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I decided to move away from big tech for my children and myself

lof.flounder.online

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Re: I decided to move away from big tech for my children and myself

#171

Post by 97s »

I have a son who is 11. All of his friends have smart phones. He will have friends over to the house and the friends will sit there and stare at their phones. My son who doesn't have a phone will be like, hey can you get off tiktok so we can play or go outside? It is rather sad to see this, they are hanging out sharing videos they find on their feeds through their phones. One time my son said, hey get off your phone and lets go scooter around the neighborhood, the kid replied, hey I think I am going to go home. He wanted to surf his phone more than actually hang out with his friend.

I think I made a very good decision not to give my son a phone until he is driving. Instead of surfing tiktok all day, he learns music, does origami, plays outside, helps me with the garden and many other things that bring him a lot of joy. I obviously help him with whatever interest he has, and I think him seeing the way his friends handle social media has made him not really want a phone anymore. He doesn't even mention it to me like he did when all his friends first started getting one. He sees how addicted they are and how he doesn't even have those friends over anymore.

I think people over estimate the "pariah" thing. I grew up in a family of alcoholism, so I chose never to drink. At first people would ask me to drink with them at parties and such. Eventually they realized I never gave in, so when they were out buying alcohol, they would always buy me a pack of soda so when I came I would have something to drink with them. So if the friends are good, I don't think our kids will be pariahs. I think/hope that instead our kids will just find people who appreciate and understand their choices or the choices of their parents. If they don't, are they that good of friends after all? I think it is okay to have less friends, if the quality is higher.

Re: I decided to move away from big tech for my children and myself

#172

Post by chrisseaton »

lrvick wrote: post #125
Freak_NL wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a teacher could not figure out how to communicate with a kid without routing those communications through Facebook servers, I would kindly teach them how e-mail, matrix, or other neutral internet protocols work. And some (few) would appreciate your effort, but quite pragmatically have to acknowledge that there is no way they can support a classroom full of kids with those solutions, and that even if they could,…

It should be illegal (if not already) to demand children accept data sharing agreements with private companies to participate in public education. That is what the teacher asking kids to use a Facebook product is doing. Speaking personally, if I end up with a kid in that situation, and they are limited in school in any way because they don't accept FAANG license agreements, I will take them to court and make a media…

> and make a media shit show out of it

I doubt anyone in the media will care as much as you think they will.

Re: I decided to move away from big tech for my children and myself

#173

Post by BlueTemplar »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #104

This is less like being vegan and exactly like being Amish. The Amish, unlike what is usually believed, don't reject technology. They are very careful in adopting technology and seek to be deliberate about what technology to allow in their day to day life. I think this deliberateness unavoidably leads to being a Luddite. The dominant force in human history is the continual development of new technology and it's integ…

cellphone != smartphone != smartphone with Android / iOS / whatever Huawei uses != ALSO using the worst apps like TikTok

I'm not completely convinced by your argument either : what happened to the hacker ethos ? Why do you assume that this time progress is going to come from big sclerotic companies rather than from the usual free (including free-loading) fringe groups ?

(Speaking of which, if we fuck up our civilization badly enough, the Amish look to be in a pretty good position to be the basis for the next one ! (Efficiency being antinomic with resilience.))

Re: I decided to move away from big tech for my children and myself

#175

Post by rglullis »

lrvick wrote: post #164
2000UltraDeluxe wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one. It's just crap and both teachers and pupils avoid it when they can. Government IT is funny that way. Not to mention the fact that if I somehow managed to get them to ditch Whatsapp, I would be held responsible for it. I'd like to keep my business running rather than be known as the local tosser -- being famous for being a technophobe won't attract new customers. And yes, that's what being against Big Te…

No one has ever accused me of being a technophobe. I run a security and privacy consulting company counting some of the world's largest companies as clients. I have many friends at FAANG and have had engless direct and indirect dealings with data privacy and data breaches at major companies. I am also the guy that will teach their kids to program, and to solder. When I am -also- the one to say I don't carry a smartph…

Yeah, I don't want to pick on OP, but i's disappointing to see how even in a forum called "Hacker News" the prevailing mentality is of apathy and/or conformism.

It's almost like all the talk about of "it's cool to be a nerd" and "we need to have more room for different voices" is just corporate-washed propaganda and not the real values of this generation...

Re: I decided to move away from big tech for my children and myself

#176

Post by urlwolf »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #114

Well done. Your children will definitely thank you for reasons not even apparent today. Teaching children about technology, rather than letting them be taught by technology is the key here. This is the new tobacco. As research accumulates on detrimental effects (individual cognitive impact and societal damage) it's going to get easier to do the right thing for your children. It's hard right now in 2022, as seen in th…

The author of the book 'digital vegan', the most impactful thing I've read in at least a year, responded to my post. I'm fulfilled :)

Re: I decided to move away from big tech for my children and myself

#177

Post by nickip »

lukeholder wrote: post #78

I got my 13yo son an Apple Watch with an eSim that is set up under my iPhone. It allows us to call and text together as family, and for him to communicate with friends via imessage and other authorized chat apps. He doesn't miss the social inclusion (invites to a birthday party etc) but also it has minimal addictive apps like tiktok, snapchat, insta. I can set access controls for it with Apples' parental tools. Oh an…

Trying to figure out how this works for him. Does he just use voice text all the time? He navigates everything on the tiny screen?

Re: I decided to move away from big tech for my children and myself

#178

Post by micromacrofoot »

Gigachad wrote: post #73
hans1729 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sarcasm, right? A music genre is categorically toxic? What? They will see TikToks anyway, at latest on the devices of their peers. The only sane course of action is to teach them how to deal with it, not to ignore the consequences of every control-freak-parent we've seen in the last 40 years and cosplay a fantasy-world where those things simply don't exist.

A lot of it is fine. Most of it is safe if you just treat it as music with no depth. But the culture and people behind it massively glorify crime and violence. So being actually in to hip hop and the people behind it is dangerous for children.

guess the moral panic has moved on from rock and roll

Re: I decided to move away from big tech for my children and myself

#179

Post by micromacrofoot »

97s wrote: post #171

I have a son who is 11. All of his friends have smart phones. He will have friends over to the house and the friends will sit there and stare at their phones. My son who doesn't have a phone will be like, hey can you get off tiktok so we can play or go outside? It is rather sad to see this, they are hanging out sharing videos they find on their feeds through their phones. One time my son said, hey get off your phone…

Exercise a little caution if you can though, I was the kid without tv in their house and in middle school it resulted in having no friends and I resented my parents for it.

Re: I decided to move away from big tech for my children and myself

#180

Post by nivenkos »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #150

If you're in the EU, taking a stance against the GAFAMs is getting ever easier. Since you have pre-teens, being a role model is probably the best you can do - boycott them in all your life. Yes, it's hard to refuse to use both Android and iOS, Slack, Github, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, Zoom, TikTok, LinkedIn and their ilk even in your work - but at some point one has to take some responsibilities ! Especially that…

But like here in Sweden Mobile BankID forces you to use Android or Apple.

And at least that's a great improvement over the old BankID that forced you to use Windows.

But even both of those are massive improvements over the old days of constant in-person appointments (and delays), paper forms, etc.

I think it's the lesser evil tbh. Go live in Germany to experience the hassle of a technologically backward society (cash-only, paper forms and no widespread online authentication, in-person bureaucracy, widespread use of faxes or letters for service changes, etc.)

I do wish the EU/European governments would invest in Linux and FOSS to develop competitors to the US though. Atm we're basically a US colony, and tech salaries and opportunities reflect that.

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