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Parents seem to get out of this scot free. I see young children who's behaviour is ignored for long periods of time while parents are "busy" on their phones. Th

Parents seem to get out of this scot free. I see young children who's behaviour is ignored for long periods of time while parents are "busy" on their phones. The idea of parents being responsible for the upbringing of their children seems to be something which has disappeared.

iknownothow 2y ago
Many parents don't know social media is bad. I've had to convince my partner that it is harmful over many months. She's only now stopped doom scrolling instagram. We finally came to an agreement that our child will not get a "smart" phone until 14. Our child will have access to old school phones and any other less-harmful communication tech. I intend to expose my child to smart phones and computers in all ways that is educational so that they don't fall behind. EDIT: I would rather not have needed to convince my partner that social media FB, tiktok and instagram is obviously bad and I'd have liked to have some laws to give me some basic protection.
cen4 2y ago
Obviously it has disappeared because people have been pulled into global networks. Its like becoming part of the Borg. Can you imagine the Borg without a network? More complex the network, less control any individual has on anything. The Borg has no purpose other than to survive. These networks currently have no purpose other than to capture, trade, steal Attention. That has to be reimagined to escape the current trajectory.
- DarkNova6 2y ago
  You are not wrong. The third (and only true season) of Picard has shown this wonderfully.
pjc50 2y ago
People are very judgy about the behavior of other parents. Especially on social media. It's no wonder the birth rate is down.
tgv 2y ago
> Parents seem to get out of this scot free. What's the point of pointing the finger at that amorphous, anonymous mass of people? Incarcerate parents if they don't educate their children properly? Fine them if they allow their offspring too much phone time?
- kelnos 2y ago
  Maybe? Deliberately exposing kids to addictive things that cause depression? That sounds like child abuse to me.
  - tgv 2y ago
    You can't really check on a hundred million parents, so why not take away the root cause?
makeitdouble 2y ago
The advantage of this position (looking at other parents' kids) is you'll always be able to find an angle. You're blaming parents for letting their kids on their own device. If they'd follow your advice, you could then blame them for not letting their kids get bored [0]. And if they're reading you can blame the lack of exercise, or otherwise the lack of reading/writing by hand. Or if they're doing all of that in turn, you can go for the over-parenting angle. It's infinite, no situation will be blame free if we look at the right angle. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/19/well/family/kids-summer-boredom.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/19/well/family/kids-summer-b...
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  This seems like whataboutism. Yes, it's possible to improve one's parenting in a variety of ways. "Not paying hundreds of dollars for a phone" is one of the easiest.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    But then you're not giving your kids access to modern tools (photo, audio recording, translation etc.). You're inserting yourself between them and their grand parents, close family etc. not letting them navigate a safe social circle. You're closing their world and this is a different angle to blame. PS: I am heavily biased, but in general I think we can give parents a break. Some of them must be shitty, but traditionally the rest of society has been the escape hatch in these situations. If we really think there's an issue, the first question should be why it's not solved at the social/systemic level. Putting kids in a cage and blaming parents can always be done at the very end, when all other solutions have been tried.
    - kelnos 2y ago
      I don't buy that. Once kids are around 10 or maybe even as late as 12 or so, sure, if they aren't connected via whatever social media or messaging platform their peers are using, there will be severe social consequences. But a 3-year-old doesn't need to be watching things on a tablet at the dinner table. A 7-year-old doesn't need "access to modern tools", at least not unfettered, whenever-they-want access. I also don't buy the argument that they'll be behind in digital skills or whatever. I was born in the 80s and didn't have access to a computer until I was 8 or 9, (intermittent dial-up) internet access until I was in my teens, and a smartphone until I was nearly 30. I had no problem acquiring all these "digital skills".
ItsBob 2y ago
I think that parents have the overwhelming bulk of the responsibility for what their kids have access to but as I've said to my parents in the past: "You're up against Nobel Prize winners who work for an organization with the goal of getting you addicted to <insert_app_here>". When you have thousands of devs trying to break your will power, you're really gonna struggle. Social media has passed me by (almost 50yo) and I have zero interest in it but I have no doubt that if I did start using it, their algorithms would break me down, no matter how strong willed I am. Unfortunately, like all addictions, the solution is probably abstinence.
- jajko 2y ago
  But its trivial to fight against for the parents - just don't give them the damned phone/tablet/tv remote etc. Till teens there is little rational justification, and massive evidence against it. But then real challenge starts - folks with microscopic attention spans themselves are supposed to actually spend hours with their kids on activities that hardly give any dopamine kicks. Kids are really just a brutally honest mirror image of the parents, and very few parents these days like that. Had few colleagues recently visiting wedding in Singapore. The stuff they said about the city itself is pretty sad - no western parent they saw was actually raising their own kids, cheap (often abused) nannies from ie Philippines were in charge of that. They allow kids anything, no discipline, no boundaries because who wants to be fired if kids complain. And then when whole family minus mighty nanny goes to ie restaurant, they often saw a parent literally begging 7 year old to have 30 minutes for themselves ('I'll buy you any toy, any food, anything, just give us 30 mins please' kind of story). I wonder why they even bothered having kids these days if they couldn't care less about them afterwards, while giving it all to some empty corporate careers and partying. Or those 'super parents' who travel with kids in the car a lot. Then you look inside and there are X tablets neatly arranged in the back. Our kids are used to stare outside instead or read books/magazines, important 'boredom management skills' that can't be taught otherwise.
  - ItsBob 2y ago
    I see it frequently myself: a parent in the supermarket pushing a child in a buggy/pram and the child is watching something on the phone... usually with high volume. I used to get angry but I genuinely feel sorry for the child now: I suspect they will have zero attention span when they grow up and probably won't read books etc - There is no long-term upside to it.
kerrsclyde 2y ago
As a parent I agree parental reponsiblity is absolute but I haven't seen a workable solution reguarding social media. I can't realistically monitor what my children are looking 24/7, like I can't listen to every conversation that they have. I could ban all social media / phones but how is that going to prepare them for life in a world where social media is all encompassing? Plus they likely would be ostracized by their peers. [I'm talking here about older children, teenagers. We also have a 5 year old and it's pretty easy with him, he doesn't have access to any form of social media.]
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago
  > I could ban all social media / phones but how is that going to prepare them for life in a world where social media is all encompassing? This is not the future that I expect. Rather, in my observation/bubble, "radical privacy advocates" are more and more spreading. So, I would expect that you rather prepare the children for a wrong (and worse) world. > Plus they likely would be ostracized by their peers. In my school time, the "nerds" (who were also privacy advocates, keywords: Diffie-Hellman key exchange, RSA, war against cryptography) found friends among each others. So, I wouldn't fear that your child becomes ostracized - it very likely will find (better) friends.
  - kerrsclyde 2y ago
    I don't disagree with anything you say but try telling my 16 year old daughter she need to jettison any form of social media and go with the nerd crowd.
    - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
      > I don't disagree with anything you say but try telling my 16 year old daughter she need to jettison any form of social media and go with the nerd crowd. There exist quite some other groups of people who reject social media: I just chose the "nerd crowd" example because many HN readers are very familiar with it. For example - people who are somewhat skeptical about technology - people who are "anti establishment"/"anti big tech") - ... I can easily imagine that if "(mostly) everybody" uses social media, a pubescent girl might easily come to the decision to reject social media completely just to be annoying to other people, and tell them to f... off.

iknownothow 2y ago

Many parents don't know social media is bad. I've had to convince my partner that it is harmful over many months. She's only now stopped doom scrolling instagram. We finally came to an agreement that our child will not get a "smart" phone until 14. Our child will have access to old school phones and any other less-harmful communication tech. I intend to expose my child to smart phones and computers in all ways that is educational so that they don't fall behind. EDIT: I would rather not have needed to convince my partner that social media FB, tiktok and instagram is obviously bad and I'd have liked to have some laws to give me some basic protection.

cen4 2y ago

Obviously it has disappeared because people have been pulled into global networks. Its like becoming part of the Borg. Can you imagine the Borg without a network? More complex the network, less control any individual has on anything. The Borg has no purpose other than to survive. These networks currently have no purpose other than to capture, trade, steal Attention. That has to be reimagined to escape the current trajectory.

DarkNova6 2y ago
You are not wrong. The third (and only true season) of Picard has shown this wonderfully.

pjc50 2y ago

People are very judgy about the behavior of other parents. Especially on social media. It's no wonder the birth rate is down.

tgv 2y ago

> Parents seem to get out of this scot free. What's the point of pointing the finger at that amorphous, anonymous mass of people? Incarcerate parents if they don't educate their children properly? Fine them if they allow their offspring too much phone time?

kelnos 2y ago
Maybe? Deliberately exposing kids to addictive things that cause depression? That sounds like child abuse to me.
- tgv 2y ago
  You can't really check on a hundred million parents, so why not take away the root cause?

makeitdouble 2y ago

The advantage of this position (looking at other parents' kids) is you'll always be able to find an angle. You're blaming parents for letting their kids on their own device. If they'd follow your advice, you could then blame them for not letting their kids get bored [0]. And if they're reading you can blame the lack of exercise, or otherwise the lack of reading/writing by hand. Or if they're doing all of that in turn, you can go for the over-parenting angle. It's infinite, no situation will be blame free if we look at the right angle. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/19/well/family/kids-summer-boredom.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/19/well/family/kids-summer-b...

robertlagrant 2y ago
This seems like whataboutism. Yes, it's possible to improve one's parenting in a variety of ways. "Not paying hundreds of dollars for a phone" is one of the easiest.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  But then you're not giving your kids access to modern tools (photo, audio recording, translation etc.). You're inserting yourself between them and their grand parents, close family etc. not letting them navigate a safe social circle. You're closing their world and this is a different angle to blame. PS: I am heavily biased, but in general I think we can give parents a break. Some of them must be shitty, but traditionally the rest of society has been the escape hatch in these situations. If we really think there's an issue, the first question should be why it's not solved at the social/systemic level. Putting kids in a cage and blaming parents can always be done at the very end, when all other solutions have been tried.
  - kelnos 2y ago
    I don't buy that. Once kids are around 10 or maybe even as late as 12 or so, sure, if they aren't connected via whatever social media or messaging platform their peers are using, there will be severe social consequences. But a 3-year-old doesn't need to be watching things on a tablet at the dinner table. A 7-year-old doesn't need "access to modern tools", at least not unfettered, whenever-they-want access. I also don't buy the argument that they'll be behind in digital skills or whatever. I was born in the 80s and didn't have access to a computer until I was 8 or 9, (intermittent dial-up) internet access until I was in my teens, and a smartphone until I was nearly 30. I had no problem acquiring all these "digital skills".

ItsBob 2y ago

I think that parents have the overwhelming bulk of the responsibility for what their kids have access to but as I've said to my parents in the past: "You're up against Nobel Prize winners who work for an organization with the goal of getting you addicted to <insert_app_here>". When you have thousands of devs trying to break your will power, you're really gonna struggle. Social media has passed me by (almost 50yo) and I have zero interest in it but I have no doubt that if I did start using it, their algorithms would break me down, no matter how strong willed I am. Unfortunately, like all addictions, the solution is probably abstinence.

jajko 2y ago
But its trivial to fight against for the parents - just don't give them the damned phone/tablet/tv remote etc. Till teens there is little rational justification, and massive evidence against it. But then real challenge starts - folks with microscopic attention spans themselves are supposed to actually spend hours with their kids on activities that hardly give any dopamine kicks. Kids are really just a brutally honest mirror image of the parents, and very few parents these days like that. Had few colleagues recently visiting wedding in Singapore. The stuff they said about the city itself is pretty sad - no western parent they saw was actually raising their own kids, cheap (often abused) nannies from ie Philippines were in charge of that. They allow kids anything, no discipline, no boundaries because who wants to be fired if kids complain. And then when whole family minus mighty nanny goes to ie restaurant, they often saw a parent literally begging 7 year old to have 30 minutes for themselves ('I'll buy you any toy, any food, anything, just give us 30 mins please' kind of story). I wonder why they even bothered having kids these days if they couldn't care less about them afterwards, while giving it all to some empty corporate careers and partying. Or those 'super parents' who travel with kids in the car a lot. Then you look inside and there are X tablets neatly arranged in the back. Our kids are used to stare outside instead or read books/magazines, important 'boredom management skills' that can't be taught otherwise.
- ItsBob 2y ago
  I see it frequently myself: a parent in the supermarket pushing a child in a buggy/pram and the child is watching something on the phone... usually with high volume. I used to get angry but I genuinely feel sorry for the child now: I suspect they will have zero attention span when they grow up and probably won't read books etc - There is no long-term upside to it.

kerrsclyde 2y ago

As a parent I agree parental reponsiblity is absolute but I haven't seen a workable solution reguarding social media. I can't realistically monitor what my children are looking 24/7, like I can't listen to every conversation that they have. I could ban all social media / phones but how is that going to prepare them for life in a world where social media is all encompassing? Plus they likely would be ostracized by their peers. [I'm talking here about older children, teenagers. We also have a 5 year old and it's pretty easy with him, he doesn't have access to any form of social media.]

aleph_minus_one 2y ago
> I could ban all social media / phones but how is that going to prepare them for life in a world where social media is all encompassing? This is not the future that I expect. Rather, in my observation/bubble, "radical privacy advocates" are more and more spreading. So, I would expect that you rather prepare the children for a wrong (and worse) world. > Plus they likely would be ostracized by their peers. In my school time, the "nerds" (who were also privacy advocates, keywords: Diffie-Hellman key exchange, RSA, war against cryptography) found friends among each others. So, I wouldn't fear that your child becomes ostracized - it very likely will find (better) friends.
- kerrsclyde 2y ago
  I don't disagree with anything you say but try telling my 16 year old daughter she need to jettison any form of social media and go with the nerd crowd.
  - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
    > I don't disagree with anything you say but try telling my 16 year old daughter she need to jettison any form of social media and go with the nerd crowd. There exist quite some other groups of people who reject social media: I just chose the "nerd crowd" example because many HN readers are very familiar with it. For example - people who are somewhat skeptical about technology - people who are "anti establishment"/"anti big tech") - ... I can easily imagine that if "(mostly) everybody" uses social media, a pubescent girl might easily come to the decision to reject social media completely just to be annoying to other people, and tell them to f... off.