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A lot of the comments here seem to be saying that (1) kids getting addicted to phones is no different than getting addicted to TV, books, etc, and that this is

A lot of the comments here seem to be saying that (1) kids getting addicted to phones is no different than getting addicted to TV, books, etc, and that this is just the latest iteration of a complaint parents have had for generations and (2) this person is a bad parent. I used to agree with (1), but lately I'm inclined to think that this time, it really is different. Very different. And the primary reason is that unlike TV and books, this is an interactive device explicitly designed to manipulate our psychology into using it more, on a scale we've never seen before. Books never had thousands of engineers observing realtime metrics to make small tweaks to make you use something just a little bit longer. TV isn't a bi-directional communication platform that has thrown teenagers into an arena where they're communicating with thousands of people at a time when they're still figuring out how to communicate in small groups. Regarding (2), I think people are being far too critical. The author acknowledges many of their own missteps, and they're also going through a time where, iPhone or not, their daughter is growing apart from them, and I imagine that's very difficult emotionally. I also feel like they really humanized how budging a little bit on rules here and there can spiral out of control, and how that feels. I really appreciated that perspective.

analog31 6y ago
"Bad parent" can be applied to anything that goes wrong, and is an empty assertion. And it seems to be asymmetrically applied to mothers, not fathers. Also, one of the first rules of parenting is, never show any sign of weakness in public, or you will be attacked ruthlessly. It's a variant on the old saying, "Never let them see you sweat." This bias in the literature makes it look like there are some brilliant parents out there, who have found the secret for success that the rest of us can "just" follow. There are of course parallels in the business literature. The best formula I have observed is that obedient, self disciplined children tend to have obedient, self disciplined parents. I overheard a discussion between two friends about the effects of TV on behavior. One friend's argument: "Of course commercial TV affects behavior. That's its purpose." This stuff is designed to manipulate us. Maybe that's possible with books too, but books have just not risen to that level of sophistication.
- nemo1618 6y ago
  It's kind of comforting that the ad industry has thrown billions of dollars into trying to mind-control people, and conversion rates are still super low. Maybe we got lucky; maybe on another planet somewhere, intelligent life is 1000x more susceptible to ads.
  - tpxl 6y ago
    It's a zero sum game, no matter how much money you put into it, the result is always gonna be the same.
- saiya-jin 6y ago
  > Also, one of the first rules of parenting is, never show any sign of weakness in public, or you will be attacked ruthlessly. It's a variant on the old saying, "Never let them see you sweat." I agree with everything you say except for this. We have friends (2 kids now) where mom is like that. On first glance all is perfect, she is perfect mom that manages to do so many things, all is great etc. Apart from actual reality once you know them better and you know where to look. At the end they are no better than rest of us, in some aspects far from it (this kind of behavior stems from some deeper issue(s), which tend to manifest in various ways). And all this charade starts to look pathetic pretty quickly. Be honest, open, laugh at your fails, we all went through it, its normal. It will get you further with almost everybody including yourself. Definitely with me. / If I misunderstood what you meant then sorry for the preaching.
  - bluedays 6y ago
    Ah, but do you have kids? Because whooboy, lemme tell ya... Speaking as a parent, I can honestly say there is nobody more judgemental than other parents. I can't tell you how many times I've heard parents criticize other people's parenting. Parenting is a thankless job is fraught with insecurity and doubt, and every parent thinks they are not doing good enough, and constantly comparing themselves to other parents. Seeing a parent who shows weakness, who is not doing a good job, is a vindication for parents. "Hey, look, I'm not as bad as HIM/HER". You don't want other parents to think that about you, so you make sure you never EVER allow parents to see you make a mistake because you know the first thing that will happen is they will go home and talk about it with their parent/parent/friend/whoever. Parenting is just like any other job. You can be an employee, but if people think you're a screw up don't expect to be invited to any social functions. Except in this case it's not just you who is getting excluded... It's your child and the rest of your family.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
RonanTheGrey 6y ago
I was 100% convinced my kids won't get these devices until their very late teens, when I saw how my less than 1 year old reacted to the phones my wife and I use. Because his reaction is pure instinct, the dopamine response just to the colors and brightness was shocking. We now have to work HARD to keep these devices away from him. Part of it, of course, is he observes how much attention we pay them but his eyes definitely light up differently when they are turned on. And that's without the manipulative, 1000-engineers-optimizing-for-your-addiction software built into them. I honestly find it harder and harder to believe these things do anything positive for us. I 100% believe they can I just think we've turned them into something ugly, right now.
- FabHK 6y ago
  I've babysat for friends with a 3 and 5 yr old, and it is phenomenal how you could grab their attention (and distract from any ailment they had a second earlier) by showing them youtube videos of fire engines with sirens.
- glancast 6y ago
  Although we occasionally resort to Cocomelon in desperation - the absolute trance it induces is the stuff of dystopian nightmares.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bumby 6y ago
>unlike TV and books, this is an interactive device explicitly designed to manipulate our psychology into using it more I think the TV, film, and print media attempted to do the same, they were/are just much less effective at it. For example, watch a "slow burn" movie like Alien. Most modern movies, by comparison, seem to be edited to keep our short attention span tuned in. Same with the old adage "sex sells"...we've always been trying to hijack human attention we're just so good about it now it's essentially been weaponized.
giarc 6y ago
I agree with you - when a book is down, a TV is off or a console is off, it doesn't ping you and light up to gain your attention. Sure, as kids we watched a lot of TV, but when it was time to turn it off we didn't get a sound to tell us someone "Liked" your photo. As you said, these aren't bi-directional. I think the hardest thing for this parent was balancing what was right for their child (and they seemed to be confident in their opinion) and what would hold them back socially at school. It's hard to say no to a child that says "Everyone else has an iPhone" because we all remember being that kid left out from something when we were young.
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  IDK. I mean you're right, of course, but I remember getting engrossed in books to the point where I lost sleep, or delayed doing other important things because I either could not put it down or I was drawn back to it. This happened as a teen and as a young adult, not so much lately but I really don't read books nearly as much as I used to.
  - Xavdidtheshadow 6y ago
    I was also an avid reader growing up and spent many nights under the covers with a flashlight. I think the big difference is the adaptivity of the phone. Books don't figure out what personally engrosses you and tweak the rest of the book so you can't put it down. That feels too powerful IMO.
    - jdbernard 6y ago
      Also, at some point you finish the story. There's a natural stopping point and conclusion that makes it easier to out the book down and spend time doing something else before picking up the next one. Contrast that with so many apps whose main feed uses some sort of infinite scroll.
- hidden-spyder 6y ago
  > when a book is down, a TV is off or a console is off, it doesn't ping you and light up to gain your attention. There's DND (Do Not Disturb) mode for this. It's just a button click away on all phones.
nostrademons 6y ago
> thousands of engineers observing realtime metrics to make small tweaks to make you use something just a little bit longer. As one of the thousands of engineers dedicated to making you use your consumer electronics a little bit more: it's really easy to defeat my work. You make a conscious decision not to use the product, you catch yourself using it, you stop. Do it for about a month and you've broken the habit. That's why we look at metrics like MAUs and L28s. There is basically nothing I can do about a user who actively doesn't want to use the product; we basically throw up our hands and say "Not our target market." The reason my job exists is because hundreds of millions of people don't think like that, and don't have any conscious opinion one way or another about my product. It's those users we're trying to influence, the ones who are basically ambivalent, allocate their time based on emotion, and don't have any strong beliefs one way or another about what they should be spending their time on or how they want their life to look. There are enough of them that this market is worth billions, but everything I do - all the engagement work and instant gratification and positioning subtle hints in the UI - is about influencing the people who don't care one way or another. If that is not you - if you have actively made a conscious choice what you want to spend your time on, and it's not watching TV more - you won't even see my product. (It was actually pretty awkward when I took my job, because I work on TVs but watch basically none and didn't even own a TV beforehand.)
- ricardobeat 6y ago
  Here is a little exercise: imagine yourself being a drug dealer, and read your own comment out loud. It rings perfectly, and it is no coincidence, proportions aside. You cannot absolve yourself from responsibility just because your target audience 'had a choice'.
  - nostrademons 6y ago
    FWIW I think drugs should be legal too (though I won't go near them myself), and the rest of the country is gradually coming around to that realization.
    - ricardobeat 6y ago
dom96 6y ago
> Books never had thousands of engineers observing realtime metrics to make small tweaks to make you use something just a little bit longer Books and other forms of media have been optimised to be addictive to read/watch for decades. It might not happen at the same scale, but the increase in scale also means that the mediums get less personal. I think that balances things out in some ways. It really does not seem different to me.

analog31 6y ago

"Bad parent" can be applied to anything that goes wrong, and is an empty assertion. And it seems to be asymmetrically applied to mothers, not fathers. Also, one of the first rules of parenting is, never show any sign of weakness in public, or you will be attacked ruthlessly. It's a variant on the old saying, "Never let them see you sweat." This bias in the literature makes it look like there are some brilliant parents out there, who have found the secret for success that the rest of us can "just" follow. There are of course parallels in the business literature. The best formula I have observed is that obedient, self disciplined children tend to have obedient, self disciplined parents. I overheard a discussion between two friends about the effects of TV on behavior. One friend's argument: "Of course commercial TV affects behavior. That's its purpose." This stuff is designed to manipulate us. Maybe that's possible with books too, but books have just not risen to that level of sophistication.

nemo1618 6y ago
It's kind of comforting that the ad industry has thrown billions of dollars into trying to mind-control people, and conversion rates are still super low. Maybe we got lucky; maybe on another planet somewhere, intelligent life is 1000x more susceptible to ads.
- tpxl 6y ago
  It's a zero sum game, no matter how much money you put into it, the result is always gonna be the same.
saiya-jin 6y ago
> Also, one of the first rules of parenting is, never show any sign of weakness in public, or you will be attacked ruthlessly. It's a variant on the old saying, "Never let them see you sweat." I agree with everything you say except for this. We have friends (2 kids now) where mom is like that. On first glance all is perfect, she is perfect mom that manages to do so many things, all is great etc. Apart from actual reality once you know them better and you know where to look. At the end they are no better than rest of us, in some aspects far from it (this kind of behavior stems from some deeper issue(s), which tend to manifest in various ways). And all this charade starts to look pathetic pretty quickly. Be honest, open, laugh at your fails, we all went through it, its normal. It will get you further with almost everybody including yourself. Definitely with me. / If I misunderstood what you meant then sorry for the preaching.
- bluedays 6y ago
  Ah, but do you have kids? Because whooboy, lemme tell ya... Speaking as a parent, I can honestly say there is nobody more judgemental than other parents. I can't tell you how many times I've heard parents criticize other people's parenting. Parenting is a thankless job is fraught with insecurity and doubt, and every parent thinks they are not doing good enough, and constantly comparing themselves to other parents. Seeing a parent who shows weakness, who is not doing a good job, is a vindication for parents. "Hey, look, I'm not as bad as HIM/HER". You don't want other parents to think that about you, so you make sure you never EVER allow parents to see you make a mistake because you know the first thing that will happen is they will go home and talk about it with their parent/parent/friend/whoever. Parenting is just like any other job. You can be an employee, but if people think you're a screw up don't expect to be invited to any social functions. Except in this case it's not just you who is getting excluded... It's your child and the rest of your family.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

RonanTheGrey 6y ago

I was 100% convinced my kids won't get these devices until their very late teens, when I saw how my less than 1 year old reacted to the phones my wife and I use. Because his reaction is pure instinct, the dopamine response just to the colors and brightness was shocking. We now have to work HARD to keep these devices away from him. Part of it, of course, is he observes how much attention we pay them but his eyes definitely light up differently when they are turned on. And that's without the manipulative, 1000-engineers-optimizing-for-your-addiction software built into them. I honestly find it harder and harder to believe these things do anything positive for us. I 100% believe they can I just think we've turned them into something ugly, right now.

FabHK 6y ago
I've babysat for friends with a 3 and 5 yr old, and it is phenomenal how you could grab their attention (and distract from any ailment they had a second earlier) by showing them youtube videos of fire engines with sirens.
glancast 6y ago
Although we occasionally resort to Cocomelon in desperation - the absolute trance it induces is the stuff of dystopian nightmares.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

bumby 6y ago

>unlike TV and books, this is an interactive device explicitly designed to manipulate our psychology into using it more I think the TV, film, and print media attempted to do the same, they were/are just much less effective at it. For example, watch a "slow burn" movie like Alien. Most modern movies, by comparison, seem to be edited to keep our short attention span tuned in. Same with the old adage "sex sells"...we've always been trying to hijack human attention we're just so good about it now it's essentially been weaponized.

giarc 6y ago

I agree with you - when a book is down, a TV is off or a console is off, it doesn't ping you and light up to gain your attention. Sure, as kids we watched a lot of TV, but when it was time to turn it off we didn't get a sound to tell us someone "Liked" your photo. As you said, these aren't bi-directional. I think the hardest thing for this parent was balancing what was right for their child (and they seemed to be confident in their opinion) and what would hold them back socially at school. It's hard to say no to a child that says "Everyone else has an iPhone" because we all remember being that kid left out from something when we were young.

throwaway201103 6y ago
IDK. I mean you're right, of course, but I remember getting engrossed in books to the point where I lost sleep, or delayed doing other important things because I either could not put it down or I was drawn back to it. This happened as a teen and as a young adult, not so much lately but I really don't read books nearly as much as I used to.
- Xavdidtheshadow 6y ago
  I was also an avid reader growing up and spent many nights under the covers with a flashlight. I think the big difference is the adaptivity of the phone. Books don't figure out what personally engrosses you and tweak the rest of the book so you can't put it down. That feels too powerful IMO.
  - jdbernard 6y ago
    Also, at some point you finish the story. There's a natural stopping point and conclusion that makes it easier to out the book down and spend time doing something else before picking up the next one. Contrast that with so many apps whose main feed uses some sort of infinite scroll.
hidden-spyder 6y ago
> when a book is down, a TV is off or a console is off, it doesn't ping you and light up to gain your attention. There's DND (Do Not Disturb) mode for this. It's just a button click away on all phones.

nostrademons 6y ago

> thousands of engineers observing realtime metrics to make small tweaks to make you use something just a little bit longer. As one of the thousands of engineers dedicated to making you use your consumer electronics a little bit more: it's really easy to defeat my work. You make a conscious decision not to use the product, you catch yourself using it, you stop. Do it for about a month and you've broken the habit. That's why we look at metrics like MAUs and L28s. There is basically nothing I can do about a user who actively doesn't want to use the product; we basically throw up our hands and say "Not our target market." The reason my job exists is because hundreds of millions of people don't think like that, and don't have any conscious opinion one way or another about my product. It's those users we're trying to influence, the ones who are basically ambivalent, allocate their time based on emotion, and don't have any strong beliefs one way or another about what they should be spending their time on or how they want their life to look. There are enough of them that this market is worth billions, but everything I do - all the engagement work and instant gratification and positioning subtle hints in the UI - is about influencing the people who don't care one way or another. If that is not you - if you have actively made a conscious choice what you want to spend your time on, and it's not watching TV more - you won't even see my product. (It was actually pretty awkward when I took my job, because I work on TVs but watch basically none and didn't even own a TV beforehand.)

ricardobeat 6y ago
Here is a little exercise: imagine yourself being a drug dealer, and read your own comment out loud. It rings perfectly, and it is no coincidence, proportions aside. You cannot absolve yourself from responsibility just because your target audience 'had a choice'.
- nostrademons 6y ago
  FWIW I think drugs should be legal too (though I won't go near them myself), and the rest of the country is gradually coming around to that realization.
  - ricardobeat 6y ago

dom96 6y ago

> Books never had thousands of engineers observing realtime metrics to make small tweaks to make you use something just a little bit longer Books and other forms of media have been optimised to be addictive to read/watch for decades. It might not happen at the same scale, but the increase in scale also means that the mediums get less personal. I think that balances things out in some ways. It really does not seem different to me.