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YouTube has become the world's nanny

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Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#261

Post by robertlagrant »

scotty79 wrote: post #256
prmoustache wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drinking alcohol doesn't necessarily mean you will go louder and dumber. You know, like youtube, there are limits.

You don't notice it as an adult but kids are very observant. You impair yourself with any amount of alcohol.

Does this no answer your question about my child see me drinking beer? Or drinking coffee, if it's easier to not get distracted by the specific drink he's not allowed?

My point was a bit unrelated to all this, so I'm just checking your original question's answered.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#262

Post by ulrikrasmussen »

HlessClaudesman wrote: post #59

As a parent, screen time vs no screen time is a fine line that we have to continually renegotiate. Screens can be great, there is so much good information out there that can enrich our lives. I wouldn't go the "no screens ever" route because that's just being a luddite, robbing them of the change to experience, and acquire expertise in, the digital world that they will be interacting with for the rest of their lives.…

We used YouTube for a few months with our first kid but we stopped again because you quickly end up in a rabbit hole where it mostly recommends videos that look weirdly auto-generated, are devoid of any meaningful content and have an uncanny pacifying effect on children - exactly like the surprise egg videos you linked to. We were the ones controlling the app, but the kid quickly learns to recognize the bright thumbnails and requests them. We ended up making up a story about YouTube being broken, and we are still very happy with that choice.

I really don't think watching this kind of brain-melting content is healthy for anyone. I think we all know the feeling we get when we have binged a show for too long, that bored and slightly depressed feeling where you want to stop, but you keep going for a little while longer than you should simply because you crave the continued stimulation. I get that feeling almost instantly when watching one of these videos, and I am truly worried about the mental state of kids who watch this stuff for hours every day.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#263

Post by nmfisher »

blitzar wrote: post #60

To my grandparents / great grandparents generation at the time (70/80's) TV has become the world's nanny would have generated all the same comments as this. If you watched tv - the idiotbox - for more than 15 minutes your eyes would go square.

What if there was some truth to that, and YouTube was 10x worse?

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#264

Post by t344344 »

furyg3 wrote: post #259
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #59

As a parent, screen time vs no screen time is a fine line that we have to continually renegotiate. Screens can be great, there is so much good information out there that can enrich our lives. I wouldn't go the "no screens ever" route because that's just being a luddite, robbing them of the change to experience, and acquire expertise in, the digital world that they will be interacting with for the rest of their lives.…

Curation is key and there need to be better tools. I strongly limit my kid's screen time, and was pleasantly surprised by the PBS kids video app (and to some extent the games app). I felt very comfortable leaving her alone with that at the designated screen times, as most programs had at least some educational component... or at least had some generic but positive moral lessons. And (key!) she gets personal choice in…

yt-dlp works quite well. Why even bother with internet?

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#265

Post by scld »

HlessClaudesman wrote: post #59

As a parent, screen time vs no screen time is a fine line that we have to continually renegotiate. Screens can be great, there is so much good information out there that can enrich our lives. I wouldn't go the "no screens ever" route because that's just being a luddite, robbing them of the change to experience, and acquire expertise in, the digital world that they will be interacting with for the rest of their lives.…

As far as educational screentime goes, my child has learned addition, subtraction, and multiplication purely from Number Blocks. To the point where we have to do supplemental learning because the fellow kindergarteners are just learning numbers and letters.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#266

Post by kibwen »

alexvoda wrote: post #237
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #59

As a parent, screen time vs no screen time is a fine line that we have to continually renegotiate. Screens can be great, there is so much good information out there that can enrich our lives. I wouldn't go the "no screens ever" route because that's just being a luddite, robbing them of the change to experience, and acquire expertise in, the digital world that they will be interacting with for the rest of their lives.…

I still think that treating the problem as screen time is the wrong approach. It is too low resolution. What happens on the screen matters. Many parents end up using screen time as a very blunt tool because we simply lack better tools. But curating content as a family is close to unfeasible because it goes against sponsored algorithmic curation to which others are still exposed and once a kid is socialized they face…

> And now you have become an antagonist. A rule maker to be subverted.

Good, then you can teach them to subvert you productively. Keep the tablet locked down, but put an unlocked Linux machine in the house and tell them they can watch whatever they want in Firefox. Once they've done that, make them launch Firefox from the command line. Once that's mastered, make them connect to the wifi manually. Then make them start the DE manually. Then make them configure the router to get online. Then disassemble the PC and force them to put it together. Better to learn computer literacy skills in the process than just be a drooling, gormless consumer.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#267

Post by Loughla »

icambron wrote: post #260
alexvoda wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think that treating the problem as screen time is the wrong approach. It is too low resolution. What happens on the screen matters. Many parents end up using screen time as a very blunt tool because we simply lack better tools. But curating content as a family is close to unfeasible because it goes against sponsored algorithmic curation to which others are still exposed and once a kid is socialized they face…

This is why it is simpler to set time limits and let the kids do what they want. It’s too much management and friction and negotiation otherwise. For now, I’ve done so anyway: games (even dumb ones) are fine but video is only available under special circumstances (e.g. on an airplane). I’m sure even this very coarse line will eventually erode though.

We had the same rule, and modified it to include type of games. Phone games have time limits, unless it's things like Dragonbox, flow free, or other "educational" games (at least games that require some kind of thinking) approved by us beforehand, including minecraft. Because 99.999% of games for children are just absolute trash stuffed full of ads.

Any PC game that is age appropriate gets a pass, but only if it's evening and we're inside already, or if it's really shitty outside.

As a non-tech person, the one thing I haven't been able to figure out is how to encourage 'tinkering' in an active way. So much technology today is meant to be set and forget. I had my oldest build a linux pc last year, and that seemed to pique his interest, but it was short lived, because so much is just apps and consumption with no backend. Even age appropriate apps for programming and learning about that sort of thing are very boxed in.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#268

Post by Version467 »

throwaway4aday wrote: post #229
arcturus17 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it has led to compulsive browsing behavior with severely negative long-term consequences for my life If I can offer practical advice that has worked for me in pulling me back from bad browsing habits: 1. Meditate ~10min every morning 2. Start a reading habit, even if it's modest (start with 10 pages a day) 3. Create physical barriers between you and devices: 3.1. Do not sleep with a device in the room (if you use i…

A really important addition there is to make sure you get your sleep routine in order. If you don't sleep well then sticking to any of the other habits is going to be incredibly hard. Decide on a sleep schedule that gives you between 7 and 8 hours in bed with no distractions, lights out. Even if you can't fall asleep easily just disciplining yourself to stick to this schedule will help. I can't stress how important i…

Good sleep hygiene really is a prerequisite for this stuff.

I would recommend removing the phone from the bedroom entirely. If you want to use your phones alarm clock, make sure that no other notifications can come through during your scheduled sleep time and put it on the other side of the room (this also forces you to stand up in the morning because you can't turn off your alarm otherwise).

You say 'no books either', and I agree with it, a bedtime routine works best if the bed is only used for sleeping, but I had great success with first replacing my phone with my ereader and allowing myself to read as much as I want. And then later on I removed the ereader. That was much easier than just removing the phone at once.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#269

Post by kibwen »

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #262
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #59

As a parent, screen time vs no screen time is a fine line that we have to continually renegotiate. Screens can be great, there is so much good information out there that can enrich our lives. I wouldn't go the "no screens ever" route because that's just being a luddite, robbing them of the change to experience, and acquire expertise in, the digital world that they will be interacting with for the rest of their lives.…

We used YouTube for a few months with our first kid but we stopped again because you quickly end up in a rabbit hole where it mostly recommends videos that look weirdly auto-generated, are devoid of any meaningful content and have an uncanny pacifying effect on children - exactly like the surprise egg videos you linked to. We were the ones controlling the app, but the kid quickly learns to recognize the bright thumbn…

> I really don't think watching this kind of brain-melting content is healthy for anyone.

I spent two hours yesterday transfixed by the AI-generated Infinite Seinfeld stream. Afterward I felt the mental equivalent of the feeling you get after eating an entire tray of cookies in a single sitting. This algorithmic crap is brain poison.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#270

Post by Loughla »

scld wrote: post #265
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #59

As a parent, screen time vs no screen time is a fine line that we have to continually renegotiate. Screens can be great, there is so much good information out there that can enrich our lives. I wouldn't go the "no screens ever" route because that's just being a luddite, robbing them of the change to experience, and acquire expertise in, the digital world that they will be interacting with for the rest of their lives.…

As far as educational screentime goes, my child has learned addition, subtraction, and multiplication purely from Number Blocks. To the point where we have to do supplemental learning because the fellow kindergarteners are just learning numbers and letters.

I don't think this is the own you think it might be.

Our oldest child's kindergarten class (at a very rural, poor school) was doing multiplication and division within the first month, because they all attended a pre-k that encouraged the use of educational games, like Prodigy for math.

Like everything, It's what is on the screen and how the child is using it and how involved the parents can be. Number blocks are the same way. They're a great way to learn basic reading and writing, if that's how the parents use it; they are also a great chew toy without some input from the parents.

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