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> I realize with horror that she’s spent nine hours on the phone that day. She was only awake at 11. > My daughter doesn’t make collages or jewelry or sew anym

by lqet 6y ago

> I realize with horror that she’s spent nine hours on the phone that day. She was only awake at 11. > My daughter doesn’t make collages or jewelry or sew anymore. A child who used to read in the bath won’t pick up a book unless threatened with the loss of her phone. > Getting her to make a card for a family member — something she once did for fun — is like getting her to clean her room > Yet still, each day is a battle over only one thing. > And little by little, our daughter has chipped away at our rules and resolve. Congratulations, your child is now in puberty.

hartator 6y ago
> Congratulations, your child is now in puberty. Yes, it's like they are despair to find a simple explanation for their child disinterest in things they want her to be interested in when it's just their child growing up.
disown 6y ago
Did no one besides you read the article? FTA: "My husband and I said she could have a phone when she turned 14..." People are arguing about everything from extended school hours, excessive homework to climate change in this thread. Could it be that the daughter was raised in a highly sheltered environment and once she hit puberty, she had other interests besides collages, jewelry and sewing? I wrote this in another comment... "It's a tale as old as time. Every child is a genius, angel, perfect until they hit puberty. Then we find "rock 'n roll", "rap music", "radio", "MTV", "television" or other culprits for corrupting our youth. Today it is social media. Tomorrow it will be VR. God knows what comes after that." The entire article is about an overprotective and controlling mother complaining that her daughter is now a teenager. Instead of blaming rap music, she's blaming the iPhone.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  That might be true, if electronic gadgets were the same as previous obsessions. But they're different. They change from second to second, providing a level of stimulation unprecedented in human experience. It's possible we're not going to adapt well to this e-world. There's no reason to think an evolved ape has the wiring to make the transition without trauma. Imagine if the iPhone were heroin. Would we be so casual in dismissing it?
  - disown 6y ago
    > Imagine if the iPhone were heroin. Ah yes. This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. I remember when the tv ( aka idiot box ) was attacked for being addictive. > Would we be so casual in dismissing it? Who is casually dismissing it? There is an entire propaganda campaign against social media. From congress to news to netflix and on, ironically enough, social media itself. Every day we hear about how bad social media is. But what I was responding to was the article itself. The complaints in the article would exist with or without iphones, apps, social media. Staying up all night talking to friends, waking up at 11 AM, losing interest in childhood stuff, pushing back against the parents, etc are all teenage behavior, not iphone behavior. I'm not a fan of smartphones as they are and I despise social media. But that's not what the article was really about. I was just trying to stay on topic.
    - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
      It was what the article was about. This 'drug' is portable, instantly accessible and actually pings you constantly for attention. It's like nothing that came before. And whitewashing it as 'more of the same' is disingenuous.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Imagine if the iPhone were heroin Yeah, but its rather obviously not heroin. "Imagine if X were Y" isn't really an argument to support "We should act as if X were Y, or at least similar". What needs to be presented is a reason to believe that X is, in fact, like Y.
    - rabidrat 6y ago
      How is it so obviously not heroin? I, a fully-formed and functioning adult, feel the pull in my brain. I was addicted to cigarettes in my 20s and I've had unhealthy relationships with numerous other drugs and video games that I've (mostly) managed to pull myself away from, after years. The feeling of "checking your notifications" and "scrolling through twitter" on your phone are remarkably similar to the compulsion for drugs. This is my personal subjective experience and I believe objective research confirms it as well.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sliken 6y ago
  30 years ago, kids had hobbies, there's wasn't much to compete. Legos, collecting stamps/baseball cards, catching bugs, building models, photography, racing home build cars, sports, even things like just reading the encyclopedia, etc. Even libraries weren't that well stocked, I think I read every sci-fi book at my local library. Now there's literally billions being spent on "free" games, "free video", "free" social sites, etc and trying every video, audio, vibration, trick in the book to make them more addicting. It's a trap, it encourages vanity, consumerism, poor body image, etc. I think the best thing you can do for kids these days is make sure they have a healthy amount of time offline.
adrianb 6y ago
Honestly, so much of this sounded familiar to me ... but from my own teenage years. My parents were appalled at the amount of time I was spending at a MS-DOS PC (not only playing games but also learning programming). So I'd say that no, it's not that phones are like crack. There seems to be a disconnect on the parent's expectations when children discover the possibilities of a technology that's unfamiliar to them. In the article they're talking about the ease of controlling TV time but that doesn't even compare in possibilities of communication, entertainment and education. Heck... I'm sure if you could go back in time you'd discover the first generation to grow up with books, and their desperate parents noticing how the kids aren't ... working the fields and feeding the cattle, I guess.
- ertian 6y ago
  Yup. There was a moral panic about fiction specifically in the early-to-mid 1800s. Kids (and women, too) were sitting around staring at these made-up stories instead of going out and doing real things.
  - definetheword 6y ago
    Passingly comparable but a completely different scale
  - evilduck 6y ago
    Chess was no exception to moral outrage either: "We answer, chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while at the same time it affords no benefit whatsoever to the body" - Scientific American, circa 1859 https://books.google.com/books?id=90hGAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22a+pernicious+excitement+to+learn+and+play%22&pg=PA9&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=90hGAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22a+perni...
- ur-whale 6y ago
  Now is really not like back then. I was like you, spending inordinate amounts of time with computers during my teenage years. But back then, I was learning useful skills from it. The computer I owned had almost no games for it. All you could do was program it in either basic or assembly. Move forward 15 years, my kid who owned a PC from around age 10 was never interested in using it as anything but an entertainment platform. There was simply way more interesting things to do with it than understanding how it worked and bending the hardware to your will. And this was pre-social networks.
bird_monster 6y ago
Yeah, I was going to say > And little by little, our daughter has chipped away at our rules and resolve. This sounds as simple as "your child is getting older and becoming more of a real person". Kids question rules. That's pretty normal.
irrational 6y ago
Maybe. My teenage years were spent reading and being creative. I spent more time creating artwork during those years than in all the subsequent decades put together. But if I had had a smartphone back then? I doubt I would have read a single book or created any artwork. Would that made me a better or worse person than I am now? Well, that's impossible to say. I don't regret how I spent my teenage years. Will those who are growing up fully engrossed in their phones every feel regret? We probably won't know for about 30 more years when they have enough life experience to look back and reflect. It will be interesting to see what people have to say around 2050. Then again, what do they have to compare it with? They can't compare a life lived constantly on a phone with a life not lived constantly on one. So... maybe it is impossible for any person to say which way is better. Maybe it is just the aggregate of all of society over many decades that we can determine whether this experiment has a positive or negative (or neutral) outcome.
- ummonk 6y ago
  Instagram photos and TikTok videos are certainly artwork though.
  - sibeliuss 6y ago
    The vast majority of users on this these apps have no interest in making or sharing art, they're socially browsing other people's life events.
    - ummonk 6y ago
      I don't think that's true. Most people I know on these apps are creating content just as much as they're consuming it. And the daughter in the linked article is clearly described as doing so.

by lqet 6y ago

hartator 6y ago

> Congratulations, your child is now in puberty. Yes, it's like they are despair to find a simple explanation for their child disinterest in things they want her to be interested in when it's just their child growing up.

disown 6y ago

Did no one besides you read the article? FTA: "My husband and I said she could have a phone when she turned 14..." People are arguing about everything from extended school hours, excessive homework to climate change in this thread. Could it be that the daughter was raised in a highly sheltered environment and once she hit puberty, she had other interests besides collages, jewelry and sewing? I wrote this in another comment... "It's a tale as old as time. Every child is a genius, angel, perfect until they hit puberty. Then we find "rock 'n roll", "rap music", "radio", "MTV", "television" or other culprits for corrupting our youth. Today it is social media. Tomorrow it will be VR. God knows what comes after that." The entire article is about an overprotective and controlling mother complaining that her daughter is now a teenager. Instead of blaming rap music, she's blaming the iPhone.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
That might be true, if electronic gadgets were the same as previous obsessions. But they're different. They change from second to second, providing a level of stimulation unprecedented in human experience. It's possible we're not going to adapt well to this e-world. There's no reason to think an evolved ape has the wiring to make the transition without trauma. Imagine if the iPhone were heroin. Would we be so casual in dismissing it?
- disown 6y ago
  > Imagine if the iPhone were heroin. Ah yes. This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. I remember when the tv ( aka idiot box ) was attacked for being addictive. > Would we be so casual in dismissing it? Who is casually dismissing it? There is an entire propaganda campaign against social media. From congress to news to netflix and on, ironically enough, social media itself. Every day we hear about how bad social media is. But what I was responding to was the article itself. The complaints in the article would exist with or without iphones, apps, social media. Staying up all night talking to friends, waking up at 11 AM, losing interest in childhood stuff, pushing back against the parents, etc are all teenage behavior, not iphone behavior. I'm not a fan of smartphones as they are and I despise social media. But that's not what the article was really about. I was just trying to stay on topic.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    It was what the article was about. This 'drug' is portable, instantly accessible and actually pings you constantly for attention. It's like nothing that came before. And whitewashing it as 'more of the same' is disingenuous.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Imagine if the iPhone were heroin Yeah, but its rather obviously not heroin. "Imagine if X were Y" isn't really an argument to support "We should act as if X were Y, or at least similar". What needs to be presented is a reason to believe that X is, in fact, like Y.
  - rabidrat 6y ago
    How is it so obviously not heroin? I, a fully-formed and functioning adult, feel the pull in my brain. I was addicted to cigarettes in my 20s and I've had unhealthy relationships with numerous other drugs and video games that I've (mostly) managed to pull myself away from, after years. The feeling of "checking your notifications" and "scrolling through twitter" on your phone are remarkably similar to the compulsion for drugs. This is my personal subjective experience and I believe objective research confirms it as well.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sliken 6y ago
30 years ago, kids had hobbies, there's wasn't much to compete. Legos, collecting stamps/baseball cards, catching bugs, building models, photography, racing home build cars, sports, even things like just reading the encyclopedia, etc. Even libraries weren't that well stocked, I think I read every sci-fi book at my local library. Now there's literally billions being spent on "free" games, "free video", "free" social sites, etc and trying every video, audio, vibration, trick in the book to make them more addicting. It's a trap, it encourages vanity, consumerism, poor body image, etc. I think the best thing you can do for kids these days is make sure they have a healthy amount of time offline.

adrianb 6y ago

Honestly, so much of this sounded familiar to me ... but from my own teenage years. My parents were appalled at the amount of time I was spending at a MS-DOS PC (not only playing games but also learning programming). So I'd say that no, it's not that phones are like crack. There seems to be a disconnect on the parent's expectations when children discover the possibilities of a technology that's unfamiliar to them. In the article they're talking about the ease of controlling TV time but that doesn't even compare in possibilities of communication, entertainment and education. Heck... I'm sure if you could go back in time you'd discover the first generation to grow up with books, and their desperate parents noticing how the kids aren't ... working the fields and feeding the cattle, I guess.

ertian 6y ago
Yup. There was a moral panic about fiction specifically in the early-to-mid 1800s. Kids (and women, too) were sitting around staring at these made-up stories instead of going out and doing real things.
- definetheword 6y ago
  Passingly comparable but a completely different scale
- evilduck 6y ago
  Chess was no exception to moral outrage either: "We answer, chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while at the same time it affords no benefit whatsoever to the body" - Scientific American, circa 1859 https://books.google.com/books?id=90hGAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22a+pernicious+excitement+to+learn+and+play%22&pg=PA9&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=90hGAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22a+perni...
ur-whale 6y ago
Now is really not like back then. I was like you, spending inordinate amounts of time with computers during my teenage years. But back then, I was learning useful skills from it. The computer I owned had almost no games for it. All you could do was program it in either basic or assembly. Move forward 15 years, my kid who owned a PC from around age 10 was never interested in using it as anything but an entertainment platform. There was simply way more interesting things to do with it than understanding how it worked and bending the hardware to your will. And this was pre-social networks.

bird_monster 6y ago

Yeah, I was going to say > And little by little, our daughter has chipped away at our rules and resolve. This sounds as simple as "your child is getting older and becoming more of a real person". Kids question rules. That's pretty normal.

irrational 6y ago

Maybe. My teenage years were spent reading and being creative. I spent more time creating artwork during those years than in all the subsequent decades put together. But if I had had a smartphone back then? I doubt I would have read a single book or created any artwork. Would that made me a better or worse person than I am now? Well, that's impossible to say. I don't regret how I spent my teenage years. Will those who are growing up fully engrossed in their phones every feel regret? We probably won't know for about 30 more years when they have enough life experience to look back and reflect. It will be interesting to see what people have to say around 2050. Then again, what do they have to compare it with? They can't compare a life lived constantly on a phone with a life not lived constantly on one. So... maybe it is impossible for any person to say which way is better. Maybe it is just the aggregate of all of society over many decades that we can determine whether this experiment has a positive or negative (or neutral) outcome.

ummonk 6y ago
Instagram photos and TikTok videos are certainly artwork though.
- sibeliuss 6y ago
  The vast majority of users on this these apps have no interest in making or sharing art, they're socially browsing other people's life events.
  - ummonk 6y ago
    I don't think that's true. Most people I know on these apps are creating content just as much as they're consuming it. And the daughter in the linked article is clearly described as doing so.