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Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?

#101

Post by makeitdouble »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #29

I have a 3 month old and this is something I am wondering about already, since I am definitely prone to YouTube binging - especially if I'm in a bad mood, tired etc. I tell myself I need it for background music then before.I know it I'm binge watching comedy routines I've seen 10 times before.

You made it far enough to have life stable enough to post on HN and have a 3 month kid, I'd assume you're not actually addicted to youtube in the clinical term.

Honestly if you're going well enough, your kid potentially mimicking you shouldn't be such an issue. There are some stuff to consider regarding language aquisition, fine motor skills etc. for really small kids, but them looking at youtube wont doom their life if you've covered the other bases.

If you feel it will become a real issue, the path of course would be to look at how you want your own life to be different, move in that direction and bring your kid along. I've had friends who quit their job and moved to another town to realign with how they wanted their life to be after they had their kid, so it can be an option.

Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?

#102

Post by _mme »

sowbug wrote: post #98

Parent of three ranging from tween to college age. We have never had limits on anything. Screen time/content unrestricted. Probably dozens of times, maybe hundreds, we have had "the talk" about how there's a lot of weird shit in the world, internet included, and it's better to know about that stuff and how to deal with it than to create a temporary secure enclave at home where it doesn't exist. We especially didn't w…

Amazing attitude.

The mother of my kid and I are separated. I wanted to restrict content/screen time, but she gave him unrestricted access to his iPhone and now I feel it can't be undone. He's 13.

I'm mostly worried about his attention span, especially when I watch him use his phone. But then again, maybe this is just a different generation and I must understand that his way of using the internet is different from mine.

Would you share a story of falling/picking them up?

Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?

#103

Post by marapuru »

theonething wrote: post #87
adaml_623 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do with her when you are out with friends? Restaurants, etc?

Believe or not, especially if we order something she really likes, she'll sit there eating her food and talk to us, making comments about things she notices in her environment. Before the food comes, she'll just look around and make conversation about what she sees. Could this be just her personality and we got lucky? Possibly. But I'm willing to bet it also has to do with her not being used to screens and instead be…

Same here with our son. 2,5 years old and we bring him to restaurants or friends with ease. We don’t entertain him with a phone or screen.

He also sits with us, eats with us. Sometimes we do bring a toy car, or pencils for him to draw. But that’s it.

Great side effect is that he eats everything. From olives to onions. He sees us eating and he mimics. That’s the whole parenting game imho.

I don’t believe you are lucky. You’ve simply set the standard for your child, by _not_ providing a screen for every situation.

Well done:-)

Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?

#104

Post by gwn7 »

The internet is fucking interesting and it is very hard to keep people of any age from it.

But some people need it more than the others.

In my opinion the lonelier and/or unhealthier and/or poorer and/or less purposeful and/or more physically / mentally trapped somebody is; the likelier for them to be addicted to the internet (or to other things that can give them a sense of an escape from their reality, or just hope.)

I think before thinking about anything else you should think about what better can you do for your child regarding those matters.

Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?

#105

Post by [deleted] »

shp0ngle wrote: post #37

I don’t know if I will. I was a computer addicted kid since I was about 8, when parents bought me a computer in 1995. When faster internet came, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I was on the internet nonstop. And later on social media - LiveJournal, Blogger, Flickr, YouTube, but also some local servers that people here won’t know. I don’t think it hurt me that much? Now I am a developer and making more money than m…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?

#106

Post by Shared404 »

sowbug wrote: post #98

Parent of three ranging from tween to college age. We have never had limits on anything. Screen time/content unrestricted. Probably dozens of times, maybe hundreds, we have had "the talk" about how there's a lot of weird shit in the world, internet included, and it's better to know about that stuff and how to deal with it than to create a temporary secure enclave at home where it doesn't exist. We especially didn't w…

> We especially didn't want to pawn off our responsibility as parents onto their future 18-year-old college-bound selves to learn how to deal with excesses.

This is an important point. There's a reason that it's well known on any given college campus that the wildest people are the ones with the strictest parents.

To anyone reading this - guide your kids, don't try to lock them down. Obviously what degree of freedom:restriction will be dependent on the kid in question, but be guided by the point above. I don't want to know where I would be right now if I didn't have friends who screwed up their life first and didn't choose to use them as a warning.

E: Added last sentence

Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?

#107

Post by api »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #15

For our kids the big problem was youtube. Give them a game on their tablet and they are quickly collaborating on it. Give them a show and they will go see what the other person is watching. After not too long (an hour or two) they are completely done and doing something else. But youtube is different. They can sit alone, in a corner, slack jawed, for 8 hours per day, only watching youtube, as they respond to all ques…

We banned YouTube for the same reason. It's honestly a bit terrifying how completely YouTube can entrance kids. You could probably kill a kid by sitting them in front of YouTube and they'd die of thirst or starvation.

The content is absolute shit too. The YouTube algorithm steers them toward these weird repetitive videos and obnoxious fast-chattering gamer channels. There's a lot of interesting and enriching stuff on YouTube but the algorithm never steers them toward it.

You might want to preemptively ban TikTok and Instagram too. I've been told by many parents they are absolute poison for teens. I've looked at them a bit and TikTok in particular is shockingly addictive even for adults. I was just checking it out and before I knew it I'd been scrolling for 45 minutes watching weird videos from randos. Banned it at the network level already just in case.

We have really created a monster here with this addictionware stuff. It's not great for adults but for kids it's really toxic.

Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?

#108

Post by Shared404 »

nicoburns wrote: post #93
theonething wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero to three are critical years for child development. The brain grows to 80% of its adult size by then. What happens doing those years has outsized effects on the child the rest of their life. So yes, I won't be able to shield her from screens forever. But I can still do my best to set her up for success and prevent her from being a screen junkie.

You should absolutely continue to protect your kids from screens (and I think some kind of active role is a good thing), but as someone who was raised in a very restrictive household: be careful not too go too far the other way. For example, I was not allowed a mobile phone until I was 16 years old, and this was incredibly socially isolating and made it hard for me to participate in the shared social life of my peer…

Seconding this, the same thing happened to me. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34022113 for a take that I like better.

Currently have a strained at best relationship with much of my family for reasons strongly related to this mindset.

E: Moved the last paragraph of this comment to https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=34022364 where it makes more sense in context.

Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?

#109

Post by qup »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #80

Think of any bans and constraints as a loaded spring. Unless they have something that they enjoy / rewarded for / need to do with their time, you'll just frustrate them. They'll do the alcohol, drugs, TV, internet all behind your back. Or maybe they'll binge on it after they leave your house. Instead, maybe introduce them to alternatives that are worth being addicted to. And, lead by example. Try to find something th…

No offense, but I think this is mostly true for uninvolved strict parents (I had one).

I think keeping kids active while denying certain activities is really normal and doesn't result in rebellion when done right.

Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?

#110

Post by api »

agentwiggles wrote: post #23
bcrosby95 wrote: post #15

For our kids the big problem was youtube. Give them a game on their tablet and they are quickly collaborating on it. Give them a show and they will go see what the other person is watching. After not too long (an hour or two) they are completely done and doing something else. But youtube is different. They can sit alone, in a corner, slack jawed, for 8 hours per day, only watching youtube, as they respond to all ques…

Youtube has been essentially banned in my house after seeing the effect it had on my kids. The problem, in short, was that Youtube continuously feeds them new content. Sadly - especially given the huge amount of actually great content on Youtube - everything that it wants to show my kids is absolutely dogshit garbage. A bunch of Gen Z kids with obviously wealthy families just acting like idiots. I couldn't stand it a…

The YouTube algorithm seems to steer you toward absolute shit. Age doesn't matter. Try just following it as an adult and you will end up in the toilet pretty fast.
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