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Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

blog.smartere.dk

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Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#101

Post by nar001 »

cheschire wrote: post #34
bananaowl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I witnessed my great aunt of 85 trying to watch TV. It was sad and painful. How ux is forgetting this entire generation is just terrible.

When my grandmother was in her late 70's, she couldn't figure out the concept of menus on DVDs, so she stuck with VHS well beyond the point others had let it go. The capabilities of individuals over 70 are hugely varied. Some folks are clear-minded until 100, others start to lose their mental faculties much, much earlier. I don't think the generation is forgotten, just so vastly different in needs from the core audie…

I do wonder how much of that is just convenience, a lot of people just don't want to bother, even if they would figure it out if they tried - they just don't. Your grandmother probably could've figured it out, but tapes were just much more convenient even if you had to rewind them (Obviously there's a learning curve, though)

Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#102

Post by haritha-j »

tantalor wrote: post #24
tete wrote: post #3

> Modern TVs are very poorly suited for kids. They require using complicated remotes or mobile phones, and navigating apps that continually try to lure you into watching something else than you intended to. I'd argue that's not too different for grown-ups. ;)

My biggest gripe is how terribly slow it is to navigate UI on a TV. The latency between user input and the UI responding can be upwards of 10-20 seconds. Just incredibly user hostile.

Honestly we don't need TVs, just big monitors. I can figure out the rest, thank you.

Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#103

Post by akagr »

kenjackson wrote: post #73
brk wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like you have an overly shitty ‘smart’ TV. Plenty of external devices (I’m partial to AppleTV) have no significant lag. Or it could be you’re using some niche service that has its own issues.

External devices like AppleTV, Roku or Xboxes are responsive. It’s the actual TV UI that tends to be very slow and laggy.

My Sony TV has android and is fairly responsive. Maybe a second lag, but definitely not 10-20 secs. I do need to give it time to “warm up” when I start it, though. I use it so rarely it’s generally turned off from wall outlet.

I still prefer Apple TV for various reasons, though, responsiveness being one of them.

Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#104

Post by Hovertruck »

rspoerri wrote: post #94
stavros wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you tell? What's the thing that made you say "this is bad for her", and why is it not the same for you?

She was so focussed on it and started crying when we hid it after only a very short time. This is not normal a behaviour. This only happens with things that are very addictive (also for example sugar). I do understand that not everybody can do it like that, but if you can create such an environment it's much better for them (in my opinion).

My three year old would do the same thing if he was playing in his sandbox and I abruptly picked him up and carried him away from what he was doing though. In my experience managing transitions between activities is one of the most important things. If I let my him watch a video and I tell him "I'm going to turn off the TV when it ends", he just goes back to playing with his toys when it goes off.

Don't get me wrong, I think screen time can definitely be a problem. I just think it mostly comes down to whether or not the screen time is at the expense of something else more constructive.

Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#105

Post by WorldMaker »

mrighele wrote: post #52
aquova wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I remember visiting my aunt's house in the mid-2000s, who had a surround sound set up her husband had set up. It required three or four remotes to work and no one but him could ever get it working. I think UX has forgotten a few generations by now.

Has anybody ever been able to program a VCR ?

My grandmother figured it out enough to make sure her favorite soap was always taped. It was a "set it up once and mostly forget it" thing, with the real hard part forcing grandkids to stop using the TV during the hour it taped to avoid accidentally taping the wrong channel. (VCRs at the time had their own tuner for OTA and that shouldn't happen, but her stories were important enough to her she didn't want to risk it, and had risked it in a brief period of having a cable box passed through the VCR.)

Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#106

Post by eigencoder »

neutronicus wrote: post #68
arscan wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a yoto for our son, and its a great experience, but be prepared for pricing of content to match what we used to page for cds/tapes. e.g., the pout-pout fish card is $8 USD for 10 minutes of content [1]. I think that's ok, as he actually would get a lot more than 10 minutes of use out of it, and its great to pay the creators while not having to worry about ads manipulating my kid. But it highlights how expecta…

We have a Yoto here as well, for our six-year-old. The concept is great - RFID as a replacement for cassette audiobooks (with fewer storage limitations!). I do wish it integrated better with sources of free audiobooks. The Libby app gets us access to a lot of audiobooks through the public library, many of which are not even available for purchase through the Yoto player. We can only use it to play them for him as a B…

The make your own cards are really nice for this. We bought a bunch of them and you can add any mp3s you want onto them. We even print stickers to put on the front.

Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#107

Post by alexfoo »

GJim wrote: post #93
alexfoo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And not always anything to do with the TV. I have BT TV ( https://www.bt.com/help/tv/learn-about-tv/bt-tv-boxes ) and the UI is painfully slow at times (UI response to a button press of 10-20 seconds), searching is horribly slow. Can't wait to ditch it for something more responsive (probably Sky Stream). I also miss an old TV that had a "q.rev" button to allowed you to switch back and forth between two channels with…

> Perfect for skipping advert breaks The mute button is the next best thing. Advertisements become much less irritating when silenced. I'm surprised so few people appear to mute advert breaks.

Yeah, that's the next best. I taught my kid to mute adverts from an early age.

It really winds up one family member who works in TV advertising, so that's a bonus.

Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#108

Post by SoftTalker »

nar001 wrote: post #101
cheschire wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my grandmother was in her late 70's, she couldn't figure out the concept of menus on DVDs, so she stuck with VHS well beyond the point others had let it go. The capabilities of individuals over 70 are hugely varied. Some folks are clear-minded until 100, others start to lose their mental faculties much, much earlier. I don't think the generation is forgotten, just so vastly different in needs from the core audie…

I do wonder how much of that is just convenience, a lot of people just don't want to bother, even if they would figure it out if they tried - they just don't. Your grandmother probably could've figured it out, but tapes were just much more convenient even if you had to rewind them (Obviously there's a learning curve, though)

Yeah I preferred tapes myself rather than deal with the stupid criminal warnings, unskipable content, and often bizarre menu organization on DVDs. Tapes are simple.

One other thing a lot of older people learn is that if they don't want to deal with something they can feign helplessness and someone else will jump in and do it for them.

Re: Floppy disks turn out to be the greatest TV remote for kids

#109

Post by wffurr »

rspoerri wrote: post #94
stavros wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you tell? What's the thing that made you say "this is bad for her", and why is it not the same for you?

She was so focussed on it and started crying when we hid it after only a very short time. This is not normal a behaviour. This only happens with things that are very addictive (also for example sugar). I do understand that not everybody can do it like that, but if you can create such an environment it's much better for them (in my opinion).

>> started crying when we hid it after only a very short time

I'd cry too if you showed me a bright colorful shiny fun new thing and then took it away after only two minutes.

Part of what you're seeing is the novelty. There does seem to be something about screens, but it's possible to have healthy screen habits as a young child. My 3 year old enjoyed a 25-minute episode of Wild Kratts on PBS Kids on our TV while we finished packing up for a trip to the aquarium today. No problems turning it off once the episode was over and it was time to go. It's not his first time watching TV though.

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