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Eh, I'm in camp "limit their screen time" if the screen time is all junk food. I also don't have kids, so what do I actually know? :) The only context for this

Eh, I'm in camp "limit their screen time" if the screen time is all junk food. I also don't have kids, so what do I actually know? :) The only context for this opinion knowledge of the army of adults whose job it is to "maximize engagement" and give little dopamine hits. Some apps just seem predatory.

sigfubar 6y ago
It's the parents' job to teach kids how to tell junk food from healthy food; predatory apps from apps which add value; "you're the product" from "you're consuming the product". I do this with my kid, and technology is a boon for her. However, most adults aren't qualified to make the distinction between good and evil, so their kids suffer too.
- eanzenberg 6y ago
  Lots of “teaching” is literally excluding from consumption for young kids. Parents know better than their kids, why entrust that kind of advanced decision making within them?
  - JoshTriplett 6y ago
    > why entrust that kind of advanced decision making within them? Because then there's a hope that they'll actually learn the underlying principle and make similar decisions in situations where someone else is not directly in control of their behavior. There are kids who don't get to eat ice cream before dinner at home because that's the rule, who will happily do so when over at someone else's house without their parents around to enforce that rule. Then there are kids who actually understand why they shouldn't eat ice cream before dinner, who will decline to do so even if they have the opportunity. (That doesn't mean they'll exercise perfect judgment every time, but then, there's also no guarantee they'll follow rules that aren't being enforced.) It's important to develop the critical thinking skills to filter out "junk food" content. (To clarify: I'm not talking about children too young to understand the concept, I'm talking about children more than old enough to make such decisions in an informed way. Roughly speaking, think 12, not 3.)
  - filoleg 6y ago
    >Lots of “teaching” is literally excluding from consumption for young kids Sure, I agree with you. Limit what they have access to while using the screen, but not the actual screen time. Somewhat analogous to the difference between limiting junk food from kids' diets vs. making them go full vegan and doing intermittent fasting.
    - eanzenberg 6y ago
      Like most things moderation is key.
- acituan 6y ago
  > It's the parents' job to teach kids how to tell junk food from healthy food I agree with the sentiment, but an important point is not the forget that behind the curtains there is an army of product managers, AI PhDs and tons of data running a version of Truman Show on each one of us. Usually "you're the product" is blended with "you're consuming the product that adds value". For example, you can search and land to a video to watch something educational, but opaque recommendation algorithms, un-turn-offable autoplays, nagging notifications and whatnot will try to convince you like an optimally-annoying salesman to stay just a little more and pay them in attention and ad revenue, or get you those dopamine hits so that you will want to come back to "just check" the app in a pavlovian fashion. Whenever you or your kid interact with a screen, you are potentially interacting not only with a machinery with inherent information asymmetry but also one that we train every day exactly how much abuse we are willing to take. For further reading see Tristan Harris and the design ethics questions he brings into light.
jedberg 6y ago
> Some apps just seem predatory. Oh boy are they ever. We spend a lot of time curating the kids' screen time. We try every app first. Youtube Kids is banned. Youtube's AI sucks at vetting content and they refuse to put humans on the job. The apps from PBS are all gold. Disney+ has so for proven to be good at making sure all the content is kid appropriate.
- falcor84 6y ago
  YouTube Kids also lacks an option to disable Autoplay, which makes it pure evil in my eyes.
  - jedberg 6y ago
    Amusingly PBS kids is the only streaming app I've seen that doesn't ask "are you still there". We've left that one running overnight by accident and it just keeps going and going.
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  I dunno why we can't just hand select any video from youtube for youtube kids? I don't need youtube algos to recommend bullshit to my kids and I don't need youtube to control what i show to my kids.
  - jedberg 6y ago
    You can create a playlist if you want to hand curate a list. But the whole reason I use streaming services is so I can pay someone else to curate the content for me.
    - rorykoehler 6y ago
      I can't put a playlist into YouTube kids. I tried.
      - jedberg 6y ago

sigfubar 6y ago

It's the parents' job to teach kids how to tell junk food from healthy food; predatory apps from apps which add value; "you're the product" from "you're consuming the product". I do this with my kid, and technology is a boon for her. However, most adults aren't qualified to make the distinction between good and evil, so their kids suffer too.

eanzenberg 6y ago
Lots of “teaching” is literally excluding from consumption for young kids. Parents know better than their kids, why entrust that kind of advanced decision making within them?
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  > why entrust that kind of advanced decision making within them? Because then there's a hope that they'll actually learn the underlying principle and make similar decisions in situations where someone else is not directly in control of their behavior. There are kids who don't get to eat ice cream before dinner at home because that's the rule, who will happily do so when over at someone else's house without their parents around to enforce that rule. Then there are kids who actually understand why they shouldn't eat ice cream before dinner, who will decline to do so even if they have the opportunity. (That doesn't mean they'll exercise perfect judgment every time, but then, there's also no guarantee they'll follow rules that aren't being enforced.) It's important to develop the critical thinking skills to filter out "junk food" content. (To clarify: I'm not talking about children too young to understand the concept, I'm talking about children more than old enough to make such decisions in an informed way. Roughly speaking, think 12, not 3.)
- filoleg 6y ago
  >Lots of “teaching” is literally excluding from consumption for young kids Sure, I agree with you. Limit what they have access to while using the screen, but not the actual screen time. Somewhat analogous to the difference between limiting junk food from kids' diets vs. making them go full vegan and doing intermittent fasting.
  - eanzenberg 6y ago
    Like most things moderation is key.
acituan 6y ago
> It's the parents' job to teach kids how to tell junk food from healthy food I agree with the sentiment, but an important point is not the forget that behind the curtains there is an army of product managers, AI PhDs and tons of data running a version of Truman Show on each one of us. Usually "you're the product" is blended with "you're consuming the product that adds value". For example, you can search and land to a video to watch something educational, but opaque recommendation algorithms, un-turn-offable autoplays, nagging notifications and whatnot will try to convince you like an optimally-annoying salesman to stay just a little more and pay them in attention and ad revenue, or get you those dopamine hits so that you will want to come back to "just check" the app in a pavlovian fashion. Whenever you or your kid interact with a screen, you are potentially interacting not only with a machinery with inherent information asymmetry but also one that we train every day exactly how much abuse we are willing to take. For further reading see Tristan Harris and the design ethics questions he brings into light.

jedberg 6y ago

> Some apps just seem predatory. Oh boy are they ever. We spend a lot of time curating the kids' screen time. We try every app first. Youtube Kids is banned. Youtube's AI sucks at vetting content and they refuse to put humans on the job. The apps from PBS are all gold. Disney+ has so for proven to be good at making sure all the content is kid appropriate.

falcor84 6y ago
YouTube Kids also lacks an option to disable Autoplay, which makes it pure evil in my eyes.
- jedberg 6y ago
  Amusingly PBS kids is the only streaming app I've seen that doesn't ask "are you still there". We've left that one running overnight by accident and it just keeps going and going.
rorykoehler 6y ago
I dunno why we can't just hand select any video from youtube for youtube kids? I don't need youtube algos to recommend bullshit to my kids and I don't need youtube to control what i show to my kids.
- jedberg 6y ago
  You can create a playlist if you want to hand curate a list. But the whole reason I use streaming services is so I can pay someone else to curate the content for me.
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    I can't put a playlist into YouTube kids. I tried.
    - jedberg 6y ago