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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

#181

Post by thr0wawayf00 »

hans1729 wrote: post #47
mathieuh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think children will be more successful at outwitting nefarious companies' behavioural scientists than adults are? It is widely acknowledged that companies are successfully applying methods of grabbing and retaining our attention in order to sell us things, so I'm a bit cynical that children, already not renowned for impulse control, will be any better than adults in ignoring that.

The earlier they make their experiences, the earlier they can develop a mature response to abusive stimuli - if taught about the nature of those stimuli . I'm not advocating for giving developing brains blind access to predatory products. I'm advocating to teach them a healthy-as-possible relation with them. And the reasons adults suck at this is just that: because we were never taught to deal with it, because our sc…

> And the reasons adults suck at this is just that: because we were never taught to deal with it, because our schools curriculae are in complete disconnect of the world we've built within the last 40 years.

Some companies see this as “innovation”: coming up with new ways to advertise, target, and stick to consumers. The problem with the “schools are behind” argument is that this is how the system is designed and it will always be this way.

Computer Science is a good example of this. It takes years for newer technologies to get into CS curriculum. By the time curriculum is updated to educate kids on phone addiction, there will already be a newer and more insidious method to target kids that didn’t make it into the curriculum.

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

#182

Post by codebolt »

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…

It's possible to walk a middle road here. My 11-y.o. daughter has a smartphone, but I use parental controls so she can only use apps for a certain amount of time each day (I chose 1 hr on weekdays, 2 hrs on weekends). This makes it possible for her to engage with her peers online, but also protected from becoming totally addicted.

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

#184

Post by codebolt »

zo1 wrote: post #40
lynguist wrote: post #25

During the Facebook hearing, they said that its internal data shows that Facebook is most harmful for 14 year old girls. I believe that if you can somehow shield your daughter of that age from social media, she will be fine. I had a no display rule for our toddler but during my absence, her mother introduced her to the iPad, and now she watches YouTube on it whenever I’m not around. I know that the American Pediatric…

We took away Youtube Kids access after a few days. It's filled with so much very low quality "spam" content. E.g. random indians with thick accents singing to random recordings of them playing with toys and 5k iterations of that for every single kids song imaginable. And that's even excluding the potential of them finding content along the lines of "Elsa Gate". Youtube-dl is your friend. Download (or pirate) quality…

Agreed on YT Kids, it's a lot of garbage with very little educational value. But what's wrong with Disney streaming? My 3 yo is allowed to play with a tablet for a few hours per week, locked so he can only access Netflix, Disney and a few games.

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

#185

Post by bigbillheck »

filoleg wrote: post #63
zo1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a fine line and you have to go with some of it safely . However, there are items that are 100% toxic and as parents we need to decide what those are. Things like rap/hip-hop music as an example, or TikTok. There are some things that just can't be consumed safely by impressionable minds. When they're older they can get into them if they so wish, but my hope is that their brains by that point would at least be mat…

> items that are 100% toxic [...] like rap/hip-hop music Didn't expect to see this take on HN, especially in the age when the library of congress includes hip-hop records and a former president expressed his appreciation towards it openly. Ffs, it is just another form of art. It isn't some vice that they will unfortunately have to eventually be able to work around, like alcohol. There is genuine value in it. Same wit…

> Didn't expect to see this take on HN

I'm not surprised at all, it's entirely consistent with a lot of other things you'll find on this site.

At least they admitted it's music.

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

#186

Post by rglullis »

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #181
hans1729 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The earlier they make their experiences, the earlier they can develop a mature response to abusive stimuli - if taught about the nature of those stimuli . I'm not advocating for giving developing brains blind access to predatory products. I'm advocating to teach them a healthy-as-possible relation with them. And the reasons adults suck at this is just that: because we were never taught to deal with it, because our sc…

> And the reasons adults suck at this is just that: because we were never taught to deal with it, because our schools curriculae are in complete disconnect of the world we've built within the last 40 years. Some companies see this as “innovation”: coming up with new ways to advertise, target, and stick to consumers. The problem with the “schools are behind” argument is that this is how the system is designed and it w…

> It takes years for newer technologies to get into CS curriculum.

The problem is not the technology. The problem is how they are used, and ethics is something that does not change - or at least changes at a much lower pace.

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

#187

Post by rglullis »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #126
mathieuh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think children will be more successful at outwitting nefarious companies' behavioural scientists than adults are? It is widely acknowledged that companies are successfully applying methods of grabbing and retaining our attention in order to sell us things, so I'm a bit cynical that children, already not renowned for impulse control, will be any better than adults in ignoring that.

>Why do you think children will be more successful at outwitting nefarious companies' behavioural scientists than adults are? because kids don't use Facebook?

Is TikTok/Snapchat/Instagram/whatever-is-fashionable-today any better?

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

#188

Post by 97s »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #179
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.

Do you mean because you didn't understand like common things with kids because you had no tv? Or because you were raised like completely different?

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

#189

Post by 97s »

codebolt wrote: post #182
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…

It's possible to walk a middle road here. My 11-y.o. daughter has a smartphone, but I use parental controls so she can only use apps for a certain amount of time each day (I chose 1 hr on weekdays, 2 hrs on weekends). This makes it possible for her to engage with her peers online, but also protected from becoming totally addicted.

Yea. This is something I have thought about, but the wife and I have decided to just wait and see how the middle school years go. I imagine it is going to probably become amplified.

It is interesting to think about how we understand social things for our kids.

When I grew up the only social time I had was when I actually hung out with my friends. We didn't have internet until I was around 16ish. The only social aspect we had outside of school was actually hanging with friends or talking on the land line. It's amazing how it is expected now for kids to be able to communicate with their friends 24/7.

I'm not sure if this is good or bad. As a parent I want to be the main influencer in my kids life for a bit longer still I think. I sound so controlling but in reality my son has a ton of freedom and is really a responsible kid for his age.

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

#190

Post by zo1 »

lynguist wrote: post #48
zo1 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We took away Youtube Kids access after a few days. It's filled with so much very low quality "spam" content. E.g. random indians with thick accents singing to random recordings of them playing with toys and 5k iterations of that for every single kids song imaginable. And that's even excluding the potential of them finding content along the lines of "Elsa Gate". Youtube-dl is your friend. Download (or pirate) quality…

I found that she likes watching Blippi and that there are specially produced Blippi episodes on Amazon Kids, but I couldn’t find those videos anywhere to download nor could I subscribe to Amazon Kids! (It’s not available in my country!) There is a Blippi stage musical on YouTube she watched already more than five or six times. I also see that it actually helps her language acquisition.

My young kids also watch(ed) plenty of Blippi. He has some episodes on Netflix too (different actor though) if you want to try that out. But it sounds like your best bet is to use a VPN and search "Blippi" on Youtube for videos to download.

Amazon Kids, you could probably allow a file/music app that can play specific files. Overall definitely a big gap in the market.

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