8 ms·

it sounds like the author confronting their own inferiority complex.. "techies" are somehow the smartest people in the room, but also they actually aren't and a

it sounds like the author confronting their own inferiority complex.. "techies" are somehow the smartest people in the room, but also they actually aren't and are full of hubris. i dont get this weird journalist hate fest about "techies" as if average software engineers call the shots on what their employers do either. its such a well orchestrated distraction. the average engineers job is to execute, not to decide what to build. just like every other industry, a few people at the top call the shots on what to do, the rest of us are executing or making tiny decisions on how to do it. me and Mark Zuckerberg are both "techies"... no difference right?

nonrandomstring 5y ago
I agree. Something about the tone of this article felt fundamentally dishonest (perhaps an edu-tech puff piece) and too keen to prove a point about a whole class of people using vague allusions. > "technologists know how phones really work, and many have decided they don’t want their own children anywhere near them" I do. And I have. Although I speak for only one technologist. > "These articles assume that techies have access to secret wisdom about the harmful effects of technology on children." Some of us do because we _design_ it, and under conditions of NDA. Only recently leaks of emails proved this precise point. Many more of us have "not-secret" wisdom as we proudly publish scientific papers about it. Moral judgements aside, we know what this stuff does. But the author attempts to insinuate the language of conspiracy. > "Based on two decades of living among, working with, and researching Silicon Valley technology employees, I can confidently assert that this secret knowledge does not exist." Then either the author has not been living, working and researching very well, or his confidence is misplaced.
- elevaet 5y ago
  > I do. And I have. Although I speak for only one technologist. Same here. I'm a programmer, and my goal is to delay phones for my kids until the last possible hour. My kids spend time drawing, doing sports, reading books, swimming, playing with friends and animals. Phones and devices are like digital crack for kids, and they prefer to keep hitting that lever over any of these other activities when the option is there.
  - skyde 5y ago
    very interesting. For my kid (4 years old) I made sure to only install app that are not "crack". Not all apps are bad (I agree 95% of them are). You can just look at "https://marbotic.com/ https://marbotic.com/" for example, it's not worse than having your kid play scrabble or chess. If somehow you kid get addicted to it then after they played all the level they will be able to read write and do math at the 3rd grade level :)
  - djhn 5y ago
    What age have they reached without tech and what's your best case scenario looking like?
    - elevaet 5y ago
      They're not being raised without tech at all, they just don't have their own devices, or any open access to one. Their screen time is limited to a small amount of passive consumption per week (2 * 1/2hr episodes on Netflix per week, or a movie), and engaged or creative use of a tablet for about 2h/week. Lately that's been drawing tutorials on youtube, duolingo, wordle. We're pushing off allowing them to have their own phones for as long as possible. We're friends with a lot of families with the same approach, but also a lot of friends of my older (10yo) kid do have phones already. At some point it will be very difficult when they start getting left out of the party (so to speak). My best case scenario is that the extra time this frees up will give them the space in their lives to grow talents and health that they wouldn't otherwise. I'm much happier to see my sons getting really good at pencil drawing and playing soccer than having a social media profile or being good at some video game. I feel having a really healthy body and some old school analogue skills like drawing will carry them further than whatever general digital distractions have to offer.
      - djhn 5y ago
        Thanks, this is very interesting for a soon-to-be parent.
  - fortylove 5y ago
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  > "technologists know how phones really work, and many have decided they don’t want their own children anywhere near them" Exactly. Is there any actual data showing software engineers and the like are less likely to have phones or tablets for their kids? My guess is that it's the opposite, but that would undermine the author's point.
  - somenameforme 5y ago
    In my anecdotal experience the difference has been strongly tied to socioeconomic factors. And the first study I was able to find [1] on this topic confirmed this is the major factor. See page 18. There's an extremely strong inverse correlation between education/income and how long people allow their children to use screen media devices. Low income, low education = high screen media time with a sharply increasing trend. High income, high education = low screen media time with a mostly flat trend. This is also happening at the same time that low income families are also having a declining rate of home access to laptop/desktops. Suffice to say that if it turns out that screen media is indeed detrimental to the development of children then we're basically ensuring that the socioeconomic divide is going to turn into a chasm. [1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20211230141505/https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/uploads/research/2020_zero_to_eight_census_final_web.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20211230141505/https://www.commo... (This study for some reason has been removed from their site, and so I am linking to the archive.)
    - Jare 5y ago
      > if it turns out that screen media is indeed detrimental to the development of children then we're basically ensuring that the socioeconomic divide is going to turn into a chasm Depends on what's the alternative for all that screen time. If these parents could substitute screen time with healthy family / healthy / educational activity, then sure, media time is making things worse. I'm pretty convinced that the extra presence of screen time at the lower socioeconomic scale is a consequence of parents' lack of time, education and resources to provide that kind of alternative. So, the actual alternatives to screen time might likely be worse (inattention, boredom, early exposure to adult world, etc).
civilized 5y ago
Tech destroyed journalism's ad-driven revenue model over a decade ago, and their attitude since then has been a mixture of inferiority complex and white-hot rage and contempt. Also, hearing "learn to code" on Twitter pissed them off.
- toyg 5y ago
  TBF, "learn to code" pisses me off too, and I've already done it.
  - civilized 5y ago
    I hear it at every code review
    - KoftaBob 5y ago
      Thanks for the laugh :)
  - dymk 5y ago
    Why’s it piss you off?
    - toyg 5y ago
      Because it's like telling a poor person "just don't be poor", or a depressed person "just lighten up". Coding simply does not come easy to large swaths of the population, one has to respect that fact and don't assume we're all neurologically wired to talk to machines all day. Also, people might well be better suited to very different activities. Would we be richer, as a society, if Van Gogh had decided to drop this "paintings" business and start a boring but profitable civil-servant career instead? Last but not least, the value of each individual programmer, in a capitalistic society, inevitably decreases as the labor pool increases, with obvious consequences in the long run for the profitability of the profession. Car mechanics used to be respected and expensive professionals too.
      - deleted 5y ago
nopenopenopeno 5y ago
Martin Heidegger’s The Question Concerning Technology is relevant here. I do not disagree with you, but Heidegger makes some very important points about how “just executing” does not imply guilt but it does not imply innocence either. It’s complicated. https://philtech.michaelreno.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/HeideggerTheQuestionConcerningTechnology.pdf https://philtech.michaelreno.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/...
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
"it sounds like the author confronting their own inferiority complex." CONTRIBUTORS Morgan G. Ames Morgan G. Ames's book, The Charisma Machine: The Life, Death, and Legacy of One Laptop per Child (MIT Press, 2019), chronicles the history and effects of the One Laptop per Child project and explains why - despite its failures - the same utopian visions that inspired OLPC still motivate other projects trying to use technology to "disrupt" education and development. Ames is on the faculty of the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. More https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/about/profiles/morgan-ames https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/about/profiles/morgan-ames
microtherion 5y ago
The author has a CS degree from Berkeley herself, so I'm not sure what exactly she's supposed to feel "inferior" about.
zeruch 5y ago
"i dont get this weird journalist hate fest about "techies" " Then you are likely part of the problem. :)

nonrandomstring 5y ago

I agree. Something about the tone of this article felt fundamentally dishonest (perhaps an edu-tech puff piece) and too keen to prove a point about a whole class of people using vague allusions. > "technologists know how phones really work, and many have decided they don’t want their own children anywhere near them" I do. And I have. Although I speak for only one technologist. > "These articles assume that techies have access to secret wisdom about the harmful effects of technology on children." Some of us do because we _design_ it, and under conditions of NDA. Only recently leaks of emails proved this precise point. Many more of us have "not-secret" wisdom as we proudly publish scientific papers about it. Moral judgements aside, we know what this stuff does. But the author attempts to insinuate the language of conspiracy. > "Based on two decades of living among, working with, and researching Silicon Valley technology employees, I can confidently assert that this secret knowledge does not exist." Then either the author has not been living, working and researching very well, or his confidence is misplaced.

elevaet 5y ago
> I do. And I have. Although I speak for only one technologist. Same here. I'm a programmer, and my goal is to delay phones for my kids until the last possible hour. My kids spend time drawing, doing sports, reading books, swimming, playing with friends and animals. Phones and devices are like digital crack for kids, and they prefer to keep hitting that lever over any of these other activities when the option is there.
- skyde 5y ago
  very interesting. For my kid (4 years old) I made sure to only install app that are not "crack". Not all apps are bad (I agree 95% of them are). You can just look at "https://marbotic.com/ https://marbotic.com/" for example, it's not worse than having your kid play scrabble or chess. If somehow you kid get addicted to it then after they played all the level they will be able to read write and do math at the 3rd grade level :)
- djhn 5y ago
  What age have they reached without tech and what's your best case scenario looking like?
  - elevaet 5y ago
    They're not being raised without tech at all, they just don't have their own devices, or any open access to one. Their screen time is limited to a small amount of passive consumption per week (2 * 1/2hr episodes on Netflix per week, or a movie), and engaged or creative use of a tablet for about 2h/week. Lately that's been drawing tutorials on youtube, duolingo, wordle. We're pushing off allowing them to have their own phones for as long as possible. We're friends with a lot of families with the same approach, but also a lot of friends of my older (10yo) kid do have phones already. At some point it will be very difficult when they start getting left out of the party (so to speak). My best case scenario is that the extra time this frees up will give them the space in their lives to grow talents and health that they wouldn't otherwise. I'm much happier to see my sons getting really good at pencil drawing and playing soccer than having a social media profile or being good at some video game. I feel having a really healthy body and some old school analogue skills like drawing will carry them further than whatever general digital distractions have to offer.
    - djhn 5y ago
      Thanks, this is very interesting for a soon-to-be parent.
- fortylove 5y ago
TulliusCicero 5y ago
> "technologists know how phones really work, and many have decided they don’t want their own children anywhere near them" Exactly. Is there any actual data showing software engineers and the like are less likely to have phones or tablets for their kids? My guess is that it's the opposite, but that would undermine the author's point.
- somenameforme 5y ago
  In my anecdotal experience the difference has been strongly tied to socioeconomic factors. And the first study I was able to find [1] on this topic confirmed this is the major factor. See page 18. There's an extremely strong inverse correlation between education/income and how long people allow their children to use screen media devices. Low income, low education = high screen media time with a sharply increasing trend. High income, high education = low screen media time with a mostly flat trend. This is also happening at the same time that low income families are also having a declining rate of home access to laptop/desktops. Suffice to say that if it turns out that screen media is indeed detrimental to the development of children then we're basically ensuring that the socioeconomic divide is going to turn into a chasm. [1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20211230141505/https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/uploads/research/2020_zero_to_eight_census_final_web.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20211230141505/https://www.commo... (This study for some reason has been removed from their site, and so I am linking to the archive.)
  - Jare 5y ago
    > if it turns out that screen media is indeed detrimental to the development of children then we're basically ensuring that the socioeconomic divide is going to turn into a chasm Depends on what's the alternative for all that screen time. If these parents could substitute screen time with healthy family / healthy / educational activity, then sure, media time is making things worse. I'm pretty convinced that the extra presence of screen time at the lower socioeconomic scale is a consequence of parents' lack of time, education and resources to provide that kind of alternative. So, the actual alternatives to screen time might likely be worse (inattention, boredom, early exposure to adult world, etc).

civilized 5y ago

Tech destroyed journalism's ad-driven revenue model over a decade ago, and their attitude since then has been a mixture of inferiority complex and white-hot rage and contempt. Also, hearing "learn to code" on Twitter pissed them off.

toyg 5y ago
TBF, "learn to code" pisses me off too, and I've already done it.
- civilized 5y ago
  I hear it at every code review
  - KoftaBob 5y ago
    Thanks for the laugh :)
- dymk 5y ago
  Why’s it piss you off?
  - toyg 5y ago
    Because it's like telling a poor person "just don't be poor", or a depressed person "just lighten up". Coding simply does not come easy to large swaths of the population, one has to respect that fact and don't assume we're all neurologically wired to talk to machines all day. Also, people might well be better suited to very different activities. Would we be richer, as a society, if Van Gogh had decided to drop this "paintings" business and start a boring but profitable civil-servant career instead? Last but not least, the value of each individual programmer, in a capitalistic society, inevitably decreases as the labor pool increases, with obvious consequences in the long run for the profitability of the profession. Car mechanics used to be respected and expensive professionals too.
    - deleted 5y ago

nopenopenopeno 5y ago

Martin Heidegger’s The Question Concerning Technology is relevant here. I do not disagree with you, but Heidegger makes some very important points about how “just executing” does not imply guilt but it does not imply innocence either. It’s complicated. https://philtech.michaelreno.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/HeideggerTheQuestionConcerningTechnology.pdf https://philtech.michaelreno.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/...

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

"it sounds like the author confronting their own inferiority complex." CONTRIBUTORS Morgan G. Ames Morgan G. Ames's book, The Charisma Machine: The Life, Death, and Legacy of One Laptop per Child (MIT Press, 2019), chronicles the history and effects of the One Laptop per Child project and explains why - despite its failures - the same utopian visions that inspired OLPC still motivate other projects trying to use technology to "disrupt" education and development. Ames is on the faculty of the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. More https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/about/profiles/morgan-ames https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/about/profiles/morgan-ames

microtherion 5y ago

The author has a CS degree from Berkeley herself, so I'm not sure what exactly she's supposed to feel "inferior" about.

zeruch 5y ago

"i dont get this weird journalist hate fest about "techies" " Then you are likely part of the problem. :)