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

nytimes.com

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

#241

Post by subpixel »

I have a 3 month old. The way the television across the room melts her mind is something to behold. We try to avoid that from happening as much as we can.

I have no delusions about it being easy, but we're going to try very, very hard to bar interactive screens as long as we can, and keep them to a bare minimum when we can no longer bar them.

As I've mentioned in other threads, watching people watch their phones on public transport, like rats in a dopamine experiment, troubles me, a lot.

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

#242

Post by coleifer »

clarkmoody wrote: post #124
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #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 kn…

I disagree with your last point. Technology will always be "just a tool." By its nature, it is morally neutral. The use of technology for good or for evil reflects the morality of the people deploying it. Explosives, baseball bats, water, radios, software. All have been used for noble purposes and for evil. That does not impart morality to the technology.

I hear you, its like saying alcohol is just a chemical. Which is true of course. But I think it's naive and idealistic. Taken to an extreme, you could say people are just chemicals and electrical impulses, right? But that's crazy.

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

#243

Post by bluntfang »

themagician wrote: post #46
fhood wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Challenge is not the issue. Dark Souls is bloody difficult, but that doesn't mean that I feel like I've been using my brain after playing it. Video games are awesome, but they provide too much stimulation and instant gratification for little kids. I don't think TV is much better, but video games are way more entertaining than TV.

Dude, playing Dark Souls requires more brain power than the vast majority of most peoples’ jobs. If my kid was good at Dark Souls I’d be impressed. Hell, if I was good at Dark Souls I’d be impressed with myself.

dark souls is basic pattern recognition and hand eye coordination at best.

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

#244

Post by baybal2 »

nulldata wrote: post #236
baybal2 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A repost from half year ago: I lived in Russia during the time when slot machines were literally standing in the open on the streets, and yes, mentally infirm people were wasting themselves on them. Normal people did not. It requires one to completely lack logic reasoning to not to understand that the the purpose of a slot machine is to waste his or her time and money. The same way, it requires a particular lack of b…

The problem is that it's not the "clickfarming" apps that are the real danger for the majority of people, I'd argue it's the endless algorithmically tailored content and social media streams most of us consume. The ones that fill our every - otherwise - idle moment with something to distract us with.

Isn't it the same thing in nature? That is also a part of the same click/impression economy.

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

#245

Post by chrisweekly »

51lver wrote: post #226
mindslight wrote: post #205

Calling it "screen time" is missing the elephant in the room. The largest part of the problem is that the software we're directly interacting with has been designed by companies with interests directly contrary to ours! Social interaction will inherently set off more chemical rewards, but it is the tuning of the feedback loop (optimizing for micro-interactions) that keeps us glued. Emacs/mutt/libreoffice/python/kodi…

Maybe someday FOSS "veganism" will catch on.

Here's hoping. See Tristan Harris, "Time Well Spent", Center for Humane Technogy:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Well_Spent

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

#246

Post by baybal2 »

trvz wrote: post #239
baybal2 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A repost from half year ago: I lived in Russia during the time when slot machines were literally standing in the open on the streets, and yes, mentally infirm people were wasting themselves on them. Normal people did not. It requires one to completely lack logic reasoning to not to understand that the the purpose of a slot machine is to waste his or her time and money. The same way, it requires a particular lack of b…

In your own words: lack of logical reasoning?

People going to casino with a genuine belief that they will win.

Casino — a business specifically mathematically engineered to make sure that nobody wins against a casino, to maximize your losses, and to make money from it. By the very definition, nobody "wins" against it. Yet, some people still come and play.

Same thing with google pocket slot machine — the very reason they link the game to your bank account is to milk money from you, or god forbid, your children.

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

#247

Post by andrewla »

whycombinater wrote: post #224
andrewla wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I've played some games. I am 137% confident that some form of "level up" ... is an extremely strong addiction factor. Try playing more unsuccessful games. You'll find that most boring, unaddictive, terrible games that you'll never play more than once have the same leveling up mechanic.

Well sure, we can say there's a prerequisite amount of fun to be had in the first place. Addiction is for pleasure not pain, at least for the average person. Something must not be so off-putting that you don't have a chance to get addicted. For example, a cigarette that caught your mouth on fire would probably not be smoked again. The fact that some (or even most, may be your point) games set your mouth on fire does…

So we're going to no-true-scotsman our way out of this?

Nothing is binary; I'm not going to say "either leveling helps a game all the time or it doesn't". Sometimes leveling-up mechanics help a game, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it alienates one set of users and attracts another, and there's no magic formula for when it helps and when it doesn't, and the nature of the leveling-up mechanic itself and how fun that is can vary in effectiveness dramatically. It's like having the user's avatar wear a funny hat.

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

#248

Post by jimejim »

jvvw wrote: post #132
jimejim wrote: post #57

This has always been a form of Luddism. Tech is inevitable. I view tech similarly to how I view sex-ed in 2018: it's been proven that if you do abstinence only education then bad things happen (teen pregnancies, stds, etc...). Your kids are going to grow up to be adults with bad tech habits if you don't start teaching them how to use it responsibly and protect themselves early. Help them find good content. Have days…

We try and do all this - the hard thing I find is what limits to put in place and how when they do find stuff that feels less worthwhile or on the addictive side, which they obviously do. It's actually harder than it sounds I have found to set time limits - particularly with siblings as they play together, look over eachother's shoulders etc. and if your daily schedule isn't completely regular due to other activities…

I use a food analogy when talking about tech consumption with my kids, so I'm fine with occasional junk food so long as they're keeping a well rounded diet and getting exercise. It takes some work to get there, but so far, so good.

We have a pretty standard schedule:

- Tech off at 6pm every night and during dinners

- After school till 6 is basically free for all time if they don't have other obligations, which I count as decompression from the day. They hang out with neighbors too.

- Weekends we allow tech, but only if it's educational programming or they're creating something (arts, crafts, stop motion, game programming), so it's a bit more strict.

YMMV, of course.

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

#249

Post by DelightOne »

VectorLock wrote: post #230
mindslight wrote: post #205

Calling it "screen time" is missing the elephant in the room. The largest part of the problem is that the software we're directly interacting with has been designed by companies with interests directly contrary to ours! Social interaction will inherently set off more chemical rewards, but it is the tuning of the feedback loop (optimizing for micro-interactions) that keeps us glued. Emacs/mutt/libreoffice/python/kodi…

This is the conclusion that a lot of people on HN seem to be reaching. Now how do we go about filtering out the 'bad screen' while allowing the 'good screen?'

This is EXACTLY what Apple’s “Screen Time” is built for.

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

#250

Post by ggggtez »

There is an interesting tinge to this attack on screens, different seemingly than attacks on TV in the past, which is eliciting opinions from random people with 6 and 7 figure salaries about how to raise children.

Let's be real: writing a backend data pipeline doesn't teach you anything about how to raise a child. We all laugh when they talk about kale, or activating their almonds, but we're supposed to think random CEOs, VPs, and engineers became experts in developmental psychology simply by being in proximity to silicon valley.

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