My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by RonanTheGrey » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #85

whymauri wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The year is 2050. "My daughter was a creative genius, then we bought her first neural lace."

If neural lace's primary use is going to be participation in the global network of advertisement-funded Skinner boxes, then honestly, I won't be getting one myself, despite how hyped I am about brain-computer interfaces in general.

This is how these things always go isn't it? We invent this incredible technology that augments what we do, what we can be, what we can learn, and what we can believe...

and then we turn it into an almost-exclusively advertising tool designed to convert a human being into a money making machine.

It's one of the reasons I'm not enthusiastic about technology anymore. I see what we do with it. Every. Single. Time.

It makes me sad. All the lost potential.

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

#172

Post by jjk166 » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

minusthebrandon wrote: post #112

jjk166 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tomato tomato You can communicate via a method your parents can't because you used it extensively in your prime while they didn't. Your grandparents probably had the same issue with fax machines and your grandchildren will probably have the same problem with neural-messaging. Every generation thinks "but this time it's different" and every generation is wrong.

I will still say that lacking the ability to communicate via a particular medium is not the same as lacking social skills. My inability to send messages via Morse code over telegraph lines doesn't mean that I lack social skills.

So if a skilled telegraph operator handed you a message including the word "naloopen" you would know what that means? There was not just one but several forms of telegraphese developed. A conversation held entirely in brief dots and dashes has a substantially different flow to it than say typing out a message on an internet forum, which in turn is nothing like how one would communicate with a 5 second fleeting video recording. A telegraph is a very simple machine to operate, I'm sure you could learn quickly, but you would certainly still lack the social skills necessary to keep up with a professional telegraph operator from a century ago.

Likewise, your parents certainly don't have any problem conceptually understanding keyboards, letters, or addresses - they were perfectly comfortable with typewriters, letterheads, and postal codes. Dealing with nigerian princes and chain mail might involve the use of technology, but these are very much social skills.

As someone who only uses social media platforms that are mildly reskinned versions of 80s/90s message forums, I don't really know what the "BCC vs CC" of tiktok is, nor do I care. I have an excellent understanding of how tiktok works technologically, but I lack the particular social skills tiktok requires. Since my peers do not get it either, this has never been a problem for me, but I'm sure in a few years when my kids expect me to just know how to snapple into the televoid with them that I'll look like an idiot as I search for a reply button somehwere.

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

#173

Post by Yetanfou » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

kemayo wrote: post #55

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are a lucky one, because at that time to your interests in computing would lead to job opportunities. I’m afraid it is not so with an iPhone. Our phones take without giving. Now excuse me I should probably log off and do something useful.

My daughter has learned a lot about video editing, having fallen into the "Gatcha Life" community. It's a legitimate life skill.

> It's a legitimate life skill.

...this month, maybe this year, until the next fad hits the 'net and all those influency types need to adapt or exit.

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

#174

Post by JoeCianflone » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

ianseyer wrote: post #152

JoeCianflone wrote: post #109

What a load of shit. I’m sorry I have an 11 year old who has an iPod touch the real problem here is lax parenting. My son cannot use his phone alone in his room alone, he doesn’t have TikTok or any social media apps. He cannot take it to school (not that there’s a school to go to at the moment) or take it out of the house unless he asks first and 95% of the time we don’t let him. Kids test—that’s like an iron law of…

"What a load of shit", "all these problems are your fault." Really? This comment just seems like ego-driven parental grandstanding rather than an actual attempt to understand how the first generation born into the era of smartphones and all-the-time internet access might have difficulty negotiating a healthy psyche against a multi-billions dollar oligarchy of companies intentionally seeking to monetize their attentio…

It’s not ego driven but there was anger on my side. I hate it when we blame technology first, which seems to be the point of this article. Kids can absolutely be addicted to phones that’s true. But it’s the job of the parent to set limits, this person admits in the article that her daughter wore her down and flaunted the limits and there were no consequences. So yeah she may be addicted now, which we can’t really diagnose, but that’s still the parents fault for setting limits and bending to the will of their kid.

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

#175

Post by mattdeboard » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

> But some days I get so angry, I rage against the phone. I say the iPhone is evil. It’s stealing her childhood.

> ...

> The worst part is that our child has changed. She used to rush to our bed as soon as she woke, demanding cuddles and to “Talk Friends.” We played with puppets and stuffed animals in the morning, getting the “friends” to sing and act out scenes from plays like Robin Hood and Beauty and the Beast. We all got involved. Those days are gone. I understand she’s probably too big for “Talk Friends,” but it’s heartbreaking watching her race into our room each morning to grab her phone.

The problem is not the phone. The problem is making the child choose between attachment and authenticity. She doesn't run to you anymore because you're constantly fixated & raging about the phone. Not because she prefers her phone to her parents. You've told her it's not safe to be herself around you.

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

#176

Post by RonanTheGrey » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

greysonp wrote: post #73

A lot of the comments here seem to be saying that (1) kids getting addicted to phones is no different than getting addicted to TV, books, etc, and that this is just the latest iteration of a complaint parents have had for generations and (2) this person is a bad parent. I used to agree with (1), but lately I'm inclined to think that this time, it really is different. Very different. And the primary reason is that unl…

I was 100% convinced my kids won't get these devices until their very late teens, when I saw how my less than 1 year old reacted to the phones my wife and I use. Because his reaction is pure instinct, the dopamine response just to the colors and brightness was shocking.

We now have to work HARD to keep these devices away from him. Part of it, of course, is he observes how much attention we pay them but his eyes definitely light up differently when they are turned on. And that's without the manipulative, 1000-engineers-optimizing-for-your-addiction software built into them.

I honestly find it harder and harder to believe these things do anything positive for us. I 100% believe they can I just think we've turned them into something ugly, right now.

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

#177

Post by RonanTheGrey » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

pwinnski wrote: post #131

floren wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The head of technical support at the company for which I work recently quit her job to support her husband's streaming career. He makes in three months more than I do in a year. For every one of those, there are hundreds of streamers who quit their jobs to focus on streaming but ended up broke, and thousands of streamers who spend every free moment outside of their day job trying to build a following but never get…

Sure, but I'm not saying "everybody should try streaming for a living." I'm saying it's not true that kids using iPhones is always a dead-end timesuck.

You're taking one example and generalizing it. I'm sure someone did something productive with cocaine once too, but that's not generally its outcome. (just a random example that occurs to me, I do not agree with the "War on some drugs" btw it was just an example)

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

#178

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

RonanTheGrey wrote: post #171

TeMPOraL wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If neural lace's primary use is going to be participation in the global network of advertisement-funded Skinner boxes, then honestly, I won't be getting one myself, despite how hyped I am about brain-computer interfaces in general.

This is how these things always go isn't it? We invent this incredible technology that augments what we do, what we can be, what we can learn, and what we can believe... and then we turn it into an almost-exclusively advertising tool designed to convert a human being into a money making machine. It's one of the reasons I'm not enthusiastic about technology anymore. I see what we do with it. Every. Single. Time. It ma…

Exactly. This is what disillusioned me about information technology as well.

Advertising in particular is a cancer that, over time, consumes every single communications medium.

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

#179

Post by enominezerum » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

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…

Just keying in on the school portion draining you of energy, I think of just my high school English classed alone. Read a Novel a month and have weekly tests. Between that write a 5 page paper about the literary elements of each chapter. Fall behind a bit and good luck catching up with all the other work thrown at you. Try to bring this up to a teacher and you get told "What another teacher assigns isn't my responsibility." Bring it up to administration and be told "We trust our teachers to do what is best".

Those who had internet turned to sparks notes, got good grades, good grades meant scholarships and an easier time in college. Those without went further in the hole as they were most likely working after school and trying to bring in extra money to help the family.

Between all of this, it is easy to find yourself mentally exhausted where all you want to do is endlessly scroll things. I can even find myself being drawn to social media when I have had a particularly stressful day at work. Come home exhausted, sit down, scroll, scroll, scroll. Think about the stuff you want/need to do, realize scrolling just requires thumb movement and no thought. Put the phone down after an hour or two and wonder where your evening went.

Ultimately teaching youth responsible habits, whether they be a phone, computer, or anything, is on the parents, but, outside forces really don't make things easier.

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

#180

Post by RonanTheGrey » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

jasonv wrote: post #97

jbob2000 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 teena…

How the hell did you manage this. Honestly what's your secret. I need to make sure my kids turn out this way.

I want tech to augment their lives, not replace them (or destroy them).