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I spent my career in tech, but wasn’t prepared for its effect on my kids

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Re: I spent my career in tech, but wasn’t prepared for its effect on my kids

#61

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

mulmen wrote: post #33
artursapek wrote: post #15

For people like me who think smart phones ruin everything, I suggest looking into Waldorf education for your kids. Smart phones are banned at the school (until high school) and screen-oriented media (phones, TV, movies) are strongly discouraged outside of school. In my opinion the system attracts really interesting adults and kids who still know how to enjoy life the old fashioned way.

I wonder about the efficacy of banning the devices entirely until a certain point. Is that all that is done or is an attempt made to teach children how to responsibly use the devices so they don't gorge themselves when the ban is lifted?

It's for grown-ups like us to be able to remember "Oh yeah, there was a time that I wasn't umbilically tethered to a screen at all times and places, and I got along just fine."

Re: I spent my career in tech, but wasn’t prepared for its effect on my kids

#62

Post by SunnyCanuck »

Have two kids, 14/12. They've grown up as fully connected kids, have always had access to their own devices, never more than a year or two behind the Big Now. We have never imposed "limits for the sake of limits" on their screen time. I find the idea preposterous, frankly.

We have no issue connecting with them, or doing family things together, or etc etc etc. If you can't connect with your kids when they have iPhone in hand, you're not going to be able to connect with your kids even if you're a million miles from the nearest wireless cloud.

A lot of discussion around this issue is just tired rehashing of the same complaints every generation over the past 150 years has said about the incoming generation. Some of y'all in here already sound like grandparents, lol.

Re: I spent my career in tech, but wasn’t prepared for its effect on my kids

#63

Post by careersuicide »

s3nnyy wrote: post #56
careersuicide wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the one thing about technology I'm old fashioned about (I roll my eyes hard when people say stuff like "You should delete your Facebook account, you'll be better off."). If I'm eating food with someone else the phone goes away. The only exception is if in the course of conversation an easily googleable question is asked and both the other person/people and I are actually interested in the answer inste…

> sad to me when I see couples at a niceish restaurant and neither person is talking and both are looking at Facebook or Twitter Is that like a Bay Area thing? Sounds really terrible to me (I live in Europe)

I live in Texas. I've seen it all over here and pretty much every other state I've visited in the last few years. Maybe it's an American thing?

Re: I spent my career in tech, but wasn’t prepared for its effect on my kids

#64

Post by eljimmy »

mquander wrote: post #20
telesilla wrote: post #2

The hardest thing for me has been young children begging, just begging, for screen time. It's heartbreaking and I know very few parents who have managed to make no mean no. I grew up watching TV but then, TV was mostly for adults and I only paid attention those few hours it was child-friendly. I spent almost the entire decade of the 90s without a television, only going to the movies or the occasional VHS. Even today,…

I spent a lot of the decade of the 90s having the best times of my life immersing myself in video games and the Internet, and looking back it seems to me like I'm the better for it. I think it should rightfully be heartbreaking to deny that to a kid who would have it.

Same here. Unfortunately I think a lot of the applications and games that kids use these days aren't very enriching.

For 90s kids there was a lot more exploring and learning involved with computers/technology. Now it's just mindless tapping.

It'd be really cool to setup an old 486 at home for the kids and let them play with the same technology we used as kids. No internet, just stacks of disks, maybe even setup some sort of SSH tunnel to mock dialing up to BBSes.

Re: I spent my career in tech, but wasn’t prepared for its effect on my kids

#65

Post by neogodless »

telesilla wrote: post #2

The hardest thing for me has been young children begging, just begging, for screen time. It's heartbreaking and I know very few parents who have managed to make no mean no. I grew up watching TV but then, TV was mostly for adults and I only paid attention those few hours it was child-friendly. I spent almost the entire decade of the 90s without a television, only going to the movies or the occasional VHS. Even today,…

Disclaimer: Not a parent! Immediately disqualified from the discussion.

My siblings have eight kids. I can't speak for how they act everyday, just what I observe during our frequent family gatherings. Here's what happens. The adults hang out and do boring things (OK on a good day, we play cards or board games or sit around a fire!) while the kids run around doing things. Only in the past year or two have electronics really been a part of this at all. The youngest is eight, the oldest 14. They play tag, climb things, play board games, play cards, sit around fires (hmm...) and they don't beg for electronics or even ask for them. I'm sure it's different at times, at home. But I know that most of them didn't have a tablet until maybe two years ago. And my siblings didn't either. Lately, sometimes they play video games or tablet games, but only sometimes.

It's not actually a requirement of life to own and use a tablet. (Or smart phone.) And certainly not a requirement of childhood. Rather than have those things around and in use, the opposite was the norm. They were rare. Eventually the kids get to be 9 or 10 or 11 and say "hey, Everyone owns one, maybe I can have one?" and then they got one, finally, but with some rules in place, and times that it could be taken away, because the parents are making the rules. And it doesn't seem to have become an addiction for them, because it's just one thing added to an already interesting and abundant life.

But I've seen other kids/parents where tablets and TV and phones are central to living and entertainment. And you don't want to be around for the war that erupts when the parent tries to pry the electronic device away from their child. It's a third arm, and it's not going anywhere.

We do adapt to what we're around, how we behave, what's acceptable. If it's "normal" then anything else is change, with all the resistance that comes with it.

Re: I spent my career in tech, but wasn’t prepared for its effect on my kids

#66

Post by imchillyb »

joshribakoff wrote: post #39
bronz wrote: post #28

whenever i see parents struggling with issues like this, i wonder why everyone wanders into parenthood without any forethought, any preparation. its so frustrating to see people take their hands off the wheel and say "well, i have no control over this situation. i hope my kid turns out ok." people have this idea that you cant influence your kids. they send them to school where you have 0% control over what they see a…

> children are like any other animal Yeah, raising kids is just like owning a gerbil. Exactly.

@joshribakoff, you're being disingenuous. You left out the important part of that quote:

> they need to be raised deliberately. if you spoil a dog, and dont train it, what kind of dog do you wind up with? what kind of people do you end up with when they are sucked into ipads while still in a stroller, and they are sent to schools that are little more than zoos being overseen by air-headed sorority girls?

That is succinct, true, and a shame. A shame, just like your hand-picking out a part of a sentence, in order to make the poster sound like an idiot is.

He omitted: in that, from his sentence. They are just like animals, in that....

And if you were to be truthful with yourself, you'd admit he's eerily correct in his observation.

Re: I spent my career in tech, but wasn’t prepared for its effect on my kids

#67

Post by Frank2312 »

socialist_coder wrote: post #29
forinti wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All my family's meals are device-free. My kids don't even question it: they turn the TV off themselves when we call them. We have one TV in the house and it can't be turned on in the morning. The kids don't seem to suffer at all.

My house is the same way, but I think you have to realize that we're in the vast minority though. Whenever I'm visiting with family in the US, their TV is usually on. It's constantly on. The kids run around with devices with very little oversight or limits. It's absolutely terrible, but's also super common. Sigh.

My sister does that.

She just keeps the TV on at all times.

Watching a show on Netflix on her tablet? TV on.

Takes a shower and is in the bathroom for 30-45 minutes? TV on.

Leaves the house and someone is there, though not watching TV? Let's TV on. I have to shut it down myself.

I have absolutely no idea how she picked up that habit. No one in the (immediate) family does it.

Re: I spent my career in tech, but wasn’t prepared for its effect on my kids

#68

Post by nulagrithom »

posguy wrote: post #53
jancsika wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the question that I don't know the answer to: would those couples have engaged each other in meaningful conversation (meaningful to them ) had cellphones not existed? Or does the presence of cellphones reveal that a large number of people were never particularly interested in engaging meaningfully with others but would only feign interest when the alibi of the cellphone isn't available?

Sometimes conversation may occur that otherwise would have been avoided thanks to cellphones, other times you get calming silence instead. Its a definite risk, but the whole equation is ignored usually.

> other times you get calming silence instead

I always like that Pulp Fiction line: "That's when you know you've found somebody special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence."

I don't think a moment of silence is any excuse to pull out the cellphone. In fact, I think this highlights part of the problem we have with cellphones. We expect constant entertainment, action, and info. It's really rare anymore to just sit for a minute and do nothing -- and it could be that doing nothing is pretty important.

Re: I spent my career in tech, but wasn’t prepared for its effect on my kids

#69

Post by pbhjpbhj »

SunnyCanuck wrote: post #62

Have two kids, 14/12. They've grown up as fully connected kids, have always had access to their own devices, never more than a year or two behind the Big Now. We have never imposed "limits for the sake of limits" on their screen time. I find the idea preposterous, frankly. We have no issue connecting with them, or doing family things together, or etc etc etc. If you can't connect with your kids when they have iPhone…

>We have no issue connecting with them, or //

It's good that all people are exactly the same as you and your kids and that this will therefore work for everyone, isn't it. /s

Re: I spent my career in tech, but wasn’t prepared for its effect on my kids

#70

Post by triangleman »

graphitezepp wrote: post #21

I think it's (it being the socially damaging effects of persistent internet access) is going to get way worse before it gets better. Rising depression rates in youth are happening, but nobody is even talking about this on the 'mainstream', it's just not openly visible yet. Meanwhile the Google's and Facebook's algorithms keep getting more finely tuned . . .

No worries man, Google is going to diagnose your depression and all but prescribe your Prozac.
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