 80's were created to sell a toy.

turk73 7y ago

I have had the same experience. Also, some relative gave us some kids' VHS tapes and I still had a player so I figured why not? Well, let me tell you why not: Nobody has time for rewinding to take place and the low-quality video and audio is quaint, but it's dead tech. The VCR and all the tapes got recycled shortly thereafter.

silversconfused 7y ago
Really? We love our VCR. How else are you going to watch beauty and the beast without suffering through human again?
lostlogin 7y ago
> Nobody has time for rewinding VHS could be stopped where you wanted to stop. Who hasn’t played the frustrating dance where streamed video buffers, plays some other part or jumps back to where you were. VHS rwd and ffw buttons just worked.

brixon 7y ago

Granted, my son now wants toys based on this "new" show he was watching and is sad to find out that toys for this are no longer made and the only ones that exist are collectibles.

pastor_elm 7y ago

were the ads really all that bad though? I don't remember asking for much more than video games, board games, hungry hungry hippos, McDonalds, Sunny D, etc. Kids today get crazy ads on Instagram and are asking for Supreme shirts, Yeezus shoes, Kylie Jenner makeup kits.

standardUser 7y ago
Yes, they were that bad and were getting worse. By the late 90's, most ads directed at young children were reminiscent of a bad acid trip. Flashing lights and colors, non-stop quick-cuts and people literally screaming over and over for you, a child of 6 or 7 years, to BUY THE THING! YOU GOTTA HAVE IT! COLLECT THEM ALL! It was absolutely terrifying and we should all be collectively ashamed for allowing it to persist and to happen in the first place. Here's a random example I just found on YouTube (first 30 seconds): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXzR3-w3vEQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXzR3-w3vEQ
- owlninja 7y ago
  My kids have literally zero disposable income. I'm not saying I enjoy ads or that we need more, but HN goes really over the top against advertising.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    > My kids have literally zero disposable income. They can ask to use yours, though, which is what most kid-targeted advertising looks to cause.
    - owlninja 7y ago
      And you just say no?
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        Sure, you can, but most parents don't say no every time, and that means sometimes asking's going to pay off. Some of the "kidfluencer" content out there is clearly aimed at giving kids talking points to bring to their parents. Before we banned YouTube from the house a few years back, I had a couple experiences where my kids would come and give me canned marketing copy - "it's fun and educational for the whole family!" sort of nonsense - they'd clearly cribbed off a video. One specific example of this I can remember: "EvanTube". Started off cute and relatively non-commercial, but turned into very clearly paid marketing. https://www.fastcompany.com/3045807/meet-the-father-son-team-making-13-million-on-youtube https://www.fastcompany.com/3045807/meet-the-father-son-team...

anoncow 7y ago

After subscribing to YouTube Premium, I had a similar revelation. Now if only we could have a google ad-free subscription which would turn off all google search and display network ads, our lives would be so much better! What if we could have cities outlaw advertising on billboards and instead collect a small tax to make up for the lost revenue, how much would our quality of life increase? That makes me wonder, if we could ever get to such an utopia, what avenues would advertisers have left to sell products to us?

dimensi0nal 7y ago
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpa...
- eswat 7y ago
  I actually forgot YouTube had ads until someone showed me a video on their laptop this past weekend. Was painful to watch them try to dismiss it.
  - vonseel 7y ago
    I find uBlock works well at blocking YouTube ads but occasionally I get a static screen in the video player that says something like “Service not available at the moment.”. YT seems to be intermittently blocking UBO users.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - yzssi 7y ago
      I use ubo and I've never, ever had that happen to me. My two cents.

legohead 7y ago

Brand marketing towards children is a real and effective thing. There was a study done on wrapping basic food (carrots/apples) in McDonalds branding and kids said it tasted better [1]. Always seemed scary to me. Glad my kids don't have the same amount of brainwashing as I did. However, we have our own generational problems to deal with, like YouTube "merch" begging, clickbaiting, etc. Now that I think about it, maybe I'd rather they'd see TV adverts... [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/kids-think-food-in-mcdonald-s-wrapper-tastes-better-study-1.635688 https://www.cbc.ca/news/kids-think-food-in-mcdonald-s-wrappe...

Raphmedia 7y ago

In Québec, the Consumer Protection Act prohibits commercial advertising directed at children under 13 years of age. One negative effect is that this has made it very hard for genuine educational companies to grow. It is hard to market a product that teach kids to code if you cannot show the product to kids.

chrisseaton 7y ago
> It is hard to market a product that teach kids to code if you cannot show the product to kids. You show it to their parents, don't you?
- Raphmedia 7y ago
  You can but even then you risk not following the rules correctly. > The Consumer Protection Act prohibits advertising that targets children. To determine whether advertising is directed at them, the Act stipulates that it is necessary to take into account the context of the advertisement’s presentation and the impression it gives. > The Act also provides three criteria that correspond to the following questions: > • For whom are the advertised goods or services intended? Do they appeal to children? > • Is the advertisement designed to attract the attention of children? > • Are children targeted by the advertisement or exposed to it? Are they present at the time and place it appears or is broadcast? [...] > Goods or services essentially intended for children and that therefore appeal to them. Ex.: certain video games, toys or candy primarily consumed by children. > The ad must not: > • be designed in a way that appeals to children; > • be broadcast or distributed in a place where or at a time when children are normally reached. [...] > The fact that an advertisement or advertising method appears to target adults does not mean that the advertisement is intended exclusively for them. Following an analysis of the two other criteria, an advertisement that attracts the attention of children can still be considered as advertising directed at children even though it seems to target adults because of its verbal or written content. That may be the case if the product advertised appeals to children. - https://www.opc.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/media/documents/consommateur/sujet/publicite-pratique-illegale/EN_Guide_publicite_moins_de_13_ans_vf.pdf https://www.opc.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/media/documents/consomm...

mcphage 7y ago

I had that same experience with my daughter—it was Thanksgiving, so we put on the Macy's Day Parade 'cause hey, giant balloons. And then a commercial came on and she asked me to put the balloons back.

83457 7y ago

Did you tell this story years ago on hn? Someone did and I've mentioned it to a few people since. (although I guess it is a common situation)

jerf 7y ago
Even just in my own personal life, I've heard similar stories from more than one person. I've also both heard and personally witnessed with my own kids them trying to manipulate the primary TV of the house like it's a touchscreen, so I'm sure that's a story that's independently happened many hundreds of thousands of times by now, if not millions. (I don't have a cute story, though. They just tried it once, I told them it didn't work that way, please stop smearing the TV with your hands, and they stopped. No cute questions or comments about the TV being "broken".)

Circuits 7y ago

Funny that they say it's saving kids all this time.. as if adults aren't the main consumers of Netflix media.

sdegutis 7y ago

Why not go further and get rid of TV? The problems it creates seem to greatly outweigh any little benefits. And most of the benefits can be gotten with books anyway, which also has more benefits.

stlark 7y ago
What about documentaries like Planet Earth? Would find it hard to believe that a book could replace that. TV is fine in moderation.
- sdegutis 7y ago
  I've never seen or heard of that documentary and probably neither have my kids, but we seem to get along just fine without it. Also we don't have TV and less than a year ago got rid of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, our home internet connection, our mobile internet connections, and our landline telephone. I find that now we read a lot more books and talk a lot more and explore the world around us more often and more actively. And we all like to share the exciting new things we learn about, them from school and us from reading at home. So there's no shortage of learning from lack of TV.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    Genuinely curious, how are you planning to handle the future in which your kids go to college and move out of your house? Do you feel like they will be adequately prepared to deal with the world that has internet, Netflix, smartphones, etc.? To me, this situation reminds of all those sheltered kids with overprotective parents, who went off the rails once they got to college, because they were not prepared to handle well all those new options they were "protected" from by their parents.
    - sdegutis 7y ago
      Right now is the time for us to teach them self-control and self-restraint, and we do that in little ways that get bigger over time. As all virtues, if you sharpen it against one thing, it'll be sharper for the next thing. Those devices will probably be one of those ways they can practice as they get old enough, but with supervision of course. The idea is, if you give a kid a solid foundation for a happy life by the time they're a young adult, so that they have a formula and a recipe for a life that they feel completely satisfied with, they won't feel unfulfilled and like life is missing something when they become adults, which is the biggest motivator for people adopting bad habits, especially the bad habits of their peers. So that's my job. Give them a good, full life now, and teach them how to navigate life while making it good and full in wholesome and rewarding ways. Then trust them to make these decisions as adults. And guide them through it the whole time. My job won't end when they're 18 or 81. I'm always their father and role model and guide, til the day I die.

mysterydip 7y ago

Same thing with mine. Not being able to choose an episode or show, and being stuck with whatever the channel wanted to provide, was a foreign concept.

amelius 7y ago

On the flip side, commercials can teach a kid to be patient, and that it can not always have instant/continuous gratification.

MichaelDickens 7y ago
If that's your goal, wouldn't it be better to just pause the TV every 10 minutes or so for a few minutes at a time? That would have the same effect in terms of delaying gratification, and it's strictly better because you're not exposing your child to commercials.
- mobjack 7y ago
  Pausing the TV every 10 minutes is much harder as a parent on many different levels. Commercials can teach kids about long term instant gratification when it comes to toys. If they want something they see on TV, then they can wait until their birthday/Christmas to get it and decide which ones they want most. They can also learn that often toys on TV seem more fun than they are in real life. They can learn to be more skeptical when it comes to advertising through experience. Commercials are not really the problem. It is spoiling kids and buying them something every time they demand it that causes issues.
EpicEng 7y ago
There are much better ways to teach that.
aqme28 7y ago
You could apply that same logic to pretty much any hardship that builds character. It's not a good argument.
PascLeRasc 7y ago
I agree with you, but I downvoted to build your character. You're welcome!
ACow_Adonis 7y ago
Can't the same be achieved just by limiting/ scheduling screen time? (And a while host of other parental techniques incidentally)

anpmat 7y ago

Couldn't agree more, and when a lot of kids are doing that you can imagine how much of an effect it has on peer pressure and what is considered a cool toy to have.

not_a_cop75 7y ago

Until it's not and they advertise anyway. Netflix has adopted the pay and advertise anyway model. The advertising in this case is the product you've already paid for, which is still annoying and bothersome. Apparently, they are trying to work off the success of AOL.

m463 7y ago

I think a lot of "shared experience" stuff in the network tv era included the ads. I still remember advertising songs and things like the big mac ingredients.

SiVal 7y ago
"Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun!" I hadn't thought of that one for decades. I could feel bad about not memorizing Shakespeare instead, but I also have MANY numerical constants in permastore from the same era, so I can't complain too much.

sitkack 7y ago

I came to say something similar. My child gets irate when she sees an ad, esp when she plays a free to play game on the iphone and I forget to put the phone in airplane mode. her: "Dad, what is this? I want to play my game" me: "Oh sorry, that is an ad, let me fix this." her: "I hate ads!" She is basically the same with trailers.

Fnoord 7y ago

One of the reasons I got Netflix, and one of the reasons why I want to get rid of cable TV (I can't get internet without cable TV). However I am getting tired of the autoplay functions in Netflix. They. Are. Annoying. Commercials for children are a cancer to society. They're a distraction and a waste of our precious time. Parents don't want it (they got enough on their hands as it is), children don't want it (it isn't content, they get manipulated). While I will protect my children (and myself) from any commercials, its also good to teach them that not everything they notice is truth or can be achieved/bought.

mcv 7y ago

When I was a kid, our evening TV was always Sesame Street -> Klokhuis (a pop-sci-ish program for kids) -> Jeugdjournaal (news presented in an accessible way for kids), and after that it's my dad's turn to watch the real news at 8. All those shows still exist, and recently we did that again, and we were all baffled by how much commercials we had to watch. Dutch public TV has commercials, and that's looking increasingly odd now that we're all so used to Netflix. My son was calling to skip it, but we couldn't.

Angostura 7y ago

I remember my kids similar confusion/annoyance when they first strayed from the BBC children's channels - CBeebies and CBBC