4 ms·

I know the whole "children back in my day" thing occurs for every generation, but I seriously think there was some kind of turning point or singularity that acc

I know the whole "children back in my day" thing occurs for every generation, but I seriously think there was some kind of turning point or singularity that accelerated decline with the advent of the smartphone. Pretend play, learning to have fluent spoken conversation, regulating emotions with other people, negotiating - all replaced with screen time and online-only interactions that humans are not adapted for.

speeder 5y ago
I am currently trying to get used to NOT play on cellphones myself, I don't have children yet but I want to have them soon, and I don't want them to interact with cellphones at all until a certain age. I created a company, named "Kidoteca", to make games for small kids, the main idea of the company wasn't mine, but to me it felt a good idea. But after I saw the behaviour of other kids when interacting with cell phones, for example my nephews and little cousins, it became clear to me it was a net negative, for example one thing I noticed: my nephews whenever they see me, they immediately demand to see my phone, and sometimes they get outright aggressive about it, after a while that I've stopped letting them use my phone, it got better, but after another person gave them a phone to use, all their bad behaviour came back, with them getting aggressive all over again.
- totetsu 5y ago
  I used to play a lot of games on the canadian public broadcasters webpage with my nephew. taught him to use a mouse. now as a teenager he sends all his time playing online games and says games are his life, takes his pc on holiday with him.. There's a chance this isnt my fault,haha.
- nogridbag 5y ago
  Kids are interesting. Some of our friends' kids can just sit patiently with their parents and learn things. They're reading at two years old, are bilingual, and can count to 100. My 3 year old can spot me trying to teach her instantly and will yell out "daddy don't teach me!". So I have to get a bit creative. We pretend play every night with legos, magnet blocks, and different characters and sometimes so in an attempt to teach her we build classrooms and have one of the characters teach a lesson (e.g. about egypt, counting, spelling, etc). But this isn't really a good method :) We tried ABC mouse and it was OK. I'm actually amazed at how good she is with the mac touchpad. But in general I dislike that many companies are focusing on tablet apps. I just purchased a LeapFrog LeapStart specifically because it is not a tablet. I wish there were more products like this.
- anthk 5y ago
  >Kidoteca Heh, in Spanish we have the term ludoteca, which could be translated as "playroom". When I was a kid we had a dedicated room at school with comic books, tabletop games, card games and so on.
warent 5y ago
These things are so new, the effects of this are still completely unclear. You may ultimately be right in saying "decline" but that word still feels premature because objectively we don't know. Take a look at human history and consider how often we have behaved in antisocially as we harassed, harmed, or otherwise slaughtered each other by the hundreds of millions. It's not as if we're some ideal model that would be bad for future generations to completely deviate from. Therefore my hypothesis is that it's equally possible something so dramatic and counterintuitive as the changes we see these days may actually be necessary to create a world we've only dreamed to achieve for millennia.
JoBrad 5y ago
I don’t think they’re replacing pretend play. My kids just played Minecraft for an hour, and are now engaged in making “tables” by stacking bean bags on each other then jumping on top of them. My 5 year old has a pretend language, even.
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  My experiences follow yours. My nephews/nieces are obsessed with Fortnite and video games in general; they'll play it for hours until their mom or dad tells them to cut it out and go play outside, where they will proceed to pretend-play "king and princess" (there can't be dragons because "she will be too scared"), or "house" in an old barbecue box, or any number of invented games. Or they will make pretend cheese soup in toy pots and pans and go around "serving" it to everyone.
  - rcurry 5y ago
    Nothing like a good cheese soup, especially if it has a dragon in it - they really add to the flavor.
    - sunshinerag 5y ago
      Ewww , my dragon got burnt
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- sgerenser 5y ago
  My kids (5 and 7) spend about as much time interacting with electronics as I did at their age, it’s just iPads/YouTube and Nintendo Switch instead of broadcast TV and NES. The majority of their time is spent playing with dolls, lego, writing stories, etc. They recently turned the playroom into a “Toy Cafe” featuring slime smoothies and poppit cookies.
MagicWishMonkey 5y ago
I don't put a hard cap on screen time with my 2 year old, and he spends a ton of time playing by himself. Watching him do the pretend play thing is pretty fascinating, to be honest. I'm assuming you don't have kids and only have limited interaction with kids in other social context. If we have friends over or something we try to put something on TV to keep the toddler occupied so we can have a discussion, but that's far from the norm. He spends most of the time each day playing with his toys, pretend playing, running around, etc. etc. - and again, I work from home and I'm not strict about limiting his TV time, he chooses to do other stuff the majority of the day.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  > I'm assuming you don't have kids and only have limited interaction with kids in other social context That you have experience does not make your views universal amongst persons with experience.
kalleboo 5y ago
While there may be differences with interactive touch-screens and there will definitely be effects, they also said the same thing about television (and radio before that, and even books before that). We are already far removed from what were were "adapted for".

speeder 5y ago

I am currently trying to get used to NOT play on cellphones myself, I don't have children yet but I want to have them soon, and I don't want them to interact with cellphones at all until a certain age. I created a company, named "Kidoteca", to make games for small kids, the main idea of the company wasn't mine, but to me it felt a good idea. But after I saw the behaviour of other kids when interacting with cell phones, for example my nephews and little cousins, it became clear to me it was a net negative, for example one thing I noticed: my nephews whenever they see me, they immediately demand to see my phone, and sometimes they get outright aggressive about it, after a while that I've stopped letting them use my phone, it got better, but after another person gave them a phone to use, all their bad behaviour came back, with them getting aggressive all over again.

totetsu 5y ago
I used to play a lot of games on the canadian public broadcasters webpage with my nephew. taught him to use a mouse. now as a teenager he sends all his time playing online games and says games are his life, takes his pc on holiday with him.. There's a chance this isnt my fault,haha.
nogridbag 5y ago
Kids are interesting. Some of our friends' kids can just sit patiently with their parents and learn things. They're reading at two years old, are bilingual, and can count to 100. My 3 year old can spot me trying to teach her instantly and will yell out "daddy don't teach me!". So I have to get a bit creative. We pretend play every night with legos, magnet blocks, and different characters and sometimes so in an attempt to teach her we build classrooms and have one of the characters teach a lesson (e.g. about egypt, counting, spelling, etc). But this isn't really a good method :) We tried ABC mouse and it was OK. I'm actually amazed at how good she is with the mac touchpad. But in general I dislike that many companies are focusing on tablet apps. I just purchased a LeapFrog LeapStart specifically because it is not a tablet. I wish there were more products like this.
anthk 5y ago
>Kidoteca Heh, in Spanish we have the term ludoteca, which could be translated as "playroom". When I was a kid we had a dedicated room at school with comic books, tabletop games, card games and so on.

warent 5y ago

These things are so new, the effects of this are still completely unclear. You may ultimately be right in saying "decline" but that word still feels premature because objectively we don't know. Take a look at human history and consider how often we have behaved in antisocially as we harassed, harmed, or otherwise slaughtered each other by the hundreds of millions. It's not as if we're some ideal model that would be bad for future generations to completely deviate from. Therefore my hypothesis is that it's equally possible something so dramatic and counterintuitive as the changes we see these days may actually be necessary to create a world we've only dreamed to achieve for millennia.

JoBrad 5y ago

I don’t think they’re replacing pretend play. My kids just played Minecraft for an hour, and are now engaged in making “tables” by stacking bean bags on each other then jumping on top of them. My 5 year old has a pretend language, even.

frosted-flakes 5y ago
My experiences follow yours. My nephews/nieces are obsessed with Fortnite and video games in general; they'll play it for hours until their mom or dad tells them to cut it out and go play outside, where they will proceed to pretend-play "king and princess" (there can't be dragons because "she will be too scared"), or "house" in an old barbecue box, or any number of invented games. Or they will make pretend cheese soup in toy pots and pans and go around "serving" it to everyone.
- rcurry 5y ago
  Nothing like a good cheese soup, especially if it has a dragon in it - they really add to the flavor.
  - sunshinerag 5y ago
    Ewww , my dragon got burnt
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sgerenser 5y ago
My kids (5 and 7) spend about as much time interacting with electronics as I did at their age, it’s just iPads/YouTube and Nintendo Switch instead of broadcast TV and NES. The majority of their time is spent playing with dolls, lego, writing stories, etc. They recently turned the playroom into a “Toy Cafe” featuring slime smoothies and poppit cookies.

MagicWishMonkey 5y ago

I don't put a hard cap on screen time with my 2 year old, and he spends a ton of time playing by himself. Watching him do the pretend play thing is pretty fascinating, to be honest. I'm assuming you don't have kids and only have limited interaction with kids in other social context. If we have friends over or something we try to put something on TV to keep the toddler occupied so we can have a discussion, but that's far from the norm. He spends most of the time each day playing with his toys, pretend playing, running around, etc. etc. - and again, I work from home and I'm not strict about limiting his TV time, he chooses to do other stuff the majority of the day.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
> I'm assuming you don't have kids and only have limited interaction with kids in other social context That you have experience does not make your views universal amongst persons with experience.

kalleboo 5y ago

While there may be differences with interactive touch-screens and there will definitely be effects, they also said the same thing about television (and radio before that, and even books before that). We are already far removed from what were were "adapted for".