9 ms·

> You don't want your kid to be that kid who doesn't have a smartphone Why not? If you think that smartphone usage is harmful to your child, then you absolutel

by jaspax 4y ago

> You don't want your kid to be that kid who doesn't have a smartphone Why not? If you think that smartphone usage is harmful to your child, then you absolutely are justified in letting them be "that kid". Being moderately socially constrained is actually a perfectly fine thing if the alternative is worse. > Being socially excluded was the bane of my life in school, and I'll be damned if I'm going to be a contributing factor to my child becoming a pariah I don't know anything about you in particular, so I can't say whether this is a good idea or not. But we have to recognize the tradeoffs: unfettered access to social media from a young age with all of its downsides OR being the only kid without a cellphone and those accompanying downsides. Which one harms your kid more? Think about it and make your decision, but once you've made that decision you have to bite the bullet and accept the costs.

yoz-y 4y ago
I guess it's too early to tell. But even when I was in uni, "not being on facebook" (back when facebook was relatively new) was heavily penalizing. And we were adults.
lelanthran 4y ago
> Why not? If you think that smartphone usage is harmful to your child, then you absolutely are justified in letting them be "that kid". It's a trade-off - is peer ostracisation worth the benefits from lack of tech? Most people, myself included, would say "No". > Being moderately socially constrained is actually a perfectly fine thing if the alternative is worse. It is not a moderate social constraint, it's a complete and utter exclusion from the set of peers.
- cjbgkagh 4y ago
  Don’t forget that those peers are also being damaged and may not make the best friends. From my observation children are increasingly dysfunctional.
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    > From my observation children are increasingly dysfunctional. Hasn't every generation complained about this? We forget that we were children once too, and pushed at the boundaries as we matured into teens. This is what children do.
    - watwut 4y ago
      Some generations are worst then others. Some are more violent then others for example. Tho, afaik, children of our generations were way more dysfunctional then we are willing to accept in these debates.
    - cjbgkagh 4y ago
      Just because people complain about it, doesn’t mean it is not true. I think there are objective measures in intelectual ability, physical fitness, and mental soundness. And those objective measures appear to be getting worse. The big win of sanitation, nutrition, and general education appear to be long behind us.
    - hanselot 4y ago
    - tstrimple 4y ago
      > “Children; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. They no longer rise when elders enter the room, they contradict their parents and tyrannize their teachers. Children are now tyrants.” ~ Socrates
      - cjbgkagh 4y ago
        Socrates; the guy famously sentenced to death for corrupting the youth. He himself encouraged the youth to do exactly those things. Decadence is nothing new. Society goes through ups and downs. There have been numerous reformation periods did yield substantial benefits. I don't think anyone is arguing that things have always throughout history gotten worse in all places simultaneously. It's my opinion that the exploitative power of machine learning with mass surveillance in the hands of profit incentivized corporations may not lead to the most conducive environment for developing brains. Even my mature brain has a hard time with it.
- jaspax 4y ago
  I'm curious about this peer group in which failure to have a cellphone results in "complete and utter exclusion". My nieces and nephews are in this age range (10-13 yrs), and none of them have cell phones, and none of them suffer total exclusion from their peer groups. As far as I can tell, they're all socially active and popular. Apparently it's different where you live, but I would take that as a bad sign on several levels.
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    > I'm curious about this peer group in which failure to have a cellphone results in "complete and utter exclusion". Well the article in question has the kids blocked from google search. Such a radical block will almost certainly block everything else that their friends are using. So, sure, they may not need their own phone, but at ages 10-13, blocking the child from all popular tech makes them more or less unable to join conversations with their peers who are not blocked.
    - lrvick 4y ago
      When all my peers were using AIM, and Yahoo instant messenger on Windows, I was on Linux communicating via online forums and IRC learning from mostly adults willing to mentor me as an anonymous username on the internet. I was homeschooled and moved every 3-6 months growing up and in spite of all these "handicaps" I still learned to make several IRL friends within a week or two of every new city I ended up in. I would say hi, show them a magic trick, do some comedy bits I had been working on, or share the latest anime I was into. Whatever. Making friends is the skill to build in a kid, not technology conformity. Stop worrying about making kids popular and making them conform in ways beyond basic manners and respect. The roads less traveled are more likely to kelp a kid develop atypical skillsets which will give them an advantage in the job market later.
      - lelanthran 4y ago
        > When all my peers were using AIM, and Yahoo instant messenger on Windows, I was on Linux communicating via online forums and IRC learning from mostly adults willing to mentor me as an anonymous username on the internet. Right, and that was before all the kids were on facebook, or twitter, or whatever. You're talking about a time when the only online-networking being done, was being done on a desktop computer. IME, less than 1 out of every 100 children in 2000 were actually using desktop computer. We are now in a time were 95/100 children are using some sort of portable personal computer that is with them all the time. > I was homeschooled and moved every 3-6 months growing up and in spite of all these "handicaps" I still learned to make several IRL friends within a week or two of every new city I ended up in. Which was perfectly possible when almost none of the kids were on computers. Now they all are. > Stop worrying about making kids popular and making them conform in ways beyond basic manners and respect. The roads less traveled are more likely to kelp a kid develop atypical skillsets which will give them an advantage in the job market later. I'm afraid you're not a good example: you appear to lack some important skills wrt to the world as it is. Think about it this way - there are people who didn't bother putting up with the hardship of a reduced social network, and they ended up more successful than you. I don't think you have any interaction with children. I do.
- lrvick 4y ago
  I spent most of my childhood straight-edge and was thus cast out by peers for not joining them in their nonstop sex, alcohol, and drug addictions, and not being interested in sports. Instead I made fast friends with the other outcasts like me. The computer nerds, the anime nerds, the hobbyists, the actors, the musicians, the magicians, and the artists. People that spent life chasing their imagination and not worrying about trying to be "normal". Those friendships helped me become the person I am today. Kids without smartphones will be similar cast out of social circles that revolve around "app culture". Your kid will be better off without the influence of people that shallow. People sometimes basically tell me "Oh, if you don't install snapchat, discord, or x app, we can't be friends". If someone can't figure out how to maintain a friendship with me without a particular app I have ethical objections to, then I don't consider it a loss. Your kid will learn not to either. Ancedotal, but virtually all the nerds I grew up with are very successful now, and many of the popular kids that excluded me are still struggling to pay bills having never developed any specialized skills.
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    > I spent most of my childhood straight-edge and was thus cast out by peers for not joining them in their nonstop sex, alcohol, and drug addictions, and not being interested in sports. That's a false dichotomy - you posit that those things are the only alternatives, which is incorrect. I never did non-stop sex, drugs and alcohol (and ignored sports) in school, and yet I was part of a number of different social groupings in school. > Ancedotal, but virtually all the nerds I grew up with are very successful now, and many of the popular kids that excluded me are still struggling to pay bills having never developed any specialized skills. That's funny - I was never a nerd (computer or otherwise), and grew up fairly successful. I think you might be missing the fact that your exclusions has lead you to believe a number of things that simply aren't true, like your first statement above.
    - lrvick 4y ago
      I am sure there are endless counter-examples to my point, which helps make it stronger if anything. Removing any one popular activity from the life of a child be it smartphones, or tobacco, is likely to exclude them from some social groups, and perhaps make them more likely to land in others. If anything the take-away here is that the idea that a kid not having a smartphone will handicap them in life is nonsense. There are so so many paths to success in this world, though sometimes traveling a different path than the majority can have some advantages.
hans1729 4y ago
>Why not? Because it sets them on a track of social disconnect and isolation. No therapist in their right mind would support that path. The adequate response is culture. Teach your children how to cultivate their own attention. Teach them about the way dopamine works. If you can't, you don't even know what you're talking about yourself. Creating social outlaws never, ever ever ever achieves the intended goal. The opposite is the case, you're creating damage in areas that you apparently don't even realize, probably because you project your personality model and own experiences onto a kid that simply doesn't grow up in the world that you became neuroplastic in. > Once you made your decision, bite the bullet and accept the costs ...Or be open to rethink your decision?! That's just bad intellectual culture. It's perfectly fine to change your mind about something that you can't fully understand. And you can't fully understand this, because you can't see the world through the eyes of a now-12-year-old. Everyone tries to do the best for their kids, but almost no one knows what is the best for their kids. Setting them on a path to isolation and lack of connect certainly isn't the way, they'll never, ever, fully recover from it.
raverbashing 4y ago
"Smartphones are harmful" are the new "videogames cause violence" (a bit justifiable, but blown out of proportion) And on average most people will use it, so a kid that can use better than it is already on top of the pack
- mechanical_bear 4y ago
  Not at all the same.
- lrvick 4y ago
  "Smartphones are harmful" is the new "Smoking is harmful". Smoking and football were once both pretty much required if you wanted to be popular, but time eventually revealed the interests of the cool kids often ended with lung cancer and brain damage. Teach a kid to build computers, write software, design and solder their electronics. They will be miles ahead technically of most of their tiktok scrolling peers.
  - raverbashing 4y ago
    The analogy doesn't stand. Some uses of social media can be "as harmful" as banging your head on a wall, but a smartphone is much more than that. > They will be miles ahead technically of most of their tiktok scrolling peers. Life is not only about technical skills. And I've had plenty of these "technically minded" people spewing complete BS about vaccines here on HN, so I guess they think they're technically minded but aren't
    - lrvick 4y ago
      When I say I would not give a kid a smartphone, I am saying I would not give them an iOS/Android device which is what everyone today thinks when they hear "smartphone". They would certianly have access to a portable device with a web browser like a small form factor linux laptop or tablet. I also don't have a problem with the concept of social media. Neutral social media and messaging services that has no profit motivated data harvesting and behavior manipulation algorithims like Mastodon, Matrix, etc, I have no problem with. I would never allow a kid to use TikTok or a Meta/Facebook product however, as doing so is literally allowing strangers to pay to manipulate my kid towards any desired behavior change. That is just lazy parenting, IMO.

by jaspax 4y ago

yoz-y 4y ago

I guess it's too early to tell. But even when I was in uni, "not being on facebook" (back when facebook was relatively new) was heavily penalizing. And we were adults.

lelanthran 4y ago

> Why not? If you think that smartphone usage is harmful to your child, then you absolutely are justified in letting them be "that kid". It's a trade-off - is peer ostracisation worth the benefits from lack of tech? Most people, myself included, would say "No". > Being moderately socially constrained is actually a perfectly fine thing if the alternative is worse. It is not a moderate social constraint, it's a complete and utter exclusion from the set of peers.

cjbgkagh 4y ago
Don’t forget that those peers are also being damaged and may not make the best friends. From my observation children are increasingly dysfunctional.
- lelanthran 4y ago
  > From my observation children are increasingly dysfunctional. Hasn't every generation complained about this? We forget that we were children once too, and pushed at the boundaries as we matured into teens. This is what children do.
  - watwut 4y ago
    Some generations are worst then others. Some are more violent then others for example. Tho, afaik, children of our generations were way more dysfunctional then we are willing to accept in these debates.
  - cjbgkagh 4y ago
    Just because people complain about it, doesn’t mean it is not true. I think there are objective measures in intelectual ability, physical fitness, and mental soundness. And those objective measures appear to be getting worse. The big win of sanitation, nutrition, and general education appear to be long behind us.
  - hanselot 4y ago
  - tstrimple 4y ago
    > “Children; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. They no longer rise when elders enter the room, they contradict their parents and tyrannize their teachers. Children are now tyrants.” ~ Socrates
    - cjbgkagh 4y ago
      Socrates; the guy famously sentenced to death for corrupting the youth. He himself encouraged the youth to do exactly those things. Decadence is nothing new. Society goes through ups and downs. There have been numerous reformation periods did yield substantial benefits. I don't think anyone is arguing that things have always throughout history gotten worse in all places simultaneously. It's my opinion that the exploitative power of machine learning with mass surveillance in the hands of profit incentivized corporations may not lead to the most conducive environment for developing brains. Even my mature brain has a hard time with it.
jaspax 4y ago
I'm curious about this peer group in which failure to have a cellphone results in "complete and utter exclusion". My nieces and nephews are in this age range (10-13 yrs), and none of them have cell phones, and none of them suffer total exclusion from their peer groups. As far as I can tell, they're all socially active and popular. Apparently it's different where you live, but I would take that as a bad sign on several levels.
- lelanthran 4y ago
  > I'm curious about this peer group in which failure to have a cellphone results in "complete and utter exclusion". Well the article in question has the kids blocked from google search. Such a radical block will almost certainly block everything else that their friends are using. So, sure, they may not need their own phone, but at ages 10-13, blocking the child from all popular tech makes them more or less unable to join conversations with their peers who are not blocked.
  - lrvick 4y ago
    When all my peers were using AIM, and Yahoo instant messenger on Windows, I was on Linux communicating via online forums and IRC learning from mostly adults willing to mentor me as an anonymous username on the internet. I was homeschooled and moved every 3-6 months growing up and in spite of all these "handicaps" I still learned to make several IRL friends within a week or two of every new city I ended up in. I would say hi, show them a magic trick, do some comedy bits I had been working on, or share the latest anime I was into. Whatever. Making friends is the skill to build in a kid, not technology conformity. Stop worrying about making kids popular and making them conform in ways beyond basic manners and respect. The roads less traveled are more likely to kelp a kid develop atypical skillsets which will give them an advantage in the job market later.
    - lelanthran 4y ago
      > When all my peers were using AIM, and Yahoo instant messenger on Windows, I was on Linux communicating via online forums and IRC learning from mostly adults willing to mentor me as an anonymous username on the internet. Right, and that was before all the kids were on facebook, or twitter, or whatever. You're talking about a time when the only online-networking being done, was being done on a desktop computer. IME, less than 1 out of every 100 children in 2000 were actually using desktop computer. We are now in a time were 95/100 children are using some sort of portable personal computer that is with them all the time. > I was homeschooled and moved every 3-6 months growing up and in spite of all these "handicaps" I still learned to make several IRL friends within a week or two of every new city I ended up in. Which was perfectly possible when almost none of the kids were on computers. Now they all are. > Stop worrying about making kids popular and making them conform in ways beyond basic manners and respect. The roads less traveled are more likely to kelp a kid develop atypical skillsets which will give them an advantage in the job market later. I'm afraid you're not a good example: you appear to lack some important skills wrt to the world as it is. Think about it this way - there are people who didn't bother putting up with the hardship of a reduced social network, and they ended up more successful than you. I don't think you have any interaction with children. I do.
lrvick 4y ago
I spent most of my childhood straight-edge and was thus cast out by peers for not joining them in their nonstop sex, alcohol, and drug addictions, and not being interested in sports. Instead I made fast friends with the other outcasts like me. The computer nerds, the anime nerds, the hobbyists, the actors, the musicians, the magicians, and the artists. People that spent life chasing their imagination and not worrying about trying to be "normal". Those friendships helped me become the person I am today. Kids without smartphones will be similar cast out of social circles that revolve around "app culture". Your kid will be better off without the influence of people that shallow. People sometimes basically tell me "Oh, if you don't install snapchat, discord, or x app, we can't be friends". If someone can't figure out how to maintain a friendship with me without a particular app I have ethical objections to, then I don't consider it a loss. Your kid will learn not to either. Ancedotal, but virtually all the nerds I grew up with are very successful now, and many of the popular kids that excluded me are still struggling to pay bills having never developed any specialized skills.
- lelanthran 4y ago
  > I spent most of my childhood straight-edge and was thus cast out by peers for not joining them in their nonstop sex, alcohol, and drug addictions, and not being interested in sports. That's a false dichotomy - you posit that those things are the only alternatives, which is incorrect. I never did non-stop sex, drugs and alcohol (and ignored sports) in school, and yet I was part of a number of different social groupings in school. > Ancedotal, but virtually all the nerds I grew up with are very successful now, and many of the popular kids that excluded me are still struggling to pay bills having never developed any specialized skills. That's funny - I was never a nerd (computer or otherwise), and grew up fairly successful. I think you might be missing the fact that your exclusions has lead you to believe a number of things that simply aren't true, like your first statement above.
  - lrvick 4y ago
    I am sure there are endless counter-examples to my point, which helps make it stronger if anything. Removing any one popular activity from the life of a child be it smartphones, or tobacco, is likely to exclude them from some social groups, and perhaps make them more likely to land in others. If anything the take-away here is that the idea that a kid not having a smartphone will handicap them in life is nonsense. There are so so many paths to success in this world, though sometimes traveling a different path than the majority can have some advantages.

hans1729 4y ago

>Why not? Because it sets them on a track of social disconnect and isolation. No therapist in their right mind would support that path. The adequate response is culture. Teach your children how to cultivate their own attention. Teach them about the way dopamine works. If you can't, you don't even know what you're talking about yourself. Creating social outlaws never, ever ever ever achieves the intended goal. The opposite is the case, you're creating damage in areas that you apparently don't even realize, probably because you project your personality model and own experiences onto a kid that simply doesn't grow up in the world that you became neuroplastic in. > Once you made your decision, bite the bullet and accept the costs ...Or be open to rethink your decision?! That's just bad intellectual culture. It's perfectly fine to change your mind about something that you can't fully understand. And you can't fully understand this, because you can't see the world through the eyes of a now-12-year-old. Everyone tries to do the best for their kids, but almost no one knows what is the best for their kids. Setting them on a path to isolation and lack of connect certainly isn't the way, they'll never, ever, fully recover from it.

raverbashing 4y ago

"Smartphones are harmful" are the new "videogames cause violence" (a bit justifiable, but blown out of proportion) And on average most people will use it, so a kid that can use better than it is already on top of the pack

mechanical_bear 4y ago
Not at all the same.
lrvick 4y ago
"Smartphones are harmful" is the new "Smoking is harmful". Smoking and football were once both pretty much required if you wanted to be popular, but time eventually revealed the interests of the cool kids often ended with lung cancer and brain damage. Teach a kid to build computers, write software, design and solder their electronics. They will be miles ahead technically of most of their tiktok scrolling peers.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  The analogy doesn't stand. Some uses of social media can be "as harmful" as banging your head on a wall, but a smartphone is much more than that. > They will be miles ahead technically of most of their tiktok scrolling peers. Life is not only about technical skills. And I've had plenty of these "technically minded" people spewing complete BS about vaccines here on HN, so I guess they think they're technically minded but aren't
  - lrvick 4y ago
    When I say I would not give a kid a smartphone, I am saying I would not give them an iOS/Android device which is what everyone today thinks when they hear "smartphone". They would certianly have access to a portable device with a web browser like a small form factor linux laptop or tablet. I also don't have a problem with the concept of social media. Neutral social media and messaging services that has no profit motivated data harvesting and behavior manipulation algorithims like Mastodon, Matrix, etc, I have no problem with. I would never allow a kid to use TikTok or a Meta/Facebook product however, as doing so is literally allowing strangers to pay to manipulate my kid towards any desired behavior change. That is just lazy parenting, IMO.