321–330 of 467 posts
How is this “iPhone” fault? “Smartphone” isn’t good for SEO anymore?
The share of iPhone for today's teenagers is much higher than the regular population. Much of it from the natural progression from old iPod Touches, where they built their accounts, apps etc. Looks like 85% share in the US: http://www.pipersandler.com/2col.aspx?id=287&releaseid=18206
I have 3 daughters from my first marriage (ranging from 26 y/o to 2). When they were growing up I was a single father, and their phones went from brick-like nokias to Androids in the time it takes you to snap your fingers.
At the time I didn't give it much thought, and when I realized what was going on the harm was done. I really wish I'd knew better; I should had.
My youngest daughter is 7 now, from my 2nd marriage. And phones in particular and technology in general is something I give a lot of thought, and have discussed at length with my partner (Thankfully, we're on the same wavelength here).
She is also really creative; she was learning violin before lockdown, and while in lockdown besides her violin classes, she took singing and piano lessons (Obviously, at the level a 7 y/o can take then over Zoom / Meet).
We only let her watch around 1 hour of TV per day. Being strict here is a constant struggle, but we keep it more around that amount of time.
She also plays with the computer (Or phone, or tablet) "only" 1 hour a day, with the tablet or phone restricted to only weekends, and a particular game - Star Wars Battlefront - only 2 days a week.
Besides that, something that we haven't been able to manage - namely because it can go from 15 minutes a day to several hours - is phone usage for video calls. But I have to admit that I struggle here because I don't have a decided opinion regarding what to do here. She does sometimes hour + video calls with her grandmother on the mother side; they are very close, and due to COVID she haven't seen her since February - she lives 1500 Km away, with travel almost impossible in this country (Argentina) - when usually she would travel frequently, say every two months. Same happens with her friends that she hardly sees nowadays. and I gotta reckon that the video calls are usually on the creative side, for instance with a friend that lives in the same town as my MIL they would play using local toys similar to legos.
Both my wife and I dread the time when we'll eventually have to give her a phone,because just like TV and tablets and computers, it's going to be a constant struggle, made worst by the "but my friends do it / have it" line of reasoning.
As we do want to be prepared for this, what we decided is that, would the moment arrive, we are not going to give her "her phone". We are going to lend her a phone, that is not going to be hers, and she will be allowed to use under certain circumstances. And we would have the right to inspect that phone whenever we fell like it.
The reasoning here is that from our point of view, having a phone is not very different from having a car. If you would not give a 10 y/o a car, why would you give her a phone in an uncontrolled way?
Wish us luck.
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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…
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I think the step from books->TV was much more dramatic that TV->SocialMedia. the delta of stimulation is much greater in the former, imho. In any case, 1hr of iPhone/day is way too strict for a teenager nowadays. I was lucky to be the 3rd child, and my parents didn’t really paid attention to how I was spending my time. I overdosed on a bunch of things as a kid: TV, videogames, my computer, the internet when I got it…
>On the other hand, people my age that were only allowed one hour of Nintendo per day as kids, are still craving the next PlayStation like grown up junkies. Last time I played a videogame I was maybe.. 22. This is awfully close to gatekeeping. All hobbies are fine in moderation. One is not inherently 'better' than any other.
Buried lede: > My daughter doesn’t return home from school until 6:30 pm and still has to eat, bathe, and get ready for bed. Perhaps it is not just the iPhone, but school taking up 100% of her time, energy, and attention that is preventing her from pursuing creative interests? As a homeschooling parent whose kids have been in school at times, I see this first hand. School is exhausting . Between rising unnaturally ea…
I see some light in this new situation though. My kid has had to remote into his classroom during the March lockdown, and again recently. It seems to work just fine. The teacher can still check on his progress, but when he's at home there's no commute and he can spend his free time as he likes. Meals can also be taken in front of the screen. Slow at eating lunch? Keep eating. At the same time, he has an actual school…
So, I guess that is the price of being in a top tier highschool taking AP classes. When I was in a similar situation I probably only spent on average an hour a day on homework.
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Now is really not like back then. I was like you, spending inordinate amounts of time with computers during my teenage years. But back then, I was learning useful skills from it. The computer I owned had almost no games for it. All you could do was program it in either basic or assembly. Move forward 15 years, my kid who owned a PC from around age 10 was never interested in using it as anything but an entertainment p…
This resonates with me because when I was a kid I really enjoyed video games and I would program them into my cheap, rudimentary computer. I even sold some games I made on cassette tapes. My parents were really distressed that I was wasting my time. But-- surprise-- I had/ have a long and successful career making video games. Now I am a parent and I tend to let my kids play a lot of game on their computer. But it is…
I agree with you, this is something that I seem to believe deeply. But why is it important? Do they ask you that? What do you/would you tell them?
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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.
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Honestly, so much of this sounded familiar to me ... but from my own teenage years. My parents were appalled at the amount of time I was spending at a MS-DOS PC (not only playing games but also learning programming). So I'd say that no, it's not that phones are like crack. There seems to be a disconnect on the parent's expectations when children discover the possibilities of a technology that's unfamiliar to them. In…
Now is really not like back then. I was like you, spending inordinate amounts of time with computers during my teenage years. But back then, I was learning useful skills from it. The computer I owned had almost no games for it. All you could do was program it in either basic or assembly. Move forward 15 years, my kid who owned a PC from around age 10 was never interested in using it as anything but an entertainment p…
A lot of the comments here seem to be saying that (1) kids getting addicted to phones is no different than getting addicted to TV, books, etc, and that this is just the latest iteration of a complaint parents have had for generations and (2) this person is a bad parent. I used to agree with (1), but lately I'm inclined to think that this time, it really is different. Very different. And the primary reason is that unl…
Books and other forms of media have been optimised to be addictive to read/watch for decades. It might not happen at the same scale, but the increase in scale also means that the mediums get less personal. I think that balances things out in some ways.
It really does not seem different to me.
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> 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 vi…
Hi - how did you lock down your kids iPhone? Am more of an android man but will be getting a refurbed iPhone 7 for my daughter (apparently they are "better" than Samsung)