6 ms·

For this little gain, at what cost to the future growth of the kid? Attention span? Ability to focus on anything other than small screens? Social ability? This

For this little gain, at what cost to the future growth of the kid? Attention span? Ability to focus on anything other than small screens? Social ability? This research should really address the pro/con for the kid in the long run rather than just benefit of finding target using their fingers.

the-pigeon 6y ago
The opposite can argued too. That children who don't use tablets have shorter attention spans and worst social skills. The "natural is better" argument is not research based. Society has long preached that things like reading books is great for kids but it's entirely unnatural just like tablets. Generally research in this area has been extremely biased against electronics. You also have to control for the type of activities they are doing on the tablet. For example the mental stimulation when playing an educational Daniel Tiger game is completely different than watching a toy sales driven TV show like Transformers. Both can be done on a tablet though.
- PMan74 6y ago
  > Society has long preached that things like reading books is great for kids Wasn't always the case, Plato felt it would dull your memory. "They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks."
  - DevX101 6y ago
    Plato was probably right. As access to information has become ubiquitous, we increasingly don't need to rely on our memories. Ancient scholars would be able to recite long passages from memory. The printing press made that unnecessary if you could access a book. Now Google has made even books obsolete for some types of information. The internet is the world's memory. What Plato missed was that our ability to do higher order reasoning and synthesis has grown by leaps with books and now the internet. That's a pretty good trade-off for losing some memory.
    - crooked-v 6y ago
      'Recite long passages from memory' is still entirely a thing when there's a practical reason (actors in stage plays) or somebody's just really into something (see people who can quote literally everything in several movies from memory). It's just no longer the first step that comes before anything else.
- highfrequency 6y ago
  Right, the argument against screens shouldn't be that they aren't natural. It's not "natural" to go to the gym and do repetitive contrived exercises, but this turns out to be a healthy habit. On the other hand I don't think any great leaps are required to be wary of the effects of screen time. Even as an adult, if I get into the habit of scrolling through newsfeeds, I notice a strong effect of being distracted and seeking stimulus when doing work. My brain has been trained for quick hits of novelty. In general, there's a night-and-day difference between activities that are easy and tempting vs. challenging but rewarding. I'm sure there are some great educational games on the iPad, but realistically the vast majority of screen time falls into the easy and tempting category.
MichaelApproved 6y ago
> at what cost to the future growth of the kid? Does there need to be a cost? From my experience, it's just like most activities you do with your children. You can use it as babysitter or you can use it as a learning tool by participating and engaging with your child. Here's how I've done it and he's doing great: - We mostly use the tablet together, especially when we try a new app. - I avoid the crack-head apps. The ones with bells, whistles, popups, and other toxic rewards for simple actives. It's fine to rewards like that for something challenging. - We talk about what he's doing. For example, why he chooses certain colors or why he likes the features. Anything to start a conversation. - Moderation. 15-30 minutes once every few days. - Reference what he learned from the app during real-life activities. For example, one app he likes is a virtual dog washing app. He uses soap, a brush, water, etc. When we're playing together, we pretend to clean his stuffed animals just like he did in the app.
- ksdale 6y ago
  Anecdotally, we don't exactly practice moderation with screen time, and we've been constantly surprised at how much our kids learn from even the crappy alphabet/number/animals/shapes videos on YouTube Kids. We're also not big into milestones, but our kids have absolutely flown past every educational milestone for their ages. We are very present, attentive parents with above average education, but we spend (what we think is) an unexceptional amount of time teaching them things, and they have learned an exceptional amount. What's funny is that everyone just assumes the screen time is bad, and that our kids are naturally very smart (with the implicit suggestion that they'd know more without screen time). That may be true, but it isn't borne out by observation in our case. We've found a lot of parenting is like that - people are pretty sure about what's good and bad, and the child's behavior/response one way or the other is either expected or a fluke, depending on what confirms assumptions about what's good and bad. Our oldest is only 7, but we have 4 and we've noticed no ill effects from screen time, the kids are all social, they love to go to the park and play with friends (which we don't get to do nearly enough now...), to go for walks and ride bikes, in short they all seem well within the bounds of "normal" development for their ages.

the-pigeon 6y ago

The opposite can argued too. That children who don't use tablets have shorter attention spans and worst social skills. The "natural is better" argument is not research based. Society has long preached that things like reading books is great for kids but it's entirely unnatural just like tablets. Generally research in this area has been extremely biased against electronics. You also have to control for the type of activities they are doing on the tablet. For example the mental stimulation when playing an educational Daniel Tiger game is completely different than watching a toy sales driven TV show like Transformers. Both can be done on a tablet though.

PMan74 6y ago
> Society has long preached that things like reading books is great for kids Wasn't always the case, Plato felt it would dull your memory. "They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks."
- DevX101 6y ago
  Plato was probably right. As access to information has become ubiquitous, we increasingly don't need to rely on our memories. Ancient scholars would be able to recite long passages from memory. The printing press made that unnecessary if you could access a book. Now Google has made even books obsolete for some types of information. The internet is the world's memory. What Plato missed was that our ability to do higher order reasoning and synthesis has grown by leaps with books and now the internet. That's a pretty good trade-off for losing some memory.
  - crooked-v 6y ago
    'Recite long passages from memory' is still entirely a thing when there's a practical reason (actors in stage plays) or somebody's just really into something (see people who can quote literally everything in several movies from memory). It's just no longer the first step that comes before anything else.
highfrequency 6y ago
Right, the argument against screens shouldn't be that they aren't natural. It's not "natural" to go to the gym and do repetitive contrived exercises, but this turns out to be a healthy habit. On the other hand I don't think any great leaps are required to be wary of the effects of screen time. Even as an adult, if I get into the habit of scrolling through newsfeeds, I notice a strong effect of being distracted and seeking stimulus when doing work. My brain has been trained for quick hits of novelty. In general, there's a night-and-day difference between activities that are easy and tempting vs. challenging but rewarding. I'm sure there are some great educational games on the iPad, but realistically the vast majority of screen time falls into the easy and tempting category.

MichaelApproved 6y ago

> at what cost to the future growth of the kid? Does there need to be a cost? From my experience, it's just like most activities you do with your children. You can use it as babysitter or you can use it as a learning tool by participating and engaging with your child. Here's how I've done it and he's doing great: - We mostly use the tablet together, especially when we try a new app. - I avoid the crack-head apps. The ones with bells, whistles, popups, and other toxic rewards for simple actives. It's fine to rewards like that for something challenging. - We talk about what he's doing. For example, why he chooses certain colors or why he likes the features. Anything to start a conversation. - Moderation. 15-30 minutes once every few days. - Reference what he learned from the app during real-life activities. For example, one app he likes is a virtual dog washing app. He uses soap, a brush, water, etc. When we're playing together, we pretend to clean his stuffed animals just like he did in the app.

ksdale 6y ago
Anecdotally, we don't exactly practice moderation with screen time, and we've been constantly surprised at how much our kids learn from even the crappy alphabet/number/animals/shapes videos on YouTube Kids. We're also not big into milestones, but our kids have absolutely flown past every educational milestone for their ages. We are very present, attentive parents with above average education, but we spend (what we think is) an unexceptional amount of time teaching them things, and they have learned an exceptional amount. What's funny is that everyone just assumes the screen time is bad, and that our kids are naturally very smart (with the implicit suggestion that they'd know more without screen time). That may be true, but it isn't borne out by observation in our case. We've found a lot of parenting is like that - people are pretty sure about what's good and bad, and the child's behavior/response one way or the other is either expected or a fluke, depending on what confirms assumptions about what's good and bad. Our oldest is only 7, but we have 4 and we've noticed no ill effects from screen time, the kids are all social, they love to go to the park and play with friends (which we don't get to do nearly enough now...), to go for walks and ride bikes, in short they all seem well within the bounds of "normal" development for their ages.