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My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

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Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#91

Post by shireboy »

abfan1127 wrote: post #64
stolenmerch wrote: post #46

All of these things can be true at the same time: 1) They are bad parents 2) They are good parents 3) Smartphones are a qualitatively different addiction problem than TV, comic books, or other demonized technology of yore 4) It is correlation not causation 5) Her problems were partly caused by the iPhone

how is 1 and 2 true at the same time? It seems more like he set boundaries, then let his daughter run past them. Setting boundaries is hard, it takes strength, but you can't sacrifice boundaries to "keep the peace". Short team peace is long term hell.

They are bad parents for not sticking to boundaries on occasions. They are good parents for caring enough to try to have boundaries,, thinking about the positive and negative impact the phone and apps may have on her. Sure, nothing can be true and false _in the same respect and same time_ (Law of Non-Contradiction), but I routinely feel I'm both a good and bad parent.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#92

Post by sequoia »

Dig1t wrote: post #71

> A child who used to read in the bath won’t pick up a book unless threatened with the loss of her phone. I don't think it's the phone itself that was the problem here, I think its allowing your teenager unfettered access to social media. TikTok, Facebook, IG, are not particularly healthy IMO. There is something to look at here with the loss of interest in reading and being creative. iPhones are in fact very good out…

> A child who used to read in the bath won’t pick up a book unless threatened with the loss of her phone.

SCHOOL! SCHOOL! A thousand times: school!

Of course a child who likes reading for leisure is going to do it less readily when they are told what books to read and forced to read them on someone else's schedule and analyze rather than enjoy them. I have no idea why people are blaming the phone and not school here.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#93

Post by Synaesthesia »

akerl_ wrote: post #6

It’s not clear to me how they’ve decided their child is no longer “a creative genius”. It sounds like she’s just creating things via the phone now, and so the content isn’t literally sitting on the floor in the living room. Whether it’s desirable for their child to be making digital content and publishing it is another question entirely, but the title premise never seems to be addressed directly. The article is a lon…

I certainly agree and it is different. However sitting and watching TV for hours at a time wasn't good either!

We can actually take technology and make it something worthwhile and enriching. It doesn't have to be this way.

When TV came out there was actually a lot of hope that it could be used to educate people for example.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#94

Post by onemoresoop »

jjk166 wrote: post #54
goatlover wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nine hours on a phone during the day is normal for an eleven year old? That sounds like a problem.

Having never been an 11 year old girl in a pandemic, I can't really speak to what "normal" is. Based on the the girl's behavior as described in the article, it certainly has had no noticeable negative effects.

It's not about the pandemic, it's not even about phones but about the technology/software running on them that turn them into skinner boxes.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#95

Post by y-c-o-m-b »

KungFuJohnny wrote: post #2

Title is completely misleading. The problem has nothing to do with an iPhone. It has 100% to do with bad parenting. The author even acknowledges this, but I guess blaming the iPhone gets more clicks than "Poor parenting harms child".

> bad parenting

Or is it? Maybe it's actually good parenting and they only perceive the outcome to be bad because of misguided ideas of what "good children" should be. Case in point: if it wasn't for my addiction to video games growing up and constantly finding ways around my parent's restrictions, I would never have become a software developer. That much is certain. Not only that, but I would have a horrid disdain for my parents much like my step-sister (now in her 30s) does for her mother (whom was always praised for being a "good parent") that restricted everything when she was growing up; so much so that she moved more than 7,000 miles away when she finally reached college age.

Somehow everyone thinks they're an expert on parenting and that there's only one way to parent a child and it's a one-size-fits-all situation. Frankly that's asinine. People come in all flavors and sizes so to speak. What you consider to be "good parenting" might be viewed as bad parenting by another person. In that sense, there's a subjective component to parenting. I've seen a lot of parenting elitists here on HN and I doubt many of you even have children let alone understand the complexities that comes with parenting them at various stages.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#96

Post by ttul »

sequoia wrote: post #87

Buried lede: > My daughter doesn’t return home from school until 6:30 pm and still has to eat, bathe, and get ready for bed. Perhaps it is not just the iPhone, but school taking up 100% of her time, energy, and attention that is preventing her from pursuing creative interests? As a homeschooling parent whose kids have been in school at times, I see this first hand. School is exhausting . Between rising unnaturally ea…

I have done home schooling and regular public schooling. If you can afford to have a parent be at home full time with your kids, you are amongst the wealthiest in the world. You are fortunate.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#97

Post by jasonv »

jbob2000 wrote: post #80
parksy wrote: post #45

My dad smashed my computer around the laundry (where the computer lived) with my cricket bat because I was "playing games" instead of studying. "playing games" was using assembly language and pascal with s3m libraries to program a game. With my kids I've felt the rise of anger when they want to be autonomous and pursue their own interests. I mean, I was taught that parenthood is subjugation. But just like my dad coul…

Are you happy? I missed so many experiences sitting in front of the computer all day, it didn’t really get me any further than if I had taken a more modest interest. YouTube and Minecraft and these digital realities are fake realities. Whatever happiness they provide is temporary and short lived. It took me until my 30s to realize this and now I’m starting all over again. Digital stuff is fine in moderation, but I wi…

I have an almost 17 year old who doesn't want a smartphone.

He plays Minecraft/KSP about 90 minutes each night.

But he'd always, always accept an offer to do something else with me or someone else in the family.

So I make sure, as his father, to make that offer sometimes. And I also feel fine if I'm feeling like a book or a movie or something else.

Not all kids become [insert teenager cliches] upon the onset of teenage-dom, for all the different reasons this can be true... but when I was his age, I definitely defaulted to getting on the computer instead of doing other things.

I do think it's interesting how little discussion there is in culling digital behaviors moreso during pandemic times. I personally don't have a lot of interest in any of the new iPhones because my iPhone mostly lives on my desk at home. It hardly ever gets out.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#99

Post by dba7dba »

zubspace wrote: post #77

I believe this is a huge problem in our society. And I recommmend everyone who downplays it to watch "The social dilemma". There are a few aspects which are worrying: - Social pressure to be connected constantly increases for children below 14 years. - Sites like TikTok, Reddit, Twitter, etc. are designed to be addictive. Children at such a young age do not have the same level of self control like you. - The longer k…

One big recommendation for all to watch "The social dilemma" on netflix also.

The social media apps on the phones are specifically agonized over, tested, and refined continuously to increase interaction, aka make users into addicts.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#100

Post by Jyaif »

adamzapasnik wrote: post #66

I think a lot of people are missing the point. That could be attributed to the poor title, though. The way I see it, pre-phone their daughter was probably much more engaged with her parents and was doing more manual creative stuff. After the phone appeared, she distanced herself and got absorbed by it. I don't get why so many people here are trying to defend smartphones/social media? Isn't it pretty obvious they are…

Is being addicted to creating tiktkok/instagram content to get likes such a bad thing? The fight to stand out on those social networks forces you to be creative.
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