Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 388 posts

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

#131

Post by otakucode »

mcone wrote: post #118
otakucode wrote: post #110

I got Internet access in 1990 when I was 12 years old. Completely unfettered, unmonitored, unlimited in any way. And I wouldn't trade it for anything. Certainly many, if not most, kids would end up obsessing over social status and gossip and similar things. That has nothing to do with technology and absolutely everything to do with how they deal with their life in general. They're encouraged to avoid taking an intell…

> That has nothing to do with technology and absolutely everything to do with how they deal with their life in general. With all due respect, accessing the internet today is nothing like what it was in 1990. It's like comparing apples to oranges. There's a huge difference between accessing a BBS with a modem and pulling an iPhone out your pocket and pulling up Facebook's newsfeed with a couple taps of your finger. Th…

You are right, it is certainly quite a bit different. I'm not sure how material the differences are though. For what it's worth, I had access to BBS' prior to that and had already enjoyed discussing things with adults as an equal before getting a dialup account on a local university mainframe. Everything was done through a shell account, telnet and gopher and similar. I mean, I was still able to quite easily find myself to alt.binaries.tasteless and find extreme porn and all that sort of stuff.

Those things like Facebook and such that are designed to be addictive are only addictive to the types of people who find that kind of thing alluring. People who seek social validation whether than evaluating themselves for themselves can not be protected from that tendency. And that is, whether we like it or not, the foundation of modern society. It is an inevitable consequence that such people will spend their lives drowned in neurotic worry. It's not particularly new, and the systems that make engaging in it so easy also make leaving that sort of thinking behind if a person wishes to do so.

Ultimately, though, consider the kid. If the kid is a social butterfly, what effect is withholding tech from them going to have? They're going to be made bitter, probably be significantly sidelined in their social circles - the exact place they derive every ounce of their self worth. It wouldn't exactly be a pretty alternative.

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

#132

Post by specialist »

logfromblammo wrote: post #83
nsxwolf wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree but some of these things sound like moral panics about black rectangles. I don't remember people shaking their heads at parents reading a paperback book at the park, or commuters reading broadsheet newspapers on the train.

As a transhumanist, I see the recent advertisement campaign for device-free dinners as an implicit accusation that devices necessarily inhibit interpersonal engagement rather than enhance it. A device-free social event makes as much sense to me as having an equipment-free sporting event. Imagine playing baseball without bats, balls, or gloves. Imagine soccer without balls or goals. The family dinner with meaningful c…

When trying to play catch, it's nice to have a partner who throws the ball back. Whatever the medium.

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

#133

Post by vlunkr »

riskable wrote: post #93
vlunkr wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have young relatives who could watch minecraft videos on YouTube all day and it makes me want to throw up. To me that's much worse than anything on TV, because it's meaningless and endless.

"Meaningless and endless" would be how I would've described cable TV ~20 years ago, ~10 years ago, ~5 years ago, and today . Go back further than that and it's just, "meaningless" because it wasn't as "endless" back then. Youtube at least has some interesting/ useful content and lets the creator and the viewer engage each other in various ways. When I was 10 I watched hours upon hours of television and played NES gam…

> 1990s Transformers cartoons and you'll probably come back realizing the the ugliest dog video is both more interesting and entertaining

I don't know about that. At least a bad cartoon is an original creative work. So many YouTube videos are just recycled low-effort garbage. Not that there isn't great content on YouTube, it just seems like their algorithm promotes some pretty bad stuff. If you visit it in an incognito window it looks like the front of a tabloid.

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

#134

Post by HateInAPuddle »

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…

> i wonder why everyone wanders into parenthood without any forethought

Because most people are accidents.

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

#135

Post by bllguo »

The thing is that technology can have an incredibly positive benefit on a kid's life if done right. People espousing schools banning screens and limited screen time strike me as people attached to the status quo. We need to adapt and learn how to raise children around technology.

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

#136

Post by specialist »

soccerdave wrote: post #30
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.

It's amazing how well kids adapt when expectations are set and they know them. We used to let the kids watch an iPad in the car and there was always fighting because everyone wanted to watch different shows. So we took the iPad out of the car and now the kids only have books to read in the car. Since we did that car rides have been so much better.

Kids (0-8) do better when there are (predictable) boundaries. They feel more content and secure.

From 9 to 12, just have fun together.

From 13 to 25, just keep them alive.

YMMV

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

#137

Post by Fogest »

soccerdave wrote: post #30
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.

It's amazing how well kids adapt when expectations are set and they know them. We used to let the kids watch an iPad in the car and there was always fighting because everyone wanted to watch different shows. So we took the iPad out of the car and now the kids only have books to read in the car. Since we did that car rides have been so much better.

Do they not get car sick from reading books while driving? I remember as a kid on long car trips I would try and read but I'd always feel sick from it, however I was fine watching movies on a portable DVD player.

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

#138

Post by vasco »

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,…

So I guess you posted this from work then?

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

#139

Post by erikpukinskis »

libria wrote: post #47
citizenkeen wrote: post #7

'One of my favorite things you can do is plan a “device-free dinner.”' _A_ device free dinner? Why aren't all of them? These weird little "small gestures" make me feel like people have lost control of their homes. We have a landline expressly to give out to emergency contacts. And dinner is tech free. Every night. I think the main problem is tech has made everything _else_ easier, but parenting harder, and parents ju…

> _A_ device free dinner? Why aren't all of them? These weird little "small gestures" make me feel like people have lost control of their homes. Why should all dinners be distraction[1] free? I understand dinner is a social event for many cultures/families, but not every person wants this nor am I convinced it must be this way. I'm efficient with my eating and when the family wants to socialize we play Catan or sit a…

You're right. If you have other frequent means of socializing and dinner is just a time for food in mouths, then devices at the table aren't the end of the world.

But there is a reason many people like to use dinner as a mandatory point of family social contact: it keeps you on a daily schedule. You can multitask: listening to stories while you chew. And it provides some resilience to changes.

Like marriage, there is some value to committing to something like this "in sickness and in health". It's nice that you all want to play Catan now, but what happens when your teenager decides they don't like games anymore? Or what happens if your spouse isn't loving your approach to competition these days? Or if someone just doesn't feel like socializing? Everyone needs to eat, so in that way it's resilient to these shifting winds. If nothing else, you can sit and chew and listen to your family's voices.

So I'm not disagreeing with you: there are other ways to achieve the same ends that might be more efficient or more comfortable for your family. But there are also good reasons to sacrifice a little of that in order to fix a ritual that can pay off in unpredictable ways.

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

#140

Post by PascLeRasc »

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)

It's definitely an affluent US city thing. When I was in Spain for three weeks this summer zero of the locals had their phones out in a restaurant.
Post reply on HN