Playing outdoors, spending time with friends, reading books and hanging out with family is happening a lot less to make room for hours of snap chatting, instagramming, and catching up on You Tube. I'm pretty sure cause and effect run the other way. The world has changed in a lot of ways and the internet gives people a constructive outlet to fill the void. Average number of children per household has dropped steadily…
The Wait Until 8th pledge
211–220 of 254 posts
Re: The Wait Until 8th pledge
#212Playing outdoors, spending time with friends, reading books and hanging out with family is happening a lot less to make room for hours of snap chatting, instagramming, and catching up on You Tube. I'm pretty sure cause and effect run the other way. The world has changed in a lot of ways and the internet gives people a constructive outlet to fill the void. Average number of children per household has dropped steadily…
It's not more dangerous to play outside (actually it's safer), it just seems that way because of media sensationalism.
Not to be argumentative, but what you're saying doesn't fit my firsthand experience as someone who wandered the neighborhood pretty freely as a child and whose own kids didn't. My kids lives occurred in a different context from mine and I never criticized them, just sought to understand the forces at play driving a different set of choices and outcomes.
Re: The Wait Until 8th pledge
#213This is the easy way out of the problem, but I am afraid, not the correct one. My kid has had his own tablet since 6, his own PC since 8, and his own cellular since 9. So far he hasn't turned into a domestic terrorist, and neither is he selling heroin for crypto on the dark web. Also, he has specific times when he can use his devices аnd limits on how much time. All modern OSes have some sort of parental controls bui…
In fact, 14, sort of the peak of puberty, strikes me as one of the WORST possible ages to first expose one's children to the Internet. Either let them practice earlier at the shallow end of the Internet pool, or lock them up until they are at Rumspringa age.
"14" also sounds suspiciously like something cooked up in an Anthroposophic thought bubble. Rudolf Steiner was a big believer in 7 year developmental cycles, so "14" is self evidently the correct age to make a deal with Ahriman, if one must. The team running the pledge does not mention any connection to Anthroposophy, but Waldorf schools seem to be endorsing the pledge.
Re: The Wait Until 8th pledge
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's disingenuous to pretend watching some documentary on planets is the same as scrolling on tiktok. It’s disingenuous to pretend kids are only watching documentaries on planets. Especially when YouTube recommends “boobfest2023” ad a follow up. I removed YouTube from everything but the main tv because everyone my kids were watching something “normal” it went into crazy town of violence, conspiracies, and just gian…
I think YT is on the crystal meth side actually. Strangely perhaps I find Netflix more appropriate for my kids. I just let them watch a specific episode and there are no ads and the content is adequate. There is at least some moderation. Edit: I think you are on to something with “ads”. Hate them with a passion. Those especially I regard as pure heroin being intravenously injected.
Re: The Wait Until 8th pledge
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you meant abuse, you certainly could have been a lot more clearer than your original text that GP cited: > One day, your kids are going to tell you that you are wrong. Totally wrong. Wrong about morality and ethics. Wrong wrong. And you are going to have to believe them, or you will lose access to a part of their life forever.
> If you meant abuse, you certainly could have been a lot more clearer... debok are telling me they can have a relationship with someone who is immoral and unethical in their opinion. Are you saying you think abuse isn't immoral or unethical?
P -> Q != Q -> PRe: The Wait Until 8th pledge
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this a real question? Do you have difficulty understanding metaphors?
I don't. Which is why I asked. If you mean something else, perhaps you could be so kind as to say it.
Re: The Wait Until 8th pledge
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
If everyone has ADHD, is it really a disorder anymore? I say this because I have ADHD. Diagnosed very late, because it never bothered me… I just used it to my advantage all my life and I never understood how people can spend years in the same place with the same job. That, to me, sounds like the real sickness. I learned more about it since and of course there’s a spectrum to it, but still. ADHD is no doubt the #1 fac…
Are we talking about the same disorder? The inability to concentrate on thing that don't immediately pique my interest has costed me quite a lot. Had I gotten diagnosed and medicated earlier, I feel like I could have finished my Bachelor's, or keep my last job, or get a driver's license. I was shocked to find out that the concentration capabilities I have while high on Adderall are considered just normal for most peo…
This curiosity for technology and programming continued for about 10 more years. I was absorbing everything I could find from patterns and practices to other programming languages. I learned about linux by following the Gentoo guide. All of this was easy and natural for me because my brain wanted to dig into these topics. At least until it didn't anymore. At some point learning a new programming language wasn't "new". It was just patterns I'd seen before in other languages, so exploring those things became far less interesting and all but stopped. I got to the point where I could see the solution to a software problem before writing code, so the act of writing the code became extremely tedious for me to the point where I literally couldn't do it. I lost jobs over this until I was able to shift more to architecture work.
The same pattern followed there, where I was able to quickly absorb tons of content around systems designs and larger concerns for large software projects. I threw myself into it for more years because it was easy and my brain liked this content. Until it didn't. Things that were so easy for me because a huge personal effort to complete because it wasn't in that "zone" of things my brain wanted to engage with. It wasn't new and shiny. It was boring and tedious. It's a job I'm great at, that I cannot perform adequately because it's not interesting to me anymore.
So throughout my life ADHD has helped me enormously by enabling me to pick up skills that my peers didn't have because I was almost "addicted" to learning these things. But it's also a huge limit because I always have to be working on new things or things which are on fire. I love critical issues because the immediacy of the problem helps engage my brain on delivering solutions. I absolutely cannot work on "boring" projects which are well maintained and delivering effectively. In that regard, ADHD is a huge anchor holding me back. Sometimes I feel like I have super powers, but I think it's more similar to being an "idiot savant" where I'm very good at the things my brain agrees I should be doing and very bad at things I cannot focus on and I cannot control where that focus goes.
If you're lucky that your focus tends towards things which are worth money in the job market, I can see how it could be a huge help early in your career when you're still soaking in information like a sponge. I can't imagine what my life would look like if my ADHD took me down the path of anime or something like that instead. None of this touches on the social issues which arise from my ADHD. I also got very lucky to have a wife who understands and helps compensate but it still adds a lot of friction.
Re: The Wait Until 8th pledge
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah and Facebook will turn them into mindless validation seekers, video games will turn them into serial killers, and TV will turn their brains into mush - all things our parents told us which were also completely paranoid and untrue.
You're obviously not very current on this issue, and you don't have a personal stake in it, either.
Re: The Wait Until 8th pledge
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you meant abuse, you certainly could have been a lot more clearer than your original text that GP cited: > One day, your kids are going to tell you that you are wrong. Totally wrong. Wrong about morality and ethics. Wrong wrong. And you are going to have to believe them, or you will lose access to a part of their life forever.
> If you meant abuse, you certainly could have been a lot more clearer... debok are telling me they can have a relationship with someone who is immoral and unethical in their opinion. Are you saying you think abuse isn't immoral or unethical?
> Are you saying you think abuse isn't immoral or unethical?
Do you think that everything that isn't moral or unethical is abuse?
A moments thought should reveal that it is possible to have a relationship with someone who is immoral and unethical while not having a relationship with anyone who is an abuser.
Re: The Wait Until 8th pledge
#220This is the easy way out of the problem, but I am afraid, not the correct one. My kid has had his own tablet since 6, his own PC since 8, and his own cellular since 9. So far he hasn't turned into a domestic terrorist, and neither is he selling heroin for crypto on the dark web. Also, he has specific times when he can use his devices аnd limits on how much time. All modern OSes have some sort of parental controls bui…
This is wishful thinking. You can be truly the best parent in the world with unlimited time, wisdom and attention span but in the end you are competing with corporations who are dedicating billions of dollars and thousands of people to make very sure their apps as maximizing addiction. You can't compete with that.
Sure you can limit screen time but that doesn't do much. It's like saying the old days that I only let a child smoke from 10am to noon, so it's ok they won't get addicted.