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My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

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Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#281

Post by JoeAltmaier »

disown wrote: post #277
lqet wrote: post #239

> I realize with horror that she’s spent nine hours on the phone that day. She was only awake at 11. > My daughter doesn’t make collages or jewelry or sew anymore. A child who used to read in the bath won’t pick up a book unless threatened with the loss of her phone. > Getting her to make a card for a family member — something she once did for fun — is like getting her to clean her room > Yet still, each day is a bat…

Did no one besides you read the article? FTA: "My husband and I said she could have a phone when she turned 14..." People are arguing about everything from extended school hours, excessive homework to climate change in this thread. Could it be that the daughter was raised in a highly sheltered environment and once she hit puberty, she had other interests besides collages, jewelry and sewing? I wrote this in another c…

That might be true, if electronic gadgets were the same as previous obsessions. But they're different. They change from second to second, providing a level of stimulation unprecedented in human experience.

It's possible we're not going to adapt well to this e-world. There's no reason to think an evolved ape has the wiring to make the transition without trauma.

Imagine if the iPhone were heroin. Would we be so casual in dismissing it?

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#282

Post by ianmobbs »

kemayo wrote: post #53

> Somewhere along the way, I realize that apps like TikTok and Instagram are impervious to Apple’s Screen Time limit. They work even when the rest of her phone shuts down. To keep the peace, I let it slide. The author is completely wrong about this, so I can only assume that their kid is indeed being creative and has manipulated them into believing it. Overall... this does seem like an "onset of adolescence" thing. 2…

I actually noticed this the other day. I set a 10 minute time limit on Instagram, and while I'll get the "5 minutes left" reminder, it won't kick me out of the app the way it does for other apps. Running iOS 14.2.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#283

Post by indymike »

Father of five kids (2 adults, 2 teens, 1 almost teen) here. The iphone isn't the problem. It's the scapegoat. The real problem is what other people have said: too much time on school and she's a teenager. How much time is she really getting to do things she WANTS to do. With my kids, they seem to turn to the phone when they are lonely, sad, anxious or angry. It's a painkiller, not the pain.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#285

Post by nvarsj »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #121
zubspace wrote: post #77

I believe this is a huge problem in our society. And I recommmend everyone who downplays it to watch "The social dilemma". There are a few aspects which are worrying: - Social pressure to be connected constantly increases for children below 14 years. - Sites like TikTok, Reddit, Twitter, etc. are designed to be addictive. Children at such a young age do not have the same level of self control like you. - The longer k…

The Social Dilemma struck me as a pretty manipulative movie. It depicted recommendation algorithms as three evil scheming clones, interspersed with a skit showing a family with the worst case of social media addiction the writers could imagine. This provides huge latitude to exaggerate and mislead. I don't think many people would explicitly endorse the claim that social media addiction is so bad, preteens can't last…

I agree it’s an incredibly biased dramatisation. But I admit I could not watch it all.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#286

Post by disown »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #281
disown wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did no one besides you read the article? FTA: "My husband and I said she could have a phone when she turned 14..." People are arguing about everything from extended school hours, excessive homework to climate change in this thread. Could it be that the daughter was raised in a highly sheltered environment and once she hit puberty, she had other interests besides collages, jewelry and sewing? I wrote this in another c…

That might be true, if electronic gadgets were the same as previous obsessions. But they're different. They change from second to second, providing a level of stimulation unprecedented in human experience. It's possible we're not going to adapt well to this e-world. There's no reason to think an evolved ape has the wiring to make the transition without trauma. Imagine if the iPhone were heroin. Would we be so casual…

> Imagine if the iPhone were heroin.

Ah yes. This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. I remember when the tv ( aka idiot box ) was attacked for being addictive.

> Would we be so casual in dismissing it?

Who is casually dismissing it? There is an entire propaganda campaign against social media. From congress to news to netflix and on, ironically enough, social media itself. Every day we hear about how bad social media is.

But what I was responding to was the article itself. The complaints in the article would exist with or without iphones, apps, social media. Staying up all night talking to friends, waking up at 11 AM, losing interest in childhood stuff, pushing back against the parents, etc are all teenage behavior, not iphone behavior.

I'm not a fan of smartphones as they are and I despise social media. But that's not what the article was really about. I was just trying to stay on topic.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#287

Post by muyuu »

This also happened with teens in the last couple of generations. Exhausting school/activity schedules and availability of passive or semi-passive outlets (TV, meet-ups with friends, playing with the computer/console, etc). Some worse than others.

You can't expect too much from kids creatively when they're subjected to such lifestyle. Some kids will either manage to be on top of things enough to have some extra energy in them, but not all.

I'm not dismissing the fact that smartphones and social media are extremely addictive, of course. That's a major problem. But the symptoms you are describing go beyond that.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#288

Post by viraptor »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #121
zubspace wrote: post #77

I believe this is a huge problem in our society. And I recommmend everyone who downplays it to watch "The social dilemma". There are a few aspects which are worrying: - Social pressure to be connected constantly increases for children below 14 years. - Sites like TikTok, Reddit, Twitter, etc. are designed to be addictive. Children at such a young age do not have the same level of self control like you. - The longer k…

The Social Dilemma struck me as a pretty manipulative movie. It depicted recommendation algorithms as three evil scheming clones, interspersed with a skit showing a family with the worst case of social media addiction the writers could imagine. This provides huge latitude to exaggerate and mislead. I don't think many people would explicitly endorse the claim that social media addiction is so bad, preteens can't last…

> It depicted recommendation algorithms as three evil scheming clones

I thought it was a good non-technical presentation of what the recommendations / notifications work like. These were basically the pillars of engagement, ad revenue and... can't remember the third. We know it's a metaphor - what would you show otherwise - the code for rearranging timeline and best ad selection?

> showing a family with the worst case of social media addiction the writers could imagine

It's Requiem for the dream, the tech edition. Sure it's an extreme, but also it's not an unrealistic extreme. They picked elements we see - replacing in-person interacting with gamified social networks, rise/normalisation of extremist communities, literal addiction to continuing use.

> preteens can't last half an hour before smashing open locked boxes to get a hit

My first lockpick exercise was the keyboard lock on a PC to work around parent's time control, so... sure.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#289

Post by dragonwriter »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #281
disown wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did no one besides you read the article? FTA: "My husband and I said she could have a phone when she turned 14..." People are arguing about everything from extended school hours, excessive homework to climate change in this thread. Could it be that the daughter was raised in a highly sheltered environment and once she hit puberty, she had other interests besides collages, jewelry and sewing? I wrote this in another c…

That might be true, if electronic gadgets were the same as previous obsessions. But they're different. They change from second to second, providing a level of stimulation unprecedented in human experience. It's possible we're not going to adapt well to this e-world. There's no reason to think an evolved ape has the wiring to make the transition without trauma. Imagine if the iPhone were heroin. Would we be so casual…

> Imagine if the iPhone were heroin

Yeah, but its rather obviously not heroin.

"Imagine if X were Y" isn't really an argument to support "We should act as if X were Y, or at least similar". What needs to be presented is a reason to believe that X is, in fact, like Y.

Re: My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

#290

Post by 35fbe7d3d5b9 »

johnfn wrote: post #275

I started reading this article really really wanting to agree, but ended up thinking that a large part of the problem here is that the parent is not making enough effort to understand her child. The parent says "my daughter was a creative genius, and then..." as if to imply that she isn't any more. But it sure sounds like she has creative pursuits to me: * "She wants Roblox. All the kids have it, and it seems harmles…

> It's such a shame to me that the article ends with a note about how the parent will try to convince themselves that creating tiktok videos is creative. What?!? Creating videos isn't creative?? Of course it is! You should be encouraging and reveling in this sort of behavior!

My seven year old runs around with my old iPhone 5. We've locked it down to essentially be nothing more than a camera, but she'll still make videos for her whole screen time allotment for the day. I used to wonder if this was a "good" use of her time.

Then she discovered iMovie and now edits videos, adds transitions and music, makes her little sister an actor in movies... and I remembered when my parents worried about me spending hours in QBasic making little sine-wave art with music playing in the background.

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