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When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

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Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#21

Post by TeMPOraL »

azangru wrote: post #18

I cannot imagine how it can be a good idea to reject the internet. Avoid social media all you want, but choosing not to have a search engine, dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps and so on at your fingertips is just bonkers. Also, smartphone is great at being a digital watch with alarm clock, a audiobook reader, a radio set, etc. You can rebel against the mindless social media generation to your heart's content and stil…

Or, you can buy a standalone alarm clock, a dead-tree book, a standalone radio receiver, etc. for a fraction of the price. Now, I love my smartphone for all the non-social features. But I kind of see how the new generation can see these things as a gateway drug to being sucked into social media and having their minds and hearts ruthlessly exploited for profit. On top of that, it's teenagers we're talking about; teenage rebellion isn't usually a paragon of restraint or rationality :).

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#22

Post by teekert »

endymi0n wrote: post #15

For my parents, having their own car was freedom, as their parents didn‘t have them when they were young. For me, the internet is the world I discovered for myself, first in the age of BBSes and an early WWW before any of FAANG were even born. For kids, how better to make a difference than having none of the consumer devices that everyone including their parents carries around. Kids need to make a difference, as we a…

Seems like most kids today (10-20?) are not making that difference, instead the are "hooked" (I'm saying hooked like a real cynical old parent) into social apps like we never were, "manipulated" on unprecedented scale. If your theory holds, their children might turn against that.

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#23

Post by TeMPOraL »

endymi0n wrote: post #7
hdfbdtbcdg wrote: post #3

This mother seems very disrespectful of her son... Her children are not her chattel to do with as she sees fit they are human beings with thoughts and feelings of their own that need to be respected.

If you read closer, you‘ll notice a lot of stylistic (self-)irony and exaggeration between the lines. The last paragraphs clearly give away that she‘s very much respecting their kids.

Yup. I cringed for most of the article, but the ending does significantly change how it all sounds.

...to the point it makes me doubt how much truth there is to the story. It very much reads like a classical hero's journey - which "involves a hero [the mother] who goes on an adventure [tech-full parenting], and in a decisive crisis [lost her phone charger while finding herself in the middle of nowhere] wins a victory [has a deep moment of connection with her tech-rejecting son], and then comes home changed or transformed [see the last paragraph]."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey

(I still liked the story, though.)

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#24

Post by iddan »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #23
endymi0n wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read closer, you‘ll notice a lot of stylistic (self-)irony and exaggeration between the lines. The last paragraphs clearly give away that she‘s very much respecting their kids.

Yup. I cringed for most of the article, but the ending does significantly change how it all sounds. ...to the point it makes me doubt how much truth there is to the story. It very much reads like a classical hero's journey - which "involves a hero [the mother] who goes on an adventure [tech-full parenting], and in a decisive crisis [lost her phone charger while finding herself in the middle of nowhere] wins a victory…

You can frame every story like that

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#25

Post by nostrademons »

teekert wrote: post #22
endymi0n wrote: post #15

For my parents, having their own car was freedom, as their parents didn‘t have them when they were young. For me, the internet is the world I discovered for myself, first in the age of BBSes and an early WWW before any of FAANG were even born. For kids, how better to make a difference than having none of the consumer devices that everyone including their parents carries around. Kids need to make a difference, as we a…

Seems like most kids today (10-20?) are not making that difference, instead the are "hooked" (I'm saying hooked like a real cynical old parent) into social apps like we never were, "manipulated" on unprecedented scale. If your theory holds, their children might turn against that.

I think this goes down to generation that were in high school when Snapchat came out (14 in 2013, so today's 20-year-olds). The generation currently in high school is much more moderate and circumspect about their technology use. Among my friends' middle-schoolers, they tend to use technology much more as a tool (learning to program is apparently now standard practice in late elementary school) and less as a way of life, and they value their privacy much more highly.

Possibly not coincidentally, that's the generation boundary: the divide between Millenials and Homelanders is usually placed between 1998 and 2001, based on whether you're old enough to have living memories of the time before 9/11. The first children born after 9/11 are entering college this month. It makes sense that the generation that grew up in the pervasive culture of fear since then would look at technology not through the lens of "How can this connect me to the rest of generally-benevolent humanity?" but through the lens of "How can this be used against me?"

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#26

Post by scotty79 »

sneeze-slayer wrote: post #2

Very interesting article. Anecdotally, I know several of my friends who have downgraded their phones from various smartphones to a simple flip phone or even no phone at all. One of them introduced me to the Light Phone ( https://www.thelightphone.com/ ) which seems like it is in a similar vein, even if it costs more than a 10 year old flip phone. I wonder if this trend away from the "always-on" status quo will contin…

For me, the ability to voice call people is the least useful main feature of my phone. If I were to downgrade it would be to the phone that noone can call me on.

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#27

Post by lonelappde »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #21
azangru wrote: post #18

I cannot imagine how it can be a good idea to reject the internet. Avoid social media all you want, but choosing not to have a search engine, dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps and so on at your fingertips is just bonkers. Also, smartphone is great at being a digital watch with alarm clock, a audiobook reader, a radio set, etc. You can rebel against the mindless social media generation to your heart's content and stil…

Or, you can buy a standalone alarm clock, a dead-tree book, a standalone radio receiver, etc. for a fraction of the price. Now, I love my smartphone for all the non-social features. But I kind of see how the new generation can see these things as a gateway drug to being sucked into social media and having their minds and hearts ruthlessly exploited for profit. On top of that, it's teenagers we're talking about; teena…

How much do you think a phone costs?

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#28

Post by ordu »

outime wrote: post #6

This looks like a smart kid from the description given. It's possible that he spent a good time reading recent literature about the drawbacks and decided not to join the masses. Or he just thought twice before following everyone. Either way it's always refreshing to find very young people doing different stuff by themselves as it's specially tough not to follow the trends during that age. I also noticed that there's…

> This looks like a smart kid from the description given. It's possible that he spent a good time reading recent literature about the drawbacks and decided not to join the masses. Or he just thought twice before following everyone.

Or it is a reaction to a parent obsession. I can imagine how a kid hates screens because parent spend more time with them then with the kid.

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#29

Post by concerned_user »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #13

There are $40 smart watches for kids that have a sim card and no location tracking. Perfect. They Dick Tracey when they want. We can let them play on the streets of Amsterdam and just call when it is time to come home.

If it has a sim card it has tracking via cell towers, not as accurate but still 10-50 meters accuracy, whether that tracking is available to you is different thing.

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#30

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

nostrademons wrote: post #25
teekert wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like most kids today (10-20?) are not making that difference, instead the are "hooked" (I'm saying hooked like a real cynical old parent) into social apps like we never were, "manipulated" on unprecedented scale. If your theory holds, their children might turn against that.

I think this goes down to generation that were in high school when Snapchat came out (14 in 2013, so today's 20-year-olds). The generation currently in high school is much more moderate and circumspect about their technology use. Among my friends' middle-schoolers, they tend to use technology much more as a tool (learning to program is apparently now standard practice in late elementary school) and less as a way of l…

> "How can this be used against me?"

And rightly so. Kids I observe learned well from our mistakes and they know better than giving away their real data, posting their photos etc. I was stunned to hear from a 10-year old "but this review is obviously fake, anyone can write what they want on the internet to trick you into buying something." I guess they're better prepared to deal with the digital world.

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