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What Happens When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone? (2019)
- RunningDroid 3y ago(2019)
- toenail 3y agoLol, do we really need an article about this healthy behavior?
- _fat_santa 3y ago[flagged]
- ahati 3y agoDon't know why you are downvoted, the article is quite bloated, summary like this helps.
- beej71 3y agoThe irony is the summary by its very nature takes the punchline out of the piece.
- pictureofabear 3y agoeh.. there wasn't much of a punchline. Just a lot of humble bragging.
- batch12 3y agoThey have been downvoted because people don't want to read an AI summary of the article. Maybe stand up a blog to do this or something.
- anigbrowl 3y agoPlease don't do this on HN. People come here to read what other people think; any HN reader who wants an LLM summary can do that themselves. It's unhelpful in the same way as posting a list of search engine results in response to a query.
- CrzyLngPwd 3y ago"When kids are smarter than their parents"
- dudul 3y agoAnother one of these "let me tell you about this thing that happened to me once" article. Do we really need to read people's diary in an "article"? Also, kudos to this kid, must have been tough keeping it so real with a mom that seems so self absorbed.
- autoexec 3y agoYeah the article was framed as being about her son, his choices, and the results of them, but was somehow turned into her mostly writing about herself. Poor kid.
- tete 3y agoIt's sad. We live in a world we call free, yet most are forced (by jobs, governments, banks, etc.) to use a smartphone, but not just any smartphone, no it has to be an iOS or Android one, because you need you bank app to run, your government stuff to run, and so on. To do so you typically have to create accounts with these companies and accept their ToS. Why then do we not forget about that whole nation/country/state thing and simply declare the Dual Monarchy of Apple and Google? [/rant] I think with such hard requirements for so many things it would make sense to create rules to democratize smartphones, banks, etc. similar to other infrastructure. Right now it just means that Google and Apple have government sanctioned, yet international monopolies. You cannot compete, because al these institutions won't just create apps for you and you won't get users without that. So in the end you have capitalism without the free market part.
- ghaff 3y agoAt least they don't effectively make us use a landline from one company (AT&T). But, fortunately, they were a regulated monopoly that only charged 20 cents a minute or so outside of your very local calling area.
- jwells89 3y agoThe problem here is one of inertia. Companies and government offices can’t support platforms they can’t readily and affordably hire devs for. It’s why there’s historically only been room for two popular platforms, leaving others to fall by the wayside. (Though in the case of mobile, I think we could’ve had three had Microsoft not shot themselves in the foot repeatedly.) That said there could stand to be standardized APIs for things like banks, which would free users to develop their own apps.
- Dah00n 3y ago>So in the end you have capitalism without the free market part. This is what “capitalism without the free market part” looks like: >it would make sense to create rules to democratize smartphones You seem to be arguing against what you argue for? I wholeheartedly agree with you that we need to create rules to democratize smartphones, and that is because I'm against a free market. And Capitalism.
- giantg2 3y ago"He set himself certain tasks in his education, and he calculated that he couldn’t give up nearly seven hours per day—the national average—to phones and other screens." That's exactly what you get in middle school these days - 5 or so hours of Chrome book use at school followed by 1-2 hours of homework in it.
- bitwize 3y agoYou say "fine", and both of you are happier for it.
- specproc 3y agoThat is one cool kid.
- nonrandomstring 3y agoOne is a start. Let's go for a billion Something I wrote in Digital Vegan that a few people said made them sit up, was about Greta Thunberg's climate protests encouraging kids to "boycott school". I always thought that was counterproductive, and... well, basically nobody cares (except the odd headmaster or ambitious parent). So I wrote that instead; """ If Greta Thunberg could get a billion young people to switch off their phones for a week then we'd see some action. """ I guess what I meant was, if young people wholeheartedly rejected what is "on offer" symbolically by dumping their smartphones... by sacrificing somethg that mattered to them but really represented the interests of "control, surveillance and capitalism", it would send a powerful message and actually be immensely disruptive. Besides, instead of being harmful to themselves, like skipping classes, it would actually be heathy and good for them. Having done so, it would be hard to reverse, because how would the proagandists and apologists reach them? I guess it has to start with one brave, intelligent child who says, "no thanks".
- SV_BubbleTime 3y ago“Greta”’s message would never be “stop looking at me”.
- nonrandomstring 3y agoSadly, I think you're right. And so many kids are hooked into "influencers" who, for the same reasons, would never criticise or suggest abandoning the platform that underwrites their existence.
- averageRoyalty 3y agoHey Andy, just want to say thanks for writing Digital Vegan. It's been very influential in my decisions for myself and my family, and I appreciate your work!
- nonrandomstring 3y agoThank you.
- kouru225 3y agoI dunno why y’all are so anti-smart phone in the comments here. Phones are tools. I dunno why you would think disempowering yourself is a viable political strategy. It’s like giving up your swords cause evil people are using swords to kill people and you wanna “protest.” Much better to teach people to ignore sensationalist social media, which is the real problem here.
- jjgreen 3y agoYou carry a sword?
- Georgelemental 3y agoThe modern equivalent would be carrying a gun…
- SV_BubbleTime 3y agoI do that. I spent a lot less time being self-destructive with it than my phone.
- j45 3y agoLots of research on why phones for kids generally ends their childhood at the age they get it. Phone aren’t tools anymore. They are digital slot machines designed to increase usage. It’s well researched and established and an easy google. Using tech for creating instead of consuming is for kids and young people.
- zzzbra 3y agothe son is cool and the mom is not
- Almondsetat 3y agoSorry, I find it very hard to believe a 8yo (mind you, the author states these sentiments came years before their 11th birthday) formulated such observations and principles and lived by them so thoroughly for years. Seems like one of those “and then everyone clapped” stories. Kids are not stupid and can show incredible wit, but the way the article is written and the kid’s thoughts phrased make me feel someone’s pulling my leg
- pawelduda 3y agoMaybe the kid was young Albert Einstein?
- sweeter 3y agoYea. This article also had some really weird stuff in it and often had the author projecting their beliefs on to their children... and full of cheesy quotes about how she couldn't remember what the year 519 was, and her son replied "thats the heyday of Constantinople!" Its a very "wine mom" vibe, my kids are very smart! Smarter than adults and I just didn't realize that I could just *not* use the internet. like jfc. Also lmao at citing JK Rowling and Soledad O'brien as "luminaries"
- satellite2 3y agoOnly on HN can everyone miss the parodic aspect to this article. Context guys, she is a mother of 10 to 12 yo kids. Virtually all she hears about is how to delay or avoid smartphone for her kids. There are many voices that support that the suicide epidemic lived by teen girls is caused by social networks. It's like the classic everyone is smoking around me and I'm desperately trying to start without success.
- Almondsetat 3y agoSorry for taking an article seriously and reading it with genuine interest thinking it would actually provide some information!
- nolongerthere 3y agoThe context here is that this was written nearly four years ago, the suicide epidemic was just getting started and many refused to even acknowledge the idea that technology could have any part to play in declining child happiness.
- pard68 3y ago> I only recently acknowledged that it will never be what a phone should be—someone’s steadfast companion, a guilty pleasure, a fetish object alive with the hallucinatory wonders of the entire angelic and demonic internet. What is wrong with this parent? She wants her 11 year old wading into the internet? Yikes
- irrational 3y agoWhere is he going to get his porn from? The woods?
- layman51 3y agoBefore I read this article, the headline reminded about how some children are considered “old souls”. I might be wrong about this, but it almost seems to me like all smartphone users have this tension between using it to mindlessly consume media for hours instead of using it to fulfill their goals and projects. Also, it would be very interesting to try to relate this article to how people argue that Instagram use is correlated to poor self-esteem.