7 ms·

This is the easy way out of the problem, but I am afraid, not the correct one. My kid has had his own tablet since 6, his own PC since 8, and his own cellular

This is the easy way out of the problem, but I am afraid, not the correct one. My kid has had his own tablet since 6, his own PC since 8, and his own cellular since 9. So far he hasn't turned into a domestic terrorist, and neither is he selling heroin for crypto on the dark web. Also, he has specific times when he can use his devices аnd limits on how much time. All modern OSes have some sort of parental controls built-in, and when the native controls are not enough to your liking there are plenty of third-party software in the market. Technology is what allows my kid to connect and play with his friend from the former place where we lived, is also the source where he learned about black holes and watched the Space-X and China's Shenzou launches. Yeah, there's quite a big amount of trash on the web, just like we had on TV. But the solution is not pretending it is not there and hoping they won't become absolutely fascinated at the magic age of 14. We are supposed to parent. Part of the parenting stuff means supervising and guiding in all environments your kid has contact with, including screens. If your kid is addicted to screens, it is on you. Just delaying their first contact to the age of 13/14 won't magically guarantee they will be able to navigate it responsibly. This is just magical thinking born out of laziness.

xeyownt 3y ago
100% agree. Whatever you decide, supervision and guidance is the best you can do to your kids. I guess it's easier to remove the plug and pretend kids are safe when disconnected.
voidhorse 3y ago
But the parents are too addicted to screens to parent. Jokes aside, it doesn't help that many parents are not great with technology (not everyone out there posts on HN) so that even relatively straightforward settings changes like placing usage constraints on your OS may not be clear to parents. I bet many parents don't even know the extent to which they can do that, let alone how. The general point is, our overall management of consumer technology in society is a complete mess thanks to the fact that its solely driven by profit seeking.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  > But the parents are too addicted to screens to parent. I think this is actually the key to getting kids on board with waiting on a smartphone. If the schools told the kids that smartphone addiction isn't good, and that their parents may be addicted, that would empower the kids to chastise their parents when they're using their phones too much or ignoring people right in front of them. Then a couple years later, when the kids are thinking about wanting a smartphone of their own, it's already become ingrained in them (by having chastised their parents many times) that smartphones can be addictive, even for adults. They would then be more understanding that perhaps it's not in their best interest to get a smartphone so young. I would welcome having my kid chide me for being on my phone too much if it meant I could hold off on giving her a smartphone for an extra year or two.
- elzbardico 3y ago
  A fair point, but in that case, I think that an activist campaign focused on educating parents would be far more adequate. The problem with those kinds of pledges is that, like the prohibition, what starts with voluntary pledges ends up becoming a social taboo, then administrative rule, and finally, law.
gnicholas 3y ago
> So far he hasn't turned into a domestic terrorist, and neither is he selling heroin for crypto on the dark web. Also, he has specific times when he can use his devices аnd limits on how much time. I think this sort of hyperbole is unhelpful. What people are worried about is more mundane: whether the hyperconnectedness will make their kids less happy in the short or long run. There is some evidence that the age of first smartphone negatively correlates with these outcomes. [1] For my daughters, I worry about social media use, body image issues, and the like. > Just delaying their first contact to the age of 13/14 won't magically guarantee they will be able to navigate it responsibly. This is just magical thinking born out of laziness. I don't think most parents think this would be a magic bullet. They just think that it is one (important) tool in the toolkit. We understand that parents (noun) are supposed to parent (verb). It's not lazy to say that we think our children would be better served if their brains were a bit more developed before they are confronted with the world of addictive apps and always-on social media. I'm glad to hear that things have worked out well for your kid. There are of course a variety of outcomes for different kinds of kids. No one knows whether their kid would have been happier (or would have grown into a happier adult) had they done something differently. We are all just trying to figure out how to do our best, and for some people that means slowing down the rate of change from one generation to the next. 1: https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/sapien-smartphone-report https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/sapien-smartphone-repor...
- jhanschoo 3y ago
  To add a data point regarding early access to internet, I know of a <14yo kid who was learning digital art from yt, using iPad apps to draw, and sharing them on fora, and finding community online when they felt unable to connect with their peers in school. There were negatives to that experience too, and it could have turned out much worse. But completely prohibiting mobile usage is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
  - sisve 3y ago
    Completely prohibited is not what they say is it? Is it not wait until 8'th grade to get your own. Meaning you can borrow your parents or similar.
autoexec 3y ago
You can give your child access to technology, allow them to play with their friends, watch space launches etc. without handing them over to corporations who are only interested in exploiting and manipulating them. It's great that your kid isn't a terrorist. It's a shame, that at age 6 there's already a collection of dossiers being stuffed with data about your child which will follow them for their entire life. It's a shame that they've been being manipulated by lies at an age when they literally can't always tell what's real or not. It's amazing how we failed to learn our lessons there when it was just TV, but advertising now is so much worse than anything we were exposed to on television. Kids should have computers and they should have access to the internet, but that doesn't mean they need a cell phone and their interactions should be carefully monitored and supervised. Pretending technology and social media doesn't exist isn't any worse than pretending that children have the capacity to handle social media and the companies who are only looking to take advantage of them. Denying your kids 24/7 access to a cell phone and a facebook account seems a lot more grounded in reality.
- elzbardico 3y ago
  Smart Phones are computers, in a different form factor. Giving you kid an smartphone doesn't mean you need to give him access to facebook, twitter, instagram or tiktok.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    Smart phones are poor computers. They also come with social media apps preloaded (the last cell phone I bought prevented deleting or uninstalling facebook) although that doesn't mean you can't order your children not to create accounts. They're also difficult to lockdown and monitor, and they continuously broadcast copious amounts of data about your children to third parties. Children would be much better served by having a real PC they can play with and learn on.
    - fullspectrumdev 3y ago
      What the hell phones have you been buying? The only ones I’ve seen preloaded with social apps are ones where cell carriers have preloaded them with trash.
npunt 3y ago
That's cool you, a tech-savvy HN poster, has managed to wield technology to find a high-reward/low-risk way to parent using devices, but perhaps your 'correct' solution may not work in all contexts for all people. Perhaps you just have a kid who has the right temperament to handle devices when young. Perhaps you work few enough hours or have the resources necessary to parent in a way to make this work. Perhaps the kids around your kid are generally a good influence. If there's any truism to parenting (and education) its that there's no one size fits all solution. We're in a moment in time where devices are not exactly great for children given the tools and understanding available. Socializing less device use in a society saturated with addictive devices and experiences doesn't seem that bad an idea, right?
- elzbardico 3y ago
  well, I am not telling everyone should do the same as me. I just don't want someone telling me that I should not do it. Because that's the final goal of such movements: start with "voluntary pledges", move into social stigmatization of dissidents, capture organizational rule, and then, finally, the law. The same script as the prohibition. It is an inexorable and fairly predictable movement, probably a cultural heritage from Calvinism.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    This is a fair concern. I have thought about bringing this to the attention of our school board, so that they can publicize it. But I wouldn't want it to be done in a heavy-handed way that implied that 'good parents' wait until 8th. We need to recognize that different kids may have different needs based on how they get to/from school or extracurriculars, for example. But in the US, I don't see there being much of a risk that kids having smartphones would be stigmatized...the current rate of adoption is quite high, and it's seen as a sign of wealth/status.
  - npunt 3y ago
    I respect that you want to make that call for your kids, I'm not in favor of one size fits all solutions. What you're describing here tho is a textbook slippery slope argument [1] in reaction to a small movement suggesting some restraint around an incredibly powerful force affecting most people on the planet. Perhaps it may lead to prohibition, but perhaps it may just lead to OS developers building better controls than the terribly weak ones we have today. Movements raise awareness, and there's lots of room for spaces in-between. After all, we never banned TVs, books, or games, and they were all in this class of problem. Personally, I see this as 'antithesis' to the smartphone's 'thesis', and we will probably find a synthesis somewhere in between as the dust settles. fwiw, "If your kid is addicted to screens, it is on you" and (paraphrasing) 'this is not the correct way out of the problem' is what you said, which sounds a lot like you're implying others should do the same as you. You wrote a long and thought out enough comment to add nuance but you didn't, so its hard not to assume thats what you meant. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope
SanderNL 3y ago
Smartphone <> social media It's disingenuous to pretend watching some documentary on planets is the same as scrolling on tiktok. These devices have two faces: one is excellent and you can learn a lot from it, the other is pure crystal meth and messed you up. I think delaying the crystal meth part is fine, but delaying access to education feels rather shortsighted.
- prepend 3y ago
  > It's disingenuous to pretend watching some documentary on planets is the same as scrolling on tiktok. It’s disingenuous to pretend kids are only watching documentaries on planets. Especially when YouTube recommends “boobfest2023” ad a follow up. I removed YouTube from everything but the main tv because everyone my kids were watching something “normal” it went into crazy town of violence, conspiracies, and just giant assholes within a few videos or watching the next recommendations. And there’s no way in YouTube to fix this. Even “YouTube Kids” ended up in garbage after a few bits. So now I watch with my kids and work to teach them what’s worth watching. But it’s hard because YouTube is working to draw more attention and crazy stuff gets attention. Also, it’s infuriating to keep having ads on education. I have school assignments that keep get interrupted with ads that aren’t applicable at all. I feel sorry for the company that pays to show an ad in Spanish for progressive auto insurance to my 8 year old. Is it terrible ad targeting tech or just fraud? Beats me, but no one in my house speaks Spanish or drives.
  - SanderNL 3y ago
    I think YT is on the crystal meth side actually. Strangely perhaps I find Netflix more appropriate for my kids. I just let them watch a specific episode and there are no ads and the content is adequate. There is at least some moderation. Edit: I think you are on to something with “ads”. Hate them with a passion. Those especially I regard as pure heroin being intravenously injected.
    - prepend 3y ago
      I agree. Netflix is pretty good with this and their “kids” profile is actually pretty acceptable and I’ve never seen anything crazy in it. They also allow removal of specific shows (eg, 13 Reasons Why) and are pretty kid friendly.
411111111111111 3y ago
> We are supposed to parent. Part of the parenting stuff means supervising and guiding in all environments your kid has contact with, including screens. That's your interpretation of the parenting role. It might be agreeable for a lot of people on this forum, but that's mostly because we're all a self selected group. Historically speaking, children were free to learn unguided and parents only interfered if the kids didn't do their jobs, which was literal work on a farm or similar. I'm not advocating for child labor, but your opinion that it's your job to literally supervise your child learning is also a quiet extreme position from my point of view.
- watwut 3y ago
  > Historically speaking, children were free to learn unguided and parents only interfered if the kids didn't do their jobs, which was literal work on a farm or similar. First of all, we have lower levels of child criminality, violence, alcoholism, you name it then they had back in periods you are trying to reference. Second of all, this is not even historical. Historical parents cared about values they children grow in. They cared about what kind of people they will be. And the classes who could afford education and supervision, did paid those money. It could actually get quite controlling.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tgv 3y ago
> If your kid is addicted to screens, it is on you. Just delaying their first contact to the age of 13/14 won't magically guarantee they will be able to navigate it responsibly. I completely agree with the latter, but to achieve the former, it will have to be delayed to at least 18. 12-14 is the age at which they start getting interested in social media, fitting in a group, sexual attraction, etc., which is what makes social media nefast. Prior to that age, many will simply only be interested in cartoons and dinosaurs. It isn't magic, it's just how development works for many (in our environment, at this moment). Hopefully, by delaying it to 18, they will be conditioned less by the instantaneous attention call of whatsapp, tiktok, etc., although many (younger) adults seem quite addicted as well.
prepend 3y ago
> So far he hasn't turned into a domestic terrorist, and neither is he selling heroin for crypto on the dark web. So you think. I for one have greatly enjoyed subscribing to your kids’ onlyfans where he relentlessly mocks about how clueless they are to his terrorism and heroin business. Joking aside, it’s hard to know what our kids are doing and reminds me of a friend who swears that their kids don’t need controls because they don’t do anything bad. And the kid literally has a YouTube channel with them vaping, getting arrested, tagging buildings. They literally said something like “I talk with my kids and know them and they would tell me if they were doing this stuff.” And there’s a weird cognitive dissonance when they watched the video where they said that it wasn’t them, but their friends. “They were holding that vape for their friend, they don’t use it.” People love their kids. I struggle with having useful controls and use a mix of Apple, Microsoft, google and third party tools like bark. None of them work well. Some do a good job blocking, but not unblocking for things like school. A simple example of Apple’s, that I think is best, you can set a screen time limit like “one hour a day” and then set some apps like those used for school as unlimited. But the unlimited time apps consume the one hour limit and block the “fun apps.” So my kids would wake up early to use their one hour before school and have no time after school. You can approve extended time, buts by clock time, not actual usage. So if you approve an hour at 709, then it’s allowed until 809, even if they only use the app for 30 seconds. It’s a usability pain in the rear end and I can’t expect anyone actually uses it. Not to mention how buggy it is. At least a few times a day it takes 60-120 seconds to open the screen time app because it syncs usage before letting you approve requests. So really, it’s easier to just block devices altogether. If I could do it again, I would wait until 8th grade.
fifticon 3y ago
I dont recognise that it is so easy to apply these limits, even though I work in tech. When trying to block through Windows, I get lost in a dark patterns maze of microsoft online family accounts, where I ended up with corrupt windows user accounts - I could no longer log into my own admin account with my written down paasword, and had to reinstall windows. When I try google/android instead, I end up with account/app limits that my child can easily circumvent just by watching videos through the browser instead. What I currently have resorted to doing, is dns blacklisting youtube through the router, and then using alternate DNS where youtube should work. and this is not even to block my kid from youtube, it is just to keep her usage under/at 1 hour per day. meanwhile I have to fight with her misguided mother, who considers giving her a smartphone (she is 8, sigh). I am strongly against giving them to kids, given that not even adults can handle them responsibly.
- fifticon 3y ago
  the bit about windows is that the feature is exploited by ms to get you onto online accounts, but not really to help YOU. recently, we couldnt launch mineceaft, because windows was missing a windows update.. wtf.. like when pokemongo wont run jntil you apply an android update, sigh
throw0101b 3y ago
> Just delaying their first contact to the age of 13/14 won't magically guarantee they will be able to navigate it responsibly. There are no guarantees in life (except death (and taxes?)). It's about playing the odds/probabilities to achieved the desired outcomes (presumably happiness, or perhaps Aristotle's eudaimonia).
microtherion 3y ago
> But the solution is not pretending it is not there and hoping they won't become absolutely fascinated at the magic age of 14. In fact, 14, sort of the peak of puberty, strikes me as one of the WORST possible ages to first expose one's children to the Internet. Either let them practice earlier at the shallow end of the Internet pool, or lock them up until they are at Rumspringa age. "14" also sounds suspiciously like something cooked up in an Anthroposophic thought bubble. Rudolf Steiner was a big believer in 7 year developmental cycles, so "14" is self evidently the correct age to make a deal with Ahriman, if one must. The team running the pledge does not mention any connection to Anthroposophy, but Waldorf schools seem to be endorsing the pledge.
jjav 3y ago
> If your kid is addicted to screens, it is on you. This is wishful thinking. You can be truly the best parent in the world with unlimited time, wisdom and attention span but in the end you are competing with corporations who are dedicating billions of dollars and thousands of people to make very sure their apps as maximizing addiction. You can't compete with that. Sure you can limit screen time but that doesn't do much. It's like saying the old days that I only let a child smoke from 10am to noon, so it's ok they won't get addicted.

xeyownt 3y ago

100% agree. Whatever you decide, supervision and guidance is the best you can do to your kids. I guess it's easier to remove the plug and pretend kids are safe when disconnected.

voidhorse 3y ago

But the parents are too addicted to screens to parent. Jokes aside, it doesn't help that many parents are not great with technology (not everyone out there posts on HN) so that even relatively straightforward settings changes like placing usage constraints on your OS may not be clear to parents. I bet many parents don't even know the extent to which they can do that, let alone how. The general point is, our overall management of consumer technology in society is a complete mess thanks to the fact that its solely driven by profit seeking.

gnicholas 3y ago
> But the parents are too addicted to screens to parent. I think this is actually the key to getting kids on board with waiting on a smartphone. If the schools told the kids that smartphone addiction isn't good, and that their parents may be addicted, that would empower the kids to chastise their parents when they're using their phones too much or ignoring people right in front of them. Then a couple years later, when the kids are thinking about wanting a smartphone of their own, it's already become ingrained in them (by having chastised their parents many times) that smartphones can be addictive, even for adults. They would then be more understanding that perhaps it's not in their best interest to get a smartphone so young. I would welcome having my kid chide me for being on my phone too much if it meant I could hold off on giving her a smartphone for an extra year or two.
elzbardico 3y ago
A fair point, but in that case, I think that an activist campaign focused on educating parents would be far more adequate. The problem with those kinds of pledges is that, like the prohibition, what starts with voluntary pledges ends up becoming a social taboo, then administrative rule, and finally, law.

gnicholas 3y ago

> So far he hasn't turned into a domestic terrorist, and neither is he selling heroin for crypto on the dark web. Also, he has specific times when he can use his devices аnd limits on how much time. I think this sort of hyperbole is unhelpful. What people are worried about is more mundane: whether the hyperconnectedness will make their kids less happy in the short or long run. There is some evidence that the age of first smartphone negatively correlates with these outcomes. [1] For my daughters, I worry about social media use, body image issues, and the like. > Just delaying their first contact to the age of 13/14 won't magically guarantee they will be able to navigate it responsibly. This is just magical thinking born out of laziness. I don't think most parents think this would be a magic bullet. They just think that it is one (important) tool in the toolkit. We understand that parents (noun) are supposed to parent (verb). It's not lazy to say that we think our children would be better served if their brains were a bit more developed before they are confronted with the world of addictive apps and always-on social media. I'm glad to hear that things have worked out well for your kid. There are of course a variety of outcomes for different kinds of kids. No one knows whether their kid would have been happier (or would have grown into a happier adult) had they done something differently. We are all just trying to figure out how to do our best, and for some people that means slowing down the rate of change from one generation to the next. 1: https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/sapien-smartphone-report https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/sapien-smartphone-repor...

jhanschoo 3y ago
To add a data point regarding early access to internet, I know of a <14yo kid who was learning digital art from yt, using iPad apps to draw, and sharing them on fora, and finding community online when they felt unable to connect with their peers in school. There were negatives to that experience too, and it could have turned out much worse. But completely prohibiting mobile usage is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
- sisve 3y ago
  Completely prohibited is not what they say is it? Is it not wait until 8'th grade to get your own. Meaning you can borrow your parents or similar.

autoexec 3y ago

You can give your child access to technology, allow them to play with their friends, watch space launches etc. without handing them over to corporations who are only interested in exploiting and manipulating them. It's great that your kid isn't a terrorist. It's a shame, that at age 6 there's already a collection of dossiers being stuffed with data about your child which will follow them for their entire life. It's a shame that they've been being manipulated by lies at an age when they literally can't always tell what's real or not. It's amazing how we failed to learn our lessons there when it was just TV, but advertising now is so much worse than anything we were exposed to on television. Kids should have computers and they should have access to the internet, but that doesn't mean they need a cell phone and their interactions should be carefully monitored and supervised. Pretending technology and social media doesn't exist isn't any worse than pretending that children have the capacity to handle social media and the companies who are only looking to take advantage of them. Denying your kids 24/7 access to a cell phone and a facebook account seems a lot more grounded in reality.

elzbardico 3y ago
Smart Phones are computers, in a different form factor. Giving you kid an smartphone doesn't mean you need to give him access to facebook, twitter, instagram or tiktok.
- autoexec 3y ago
  Smart phones are poor computers. They also come with social media apps preloaded (the last cell phone I bought prevented deleting or uninstalling facebook) although that doesn't mean you can't order your children not to create accounts. They're also difficult to lockdown and monitor, and they continuously broadcast copious amounts of data about your children to third parties. Children would be much better served by having a real PC they can play with and learn on.
  - fullspectrumdev 3y ago
    What the hell phones have you been buying? The only ones I’ve seen preloaded with social apps are ones where cell carriers have preloaded them with trash.

npunt 3y ago

That's cool you, a tech-savvy HN poster, has managed to wield technology to find a high-reward/low-risk way to parent using devices, but perhaps your 'correct' solution may not work in all contexts for all people. Perhaps you just have a kid who has the right temperament to handle devices when young. Perhaps you work few enough hours or have the resources necessary to parent in a way to make this work. Perhaps the kids around your kid are generally a good influence. If there's any truism to parenting (and education) its that there's no one size fits all solution. We're in a moment in time where devices are not exactly great for children given the tools and understanding available. Socializing less device use in a society saturated with addictive devices and experiences doesn't seem that bad an idea, right?

elzbardico 3y ago
well, I am not telling everyone should do the same as me. I just don't want someone telling me that I should not do it. Because that's the final goal of such movements: start with "voluntary pledges", move into social stigmatization of dissidents, capture organizational rule, and then, finally, the law. The same script as the prohibition. It is an inexorable and fairly predictable movement, probably a cultural heritage from Calvinism.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  This is a fair concern. I have thought about bringing this to the attention of our school board, so that they can publicize it. But I wouldn't want it to be done in a heavy-handed way that implied that 'good parents' wait until 8th. We need to recognize that different kids may have different needs based on how they get to/from school or extracurriculars, for example. But in the US, I don't see there being much of a risk that kids having smartphones would be stigmatized...the current rate of adoption is quite high, and it's seen as a sign of wealth/status.
- npunt 3y ago
  I respect that you want to make that call for your kids, I'm not in favor of one size fits all solutions. What you're describing here tho is a textbook slippery slope argument [1] in reaction to a small movement suggesting some restraint around an incredibly powerful force affecting most people on the planet. Perhaps it may lead to prohibition, but perhaps it may just lead to OS developers building better controls than the terribly weak ones we have today. Movements raise awareness, and there's lots of room for spaces in-between. After all, we never banned TVs, books, or games, and they were all in this class of problem. Personally, I see this as 'antithesis' to the smartphone's 'thesis', and we will probably find a synthesis somewhere in between as the dust settles. fwiw, "If your kid is addicted to screens, it is on you" and (paraphrasing) 'this is not the correct way out of the problem' is what you said, which sounds a lot like you're implying others should do the same as you. You wrote a long and thought out enough comment to add nuance but you didn't, so its hard not to assume thats what you meant. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

SanderNL 3y ago

Smartphone <> social media It's disingenuous to pretend watching some documentary on planets is the same as scrolling on tiktok. These devices have two faces: one is excellent and you can learn a lot from it, the other is pure crystal meth and messed you up. I think delaying the crystal meth part is fine, but delaying access to education feels rather shortsighted.

prepend 3y ago
> It's disingenuous to pretend watching some documentary on planets is the same as scrolling on tiktok. It’s disingenuous to pretend kids are only watching documentaries on planets. Especially when YouTube recommends “boobfest2023” ad a follow up. I removed YouTube from everything but the main tv because everyone my kids were watching something “normal” it went into crazy town of violence, conspiracies, and just giant assholes within a few videos or watching the next recommendations. And there’s no way in YouTube to fix this. Even “YouTube Kids” ended up in garbage after a few bits. So now I watch with my kids and work to teach them what’s worth watching. But it’s hard because YouTube is working to draw more attention and crazy stuff gets attention. Also, it’s infuriating to keep having ads on education. I have school assignments that keep get interrupted with ads that aren’t applicable at all. I feel sorry for the company that pays to show an ad in Spanish for progressive auto insurance to my 8 year old. Is it terrible ad targeting tech or just fraud? Beats me, but no one in my house speaks Spanish or drives.
- SanderNL 3y ago
  I think YT is on the crystal meth side actually. Strangely perhaps I find Netflix more appropriate for my kids. I just let them watch a specific episode and there are no ads and the content is adequate. There is at least some moderation. Edit: I think you are on to something with “ads”. Hate them with a passion. Those especially I regard as pure heroin being intravenously injected.
  - prepend 3y ago
    I agree. Netflix is pretty good with this and their “kids” profile is actually pretty acceptable and I’ve never seen anything crazy in it. They also allow removal of specific shows (eg, 13 Reasons Why) and are pretty kid friendly.

411111111111111 3y ago

> We are supposed to parent. Part of the parenting stuff means supervising and guiding in all environments your kid has contact with, including screens. That's your interpretation of the parenting role. It might be agreeable for a lot of people on this forum, but that's mostly because we're all a self selected group. Historically speaking, children were free to learn unguided and parents only interfered if the kids didn't do their jobs, which was literal work on a farm or similar. I'm not advocating for child labor, but your opinion that it's your job to literally supervise your child learning is also a quiet extreme position from my point of view.

watwut 3y ago
> Historically speaking, children were free to learn unguided and parents only interfered if the kids didn't do their jobs, which was literal work on a farm or similar. First of all, we have lower levels of child criminality, violence, alcoholism, you name it then they had back in periods you are trying to reference. Second of all, this is not even historical. Historical parents cared about values they children grow in. They cared about what kind of people they will be. And the classes who could afford education and supervision, did paid those money. It could actually get quite controlling.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

tgv 3y ago

> If your kid is addicted to screens, it is on you. Just delaying their first contact to the age of 13/14 won't magically guarantee they will be able to navigate it responsibly. I completely agree with the latter, but to achieve the former, it will have to be delayed to at least 18. 12-14 is the age at which they start getting interested in social media, fitting in a group, sexual attraction, etc., which is what makes social media nefast. Prior to that age, many will simply only be interested in cartoons and dinosaurs. It isn't magic, it's just how development works for many (in our environment, at this moment). Hopefully, by delaying it to 18, they will be conditioned less by the instantaneous attention call of whatsapp, tiktok, etc., although many (younger) adults seem quite addicted as well.

prepend 3y ago

> So far he hasn't turned into a domestic terrorist, and neither is he selling heroin for crypto on the dark web. So you think. I for one have greatly enjoyed subscribing to your kids’ onlyfans where he relentlessly mocks about how clueless they are to his terrorism and heroin business. Joking aside, it’s hard to know what our kids are doing and reminds me of a friend who swears that their kids don’t need controls because they don’t do anything bad. And the kid literally has a YouTube channel with them vaping, getting arrested, tagging buildings. They literally said something like “I talk with my kids and know them and they would tell me if they were doing this stuff.” And there’s a weird cognitive dissonance when they watched the video where they said that it wasn’t them, but their friends. “They were holding that vape for their friend, they don’t use it.” People love their kids. I struggle with having useful controls and use a mix of Apple, Microsoft, google and third party tools like bark. None of them work well. Some do a good job blocking, but not unblocking for things like school. A simple example of Apple’s, that I think is best, you can set a screen time limit like “one hour a day” and then set some apps like those used for school as unlimited. But the unlimited time apps consume the one hour limit and block the “fun apps.” So my kids would wake up early to use their one hour before school and have no time after school. You can approve extended time, buts by clock time, not actual usage. So if you approve an hour at 709, then it’s allowed until 809, even if they only use the app for 30 seconds. It’s a usability pain in the rear end and I can’t expect anyone actually uses it. Not to mention how buggy it is. At least a few times a day it takes 60-120 seconds to open the screen time app because it syncs usage before letting you approve requests. So really, it’s easier to just block devices altogether. If I could do it again, I would wait until 8th grade.

fifticon 3y ago

I dont recognise that it is so easy to apply these limits, even though I work in tech. When trying to block through Windows, I get lost in a dark patterns maze of microsoft online family accounts, where I ended up with corrupt windows user accounts - I could no longer log into my own admin account with my written down paasword, and had to reinstall windows. When I try google/android instead, I end up with account/app limits that my child can easily circumvent just by watching videos through the browser instead. What I currently have resorted to doing, is dns blacklisting youtube through the router, and then using alternate DNS where youtube should work. and this is not even to block my kid from youtube, it is just to keep her usage under/at 1 hour per day. meanwhile I have to fight with her misguided mother, who considers giving her a smartphone (she is 8, sigh). I am strongly against giving them to kids, given that not even adults can handle them responsibly.

fifticon 3y ago
the bit about windows is that the feature is exploited by ms to get you onto online accounts, but not really to help YOU. recently, we couldnt launch mineceaft, because windows was missing a windows update.. wtf.. like when pokemongo wont run jntil you apply an android update, sigh

throw0101b 3y ago

> Just delaying their first contact to the age of 13/14 won't magically guarantee they will be able to navigate it responsibly. There are no guarantees in life (except death (and taxes?)). It's about playing the odds/probabilities to achieved the desired outcomes (presumably happiness, or perhaps Aristotle's eudaimonia).

microtherion 3y ago

> But the solution is not pretending it is not there and hoping they won't become absolutely fascinated at the magic age of 14. In fact, 14, sort of the peak of puberty, strikes me as one of the WORST possible ages to first expose one's children to the Internet. Either let them practice earlier at the shallow end of the Internet pool, or lock them up until they are at Rumspringa age. "14" also sounds suspiciously like something cooked up in an Anthroposophic thought bubble. Rudolf Steiner was a big believer in 7 year developmental cycles, so "14" is self evidently the correct age to make a deal with Ahriman, if one must. The team running the pledge does not mention any connection to Anthroposophy, but Waldorf schools seem to be endorsing the pledge.

jjav 3y ago

> If your kid is addicted to screens, it is on you. This is wishful thinking. You can be truly the best parent in the world with unlimited time, wisdom and attention span but in the end you are competing with corporations who are dedicating billions of dollars and thousands of people to make very sure their apps as maximizing addiction. You can't compete with that. Sure you can limit screen time but that doesn't do much. It's like saying the old days that I only let a child smoke from 10am to noon, so it's ok they won't get addicted.