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Just got back from a family reunion and my relations' kids were glued to their tablets playing mindless games and watching YouTube unattended for 4 hour spells

Just got back from a family reunion and my relations' kids were glued to their tablets playing mindless games and watching YouTube unattended for 4 hour spells and more day after day. It was so depressing, all these boring consumer drones in the making. My kids get 1 hour of screen time a day, max (until they decide to become coders, and then the cap is lifted. :)

ardeay 11y ago
exactly, when they make the leap to learning how computers work, the game changes :)
ProCynic 11y ago
Well there's screen time and screen time. Building something cool in minecraft is pretty different from watching spongebob on netflix. http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/06/30 http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/06/30
- alexnking 11y ago
  Exactly - I don't understand why even computer literate people have trouble understanding that computers aren't "an" activity, they're a gateway to millions of them, limited by your imagination. My parents also limited the time I could spend on a computer... and I ended up writing programs on paper while I waited for the next day :P
  - michaelchisari 11y ago
    It can be more complicated than that, though. People need down time, we need an opportunity to reflect on what we've learned instead of jumping to the next thing.
- voyou 11y ago
  "Building something cool in minecraft is pretty different from watching spongebob on netflix." Is it? Why is watching and thinking about something less valuable than "building" something?
nemo1618 11y ago
I was raised by parents who strictly limited my computer time to one hour a day. I spent most of it playing games, so perhaps their concern was justified. But I loved the computer, so, so much. And of course, I would do anything to sneak around the limits: wait until my parents went to sleep, binge while they were away, etc. It created a rather ugly tension between us; very adversarial. Upon later reflection, I realized that the root of it was that my parents had never made an effort to understand what compelled me to "veg out" in front of that screen as much as possible. They never asked me what a particular game was about, why I liked it, whether I was any good at it... in fact, I turned out to be exceptional at a number of games, winning amateur competitions and the like -- but I never shared those achievements with my parents, for fear that they would berate me for wasting my time developing useless skills. My dad tried to teach me Java and Ruby, but gave up when they didn't seem to stick. He didn't notice all the time I spent "programming" games of my own in RPG Maker 2000. (I did wind up pursuing programming seriously in college.) I guess my point is: before you limit something, make an honest effort to understand it first. Maybe play a round or two of that game with your child. Maybe ask them what sort of YouTube videos they like to watch (my younger cousins watch endless hours of other people playing games, which I still struggle to understand...). As I matured, I was able to forgive my parents; they did what they did out of love. I just wish it hadn't taken me so long to realize that.
- ardeay 11y ago
  Great comment. I've passed it along to a friend in a similar situation with their kids.
- chipsy 11y ago
  I was allowed many hours on the computer(albeit often having to take turns with my brother), but I concur that the emotional labor of listening and understanding is the number one thing my parents never "got." As I got older, their vicarious-living tendencies became more obvious - they wanted me doing things they personally liked and that was the farthest they could see. That would be fine, but if it wasn't on their radar of likes, they saw no reason to bring it up or discuss it - and if I brought it up, they had a pattern of dismissal with no pledge of support or further discussion - sometimes using the Grave Serious tone, sometimes using the Explanatory, That's Nice, or Maybe Later tone. If I escalated or presented work to them, they would categorize it as a "career", "hobby" or "skill development" and position it relative to their preferred activities in a way which induced anxiety and discouraged me from continuing. The only thing I wanted was basic interest or acknowledgement, and they consistently messed that up by wheeling every conversation directly towards their comfort zone. To this day, if I try to talk about a personal issue, they rush to provide unsolicited solutions and explanations. I finally managed to unlearn the explaining pattern myself as I got into my later 20's, as my friends brought it to light. So, at least at that time, I gave up on parental engagement and hid my life away in the computer instead, since at least there were people online, while weathering the (relatively mild, compared with others) storms of their own fancy. So too, I think, is the role of all of today's devices - when the family doesn't care, the screen fills in. It's a symptom. I think it's right to set down rules at an early age. That is one thing I think my parents did do right, and the early years are probably more crucial overall. But they had no idea how to proceed from there - kids aren't going to be exactly like their parents, and that requires a lot of listening when they get into adolescence and try to speak for themselves.
s_kilk 11y ago
>> all these boring consumer drones in the making. On the upside, if you raise your own kids right they'll run circles around these drones in the job market. Sometimes having the collective bar set lower works out ok :)

ardeay 11y ago

exactly, when they make the leap to learning how computers work, the game changes :)

ProCynic 11y ago

Well there's screen time and screen time. Building something cool in minecraft is pretty different from watching spongebob on netflix. http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/06/30 http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/06/30

alexnking 11y ago
Exactly - I don't understand why even computer literate people have trouble understanding that computers aren't "an" activity, they're a gateway to millions of them, limited by your imagination. My parents also limited the time I could spend on a computer... and I ended up writing programs on paper while I waited for the next day :P
- michaelchisari 11y ago
  It can be more complicated than that, though. People need down time, we need an opportunity to reflect on what we've learned instead of jumping to the next thing.
voyou 11y ago
"Building something cool in minecraft is pretty different from watching spongebob on netflix." Is it? Why is watching and thinking about something less valuable than "building" something?

nemo1618 11y ago

I was raised by parents who strictly limited my computer time to one hour a day. I spent most of it playing games, so perhaps their concern was justified. But I loved the computer, so, so much. And of course, I would do anything to sneak around the limits: wait until my parents went to sleep, binge while they were away, etc. It created a rather ugly tension between us; very adversarial. Upon later reflection, I realized that the root of it was that my parents had never made an effort to understand what compelled me to "veg out" in front of that screen as much as possible. They never asked me what a particular game was about, why I liked it, whether I was any good at it... in fact, I turned out to be exceptional at a number of games, winning amateur competitions and the like -- but I never shared those achievements with my parents, for fear that they would berate me for wasting my time developing useless skills. My dad tried to teach me Java and Ruby, but gave up when they didn't seem to stick. He didn't notice all the time I spent "programming" games of my own in RPG Maker 2000. (I did wind up pursuing programming seriously in college.) I guess my point is: before you limit something, make an honest effort to understand it first. Maybe play a round or two of that game with your child. Maybe ask them what sort of YouTube videos they like to watch (my younger cousins watch endless hours of other people playing games, which I still struggle to understand...). As I matured, I was able to forgive my parents; they did what they did out of love. I just wish it hadn't taken me so long to realize that.

ardeay 11y ago
Great comment. I've passed it along to a friend in a similar situation with their kids.
chipsy 11y ago
I was allowed many hours on the computer(albeit often having to take turns with my brother), but I concur that the emotional labor of listening and understanding is the number one thing my parents never "got." As I got older, their vicarious-living tendencies became more obvious - they wanted me doing things they personally liked and that was the farthest they could see. That would be fine, but if it wasn't on their radar of likes, they saw no reason to bring it up or discuss it - and if I brought it up, they had a pattern of dismissal with no pledge of support or further discussion - sometimes using the Grave Serious tone, sometimes using the Explanatory, That's Nice, or Maybe Later tone. If I escalated or presented work to them, they would categorize it as a "career", "hobby" or "skill development" and position it relative to their preferred activities in a way which induced anxiety and discouraged me from continuing. The only thing I wanted was basic interest or acknowledgement, and they consistently messed that up by wheeling every conversation directly towards their comfort zone. To this day, if I try to talk about a personal issue, they rush to provide unsolicited solutions and explanations. I finally managed to unlearn the explaining pattern myself as I got into my later 20's, as my friends brought it to light. So, at least at that time, I gave up on parental engagement and hid my life away in the computer instead, since at least there were people online, while weathering the (relatively mild, compared with others) storms of their own fancy. So too, I think, is the role of all of today's devices - when the family doesn't care, the screen fills in. It's a symptom. I think it's right to set down rules at an early age. That is one thing I think my parents did do right, and the early years are probably more crucial overall. But they had no idea how to proceed from there - kids aren't going to be exactly like their parents, and that requires a lot of listening when they get into adolescence and try to speak for themselves.

s_kilk 11y ago

>> all these boring consumer drones in the making. On the upside, if you raise your own kids right they'll run circles around these drones in the job market. Sometimes having the collective bar set lower works out ok :)