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A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

nytimes.com

21–30 of 516 posts

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#21
>Technologists building these products and writers observing the tech revolution were naïve, he said.

>"We thought we could control it,” Mr. Anderson said. “And this is beyond our power to control. This is going straight to the pleasure centers of the developing brain. This is beyond our capacity as regular parents to understand."

A 6 year old's brain has no chance against a team of trained data scientists. We all know this.

This larger issue of screen time and tech addiction will only continue to grow. At some point maybe a decade or two it will be a smaller version of the concerns about the tobacco industry. But because it's the brain and not the lungs it will play out differently.

People approach mental and physical health differently. Similarly dopamine addiction and chemical dependence are also treated differently in people's minds. One is often viewed as a moral failing the other as more "uncontrollable".

As much as we want it to be true, technological advancement can never be separated from social/ethical impact. It's not "just a tool" and never will be.

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#22

> There is a looming issue Ms. Stecher sees in the future: Her husband, who is 39, loves video games and thinks they can be educational and entertaining. She does not. I'm still peeved so many people hate video games categorically. Age of Empires & Civilization got me into history as a kid and I checked out dozens of books as a result. Plus, the reason I ended up wanting to learn more about computers was to make game…

RTS games in particular were extremely fun for me, and I don't see how playing hours of Starcraft and C&C wasn't an exercise in strategic thinking. I share Ms. Stecher's skepticism, though. Games today are fundamentally different from what they were when we were growing up (I'm guessing we're around the same age if you were big into AoE). Some of my friends have kids now, and the games I see them playing make me crin…

Games evolved from products that are sold once to a service that continuously extracts value from the customer. It's only natural that they try to be as addictive as possible when additional playing time means additional revenue.

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying this for a while, particularly with respect to how our kids and grandkids will view these devices, systems, and patterns of behaviours— "Oh, there's grandpa, needing to leave the restaurant for a few minutes to get his social media fix because they've banned screens in here for privacy/ambiance/preference reasons."

Gosh I hope not, I can't imagine needing to do this!

Really? I can totally picture it. There are already upscale cinemas that ban phones, for grownups who don't want to look at the movie over a sea of glowing screens, and are willing to pay a premium price and surrender the use of their own device for the privilege.

Same goes with restaurants, especially fancy ones, where diners are sick of having everyone around them snapping pics of their food for instagram.

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#24

This article doesn’t really explain what the dark consensus is beyond just “screens bad”. There are certainly some things on modern computers that are little more than Skinner boxes, but those things aren’t what the parents in the article are talking about. What makes Fortnite and Youtube videos worse than Nerf guns and library books?

That's what stood out for me while reading the article. Here are some people who say "screens are bad" and here are some other people who say "screens are not so bad". Then, a little bit about how screens are addictive and not good for kids. You could substitute "Dungeons and Dragons" for "screens" and we'd be reading an article straight out of the 80's.

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#25
post #18

There is always a tendency to blame the addiction on the substance, but it's usually symptomatic of something deeper. In this case I think it's happening because parents don't have as much time to spend with their children as they have in past generations and screens are a convenient way of keeping a child occupied in a safe way.

In past generations parents spent much less time with kids than now. Kids were mostly roaming streets. Now society frowns upon letting kids be outside nonsupervised, hence the substitution - screens indoors. Edit: Today parents spent twice as much time with kids as 50 years ago. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/11/27/parents-...

Part of that is that when roaming the streets, you knew the people on your street and usually had an idea that people were home to be able to call you to let you know there was a problem. Being at work is different than being "around and available" at home. Didn't have to be spending time with them directly to be available.

When I was roaming at as kid it was to my other friends houses in my neighborhood and everywhere in between. I live in a fairly large neighborhood now and we only know one other boy in the neighborhood who is my son's age. It's unfortunate for him.

At the same time, my daughter has several friends in the neighborhood her age and they play together all the time either at our house or the house of another parent who works from home.

That said, when I was really little I watched a video of my 4 year old birthday party so many times I memorized it. My mom called it "the best babysitter." Even today I can play that video in my head.

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#26
post #2

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc, are super focused on adding new users and creating an addiction on a massive scale never seen before. Of course it's bad for kids. Social media, smartphones, and tablets, are the new smoking.

Wikipedia and YouTube can be huge timesinks as well, but hardly see much commentary as regards to FB and Instagram.

Reddit and hackernews too.

Frankly when I was a kid there were oldschool forums I'd frequent all the time.

I think this isn't a "kid" problem. I see just as many adults glued to their screens.

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#27
The organization I work for, Common Sense Media, has done a good bit of research on screen time, addiction, and it's effect on families.

Here is the report on Technology Addiction: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/technology-addicti...

Here is our other research reports covering a wide range of media/technology topics effecting children, families and teachers: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research?page=1

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#28

> There is a looming issue Ms. Stecher sees in the future: Her husband, who is 39, loves video games and thinks they can be educational and entertaining. She does not. I'm still peeved so many people hate video games categorically. Age of Empires & Civilization got me into history as a kid and I checked out dozens of books as a result. Plus, the reason I ended up wanting to learn more about computers was to make game…

RTS games in particular were extremely fun for me, and I don't see how playing hours of Starcraft and C&C wasn't an exercise in strategic thinking. I share Ms. Stecher's skepticism, though. Games today are fundamentally different from what they were when we were growing up (I'm guessing we're around the same age if you were big into AoE). Some of my friends have kids now, and the games I see them playing make me crin…

This is the reality. I lost days playing Red Alert. Video games used to be fun. The used to be challenging. Even Super Mario Bros 3 was a challenging game that provided a sense of accomplishment.

Today gaming is much broader. Video games have merged with the larger gaming world (gambling). Most iOS games aren’t fun. They aren’t challenging. The are games of random chance at best. Like video poker or a Vegas slot machine you just press a button and hear a “winning” sound, even if you didn’t win.

It’s the weirdest thing when you watch somone playing a game like this and ask them, “Is it fun,” and their answer is, “Not really.”

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#29
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RTS games in particular were extremely fun for me, and I don't see how playing hours of Starcraft and C&C wasn't an exercise in strategic thinking. I share Ms. Stecher's skepticism, though. Games today are fundamentally different from what they were when we were growing up (I'm guessing we're around the same age if you were big into AoE). Some of my friends have kids now, and the games I see them playing make me crin…

Games evolved from products that are sold once to a service that continuously extracts value from the customer. It's only natural that they try to be as addictive as possible when additional playing time means additional revenue.

Yeah, I know. I get that. I suppose I just think it's sad.

Maybe Nintendo will save us.

Re: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley

#30
I think it's less about the screen time, and more about what's on the screen.

Echoing some of the existing comments: Games and sites today are vastly different than they were 20 years ago.

Games like Civilization, Quake, Diablo, C&C, Mortal Kombat, Tony Hawk etc... were definitely addictive.

But modern games like Fortnite and Clash of Clans are not engineered the same way. They are specifically designed to function like a slot machine.

I was an avid "gamer" growing up. I wasn't always the most responsible with it. Probably overdid it a lot. But I can see with my own child, this is a different ball-game altogether.

Not sure what the fix is either, other than ruthless enforcement of quotas.

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