For non-americans: Apparently this corresponds to 13-14 years old.
Year 7 in the UK, which is the right age.
Other way round -- 8th grade is UK Year 9.
Wait Until 8th
91–100 of 351 posts
Re: Wait Until 8th
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated."
More like snobism: reading classic books for the sake of being able to brag about them. As if that made someone a better person. If the author at least did something creative... but nooo reading Brothers Karamazov as a kid is better than playing WoW. I still take the kid who created something, or at least spent time with other kids. And apparently the author didnt.
I would say yes, reading Brothers Karamazov is probably a better use for a developing mind's time than playing WoW.
Hell, that's a better use for an adult's time than playing WoW. But adults get to do whatever they want with their free time, and it would be hypocritical of me to judge.
Re: Wait Until 8th
#93I find it fascinating, that hacker news, the literal community for people tinkering with stuff seems to be full of people who want to gut their kids instead of teaching them how to use stuff responsibly. Probably tons of people here know how to code since they've learned on their own. Reality is that the kid will be a loser / outsider due to no phone. Also kids have a lot of time that could be used to learn stuff. An…
> Reality is that the kid will be a loser / outsider due to no phone.
That is supposition, not reality, and there are parents here who have shared their experience with kids having a healthy social life without a phone. More importantly, a very important role of parents is to make good decisions for their kids when the kids are still too immature to do that. "But all my friends are doing it" is literal child reasoning and should not be the only factor in parenting decisions.
Re: Wait Until 8th
#94[deleted]
Re: Wait Until 8th
#95IMHO, this feels like another wave of nannyism that follows after a new technology matures. Being a 90s kid, discovering porn, violence, warez were all normal part of growing up that I don't think has had any negative impact nor do the puritan panic about pornography. Matter of fact the internet started speedrunning censorship and monopolization post 9/11 without much of a fight and I think this triggered the default…
Some fears in this genre are well overblown, I agree. I also like the idea of kids learning for themselves, but it depends on whether they can learn before it becomes unmanageable. There is probably middle ground between no phone and phone here, and a less spoken about factor (IME) is that some kids and parents just have different dispositions and outcomes. Whether that is nature or nurture, it's hard to isolate or alter much right now. There is definitely nannyism following a new technology. I think it becomes gradually more true not because technology is inherently dangerous or something, but because we are producing technology that likely is more and more dangerous. Of course I don't consider social media addiction and Bittorrent on the same level.
Re: Wait Until 8th
#96I'm going to post the same comment I did last year when this showed up on HN ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36207142 ), as checking the website it still seems to be true: Literally none of the evidence on the website's own "Why" page supports their suggestion: https://www.waituntil8th.org/why-wait All of the studies (bonus points for linking to news articles instead of directly to the studies) have something…
I regularly see gangs of e-bike groms with cellphones terrorizing my town.
I'm not sure having a smartphone has at all impacted their outside time.
Re: Wait Until 8th
#97IMHO, this feels like another wave of nannyism that follows after a new technology matures. Being a 90s kid, discovering porn, violence, warez were all normal part of growing up that I don't think has had any negative impact nor do the puritan panic about pornography. Matter of fact the internet started speedrunning censorship and monopolization post 9/11 without much of a fight and I think this triggered the default…
I think this post from another thread is a good answer to this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41930275#41931671
Tldr:Seeing shock content is like eating a spoon of salt. The mind has defence mechanisms for it. You consume it, you are disgusted, and you never want to do it again. Consuming social media is like eating fast food
Re: Wait Until 8th
#98[dead]
Re: Wait Until 8th
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone has a different threshold for what they want from a dumb phone, some wants Google Maps, some think Youtube is ok, Google Chrome etc. which makes it hard to have a one true dumb phone. If you give access to the play store it's no longer a dumb phone The best way to have a dumb phone tailored to your needs is to take a cheap smartphone and make it dumb, either by using a different launcher, or a customized OS…
It’s true. My daughter didn’t have a phone until 9th grade, which she just started. She had talked about getting a dumb phone because she wasn’t very into the smartphone thing, which I was supportive of. However she now takes public transit to high school, and really wanted the Transit app so she could easily navigate in the city. So, an iPhone is where we landed. And I have to say, it is astounding how quickly that…
That’s sad but probably inevitable. Is there room for something like a personal Garmin navigation device? Does that already exist?
Re: Wait Until 8th
#100Younger millennial chiming in: I'm pretty sure that 8th grade is exactly when I got my first smartphone, although social media had a fraction of the presence back then, so it's hard to draw a direct comparison to today. But I do feel like the timing worked out well enough: not having a smartphone until that point (since they didn't exist lol) turned me into a voracious reader, and the dumbphone I did have meant I was…
This makes me think, as I've thought previously, that the generational labels seem too broad for the pace of change in information technology over the last 40 years. I read your comment as an older Millenial and thought "what?! a smartphone in 8th grade?!" Despite being in the same "generation," someone born in the mid-80s came of age with radically different consumer technology compared to someone born just ten year…
> This makes me think, as I've thought previously, that the generational labels seem too broad for the pace of change in information technology over the last 40 years.
Yeah, no kidding. I'm an older millennial as well, and I didn't have a dumb phone until my senior year of college, let alone a smartphone.
My experience growing up was so much different from someone born just 10 years after me, even though we're technically in the same "generation".