My SO has a huge endless scroll/swipe addiction.
She can spend days on IG reels. I don't know what to do.
I attempted to delete all my socials but LinkedIn to set a healthy example but it's for nothing.
Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?
111–120 of 296 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I had 5. Two could do restaurants. Two not so well. For the other, we brought toy cars and ordered piles of mashed potatoes for him to drive thru.
Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?
#113One of the best things you can do is implement a strict no FB, Instagram, tiktok, snapchat .. future social media policy. Secondly, stop using those services yourself and take every opportunity to tell them how much crap they are and how they should not be used. They will listen to you since you yourself are not using them. If you use them and tell them not to, of course it's not going to work. Once social media is o…
You forgot YouTube. Its addictiveness to children is terrifying. But yeah, I agree. A pi-hole is essential.
Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?
#114After having spent a fair amount of time using various different tools to attempt to control their screen time, my conclusion is that it was a mistake to have any screens in the house in the first place. A library of great books, good games, craft and art materials, and a collection of musical instruments would have been the best thing for my kids I'm thinking. Screens just make them addicted and miserable.
A screen is just a way to display information… I haven’t owned a physical book since 2008 and yet I read 2 or 3 books a month (thx kindle). I got my own pc in 1990 when I was 5… I had a NES where a player the same 6 games for years (and sometimes for hours… I think the amount of time O spent playing WoW pales in comparison of the time I spent playing super Mario bros as a kid). None of the above caused me any issue… it actually helped me find my life purpose (writing software). The problem is the addictivness of some of nowadays content (like reword based mobile games, tiktok, YouTube, etc.). Allowing your kids to use screens to consume the right stuff is a good thing
Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?
#115We had the same rules for kids and adults. Screens in common area facing out. No ads.
None of the five ever asked for a phone.
Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?
#116How do you protect adults from internet addiction, like relentlessly checking HN :)
Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?
#117Parent 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…
Being able to make mistakes is important for everyone, it is crazy not to let kids do it when they have no responsibilities. Sometimes you can't move on mentally until you have failed at something, I know people who dreamed of van life for years, finally pulled the trigger and moved into a van, hated it and moved on. It was totally worth it though, who knows what kind of ennui untested dreams will manifest later in life.
Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?
#118You help them use it and help them when they stumble. Addiction is mostly a genetic thing that you won't be able to do much to circumvent but if it runs in your family, so my best advice is to teach them moderation in all things early and often.
Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hopefully, the disdainful tone I use when explaining social media companies to them fully sinks in by then. Yeah kids are famous for doing everything their parents say ;)
Oh I have no doubts they'll give everything a whirl. There's a certain amount of suffering required before you start reconsidering lessons you had previously written off.
My plan is to describe things I dont want them to do in a very "been there, done that way", as if to say "I mean you can do it if you want, but...".
I feel like if I come across too 1950s it'll just make it seem too forbidden/cool. I mean just look how naughty those hippies were.
Re: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction?
#120I just don't let them use screens. I have a 5 and a 7 years old. To them a phone is used to call people, a computer is what Dad uses to work, a TV is used 30 minutes a week to watch something as a family and they don't know what a tablet is. They've never used an "app". They have books, blocks, Legos, dolls, coloring pages, and a ton of random trinkets to play creatively. It probably requires being more hands on than…
This is the way. They don't know what they're missing.