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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

#51

Post by esnible3 »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #13

This article doesn’t really explain what the dark consensus is beyond just “screens bad”. There are certainly some things on modern computers that are little more than Skinner boxes, but those things aren’t what the parents in the article are talking about. What makes Fortnite and Youtube videos worse than Nerf guns and library books?

Sugary foods, opium, these things all cost money. Most things on the Internet are free. Think of the addictive things as “gravity wells”. Everyone explores until they find something that addicts them.

Many library cards for It would be nice if there was a content filter that parents could install that wasn’t curated based on someones opinion but worked more like Waze — routing you around places where everyone was stuck.

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

#52

Post by Dirlewanger »

sjg007 wrote: post #16

These stories come out all the time in history. First books, then radio, then tv, then video games, now screens. Surely there are some translational or longitudal analyses to see what effect these “distractions” have on “success”.

That's very true. One has to be weary of going too neo-Luddite, but at the same time, I don't think books and TV (on a mass scale anyway) caused kids to have less sex and skyrocket their depression and suicide rates.

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

#53

Post by mangoman »

The headline is chilling, but the actual content of the article boils down to "Many people in Silicon Valley feel that too much screen time is bad for kids".

That being said, I found this anecdote to be particularly... unsettling.

> “I try to tell him somebody wrote code to make you feel this way — I’m trying to help him understand how things are made, the values that are going into things and what people are doing to create that feeling,” Mr. Lilly said. “And he’s like, ‘I just want to spend my 20 bucks to get my Fortnite skins.’”

It's tough to explain away the emotional desire for something that was manufactured to be cool and addictive

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

#54

Post by ben_w »

adrianN wrote: post #22
remarkEon wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RTS games in particular were extremely fun for me, and I don't see how playing hours of Starcraft and C&C wasn't an exercise in strategic thinking. I share Ms. Stecher's skepticism, though. Games today are fundamentally different from what they were when we were growing up (I'm guessing we're around the same age if you were big into AoE). Some of my friends have kids now, and the games I see them playing make me crin…

Games evolved from products that are sold once to a service that continuously extracts value from the customer. It's only natural that they try to be as addictive as possible when additional playing time means additional revenue.

They used to be that before they were sold as one-offs, too. Arcade machines demanding more quarters for extra lives is a meme I grew up with, and my childhood currency didn’t even have a coin called “a quarter”.

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

#55

Post by kartan »

Tehchops wrote: post #30

I think it's less about the screen time, and more about what's on the screen. Echoing some of the existing comments: Games and sites today are vastly different than they were 20 years ago. Games like Civilization, Quake, Diablo, C&C, Mortal Kombat, Tony Hawk etc... were definitely addictive. But modern games like Fortnite and Clash of Clans are not engineered the same way. They are specifically designed to function l…

> They are specifically designed to function like a slot machine.

I work in the gambling industry, making literally slot machines.

Slot machines are heavily regulated and there is a lot of "engagement" tricks that can not be used in the gambling industry. The kind of trick that Candy Crush will use.

The dangerous side of gambling is for people that think that they can "win money". But the games themselves are kind of boring by design. Regulations force us to make them boring. (And that is a good thing, I will not work on this industry otherwise).

The future of on-line games and mobile games is regulation. Micro-payments, push-notifications, etc. cannot be used without limits. People have right to their mental health more than companies have to higher profits.

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

#56

Post by danesparza »

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…

"A 6 year old's brain has no chance against a team of trained data scientists. We all know this."

Hell, I'd argue that many 40-50 year old brains clearly don't stand a chance against a trained data scientist.

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

#57

Post by jimejim »

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 where no tech is allowed on the weekends, but don't keep them away from it completely. Give them time to unwind with tech and choose stuff themselves, just as you probably do. Teach them about privacy and the problems that can come up with tech so they know how to deal with it themselves. Teach them that too much tech isn't good for you and you need to do other things too.

Monitor what they're watching and make sure you talk to them when things get out of hand. Expect to have some occasional issues, and treat them like you would an adult: are they sad? Is something going on at school? Is the tech affecting their ability to do other things at the time?

Eventually your kid is going to use tech. Teach them early how to be responsible with it.

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

#58

Post by malvosenior »

ryandrake wrote: post #24
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #13

This article doesn’t really explain what the dark consensus is beyond just “screens bad”. There are certainly some things on modern computers that are little more than Skinner boxes, but those things aren’t what the parents in the article are talking about. What makes Fortnite and Youtube videos worse than Nerf guns and library books?

That's what stood out for me while reading the article. Here are some people who say "screens are bad" and here are some other people who say "screens are not so bad". Then, a little bit about how screens are addictive and not good for kids. You could substitute "Dungeons and Dragons" for "screens" and we'd be reading an article straight out of the 80's.

It's funny because the subtitle is:

“I am convinced the devil lives in our phones.”

Over a huge ominous image. You are dead on about 80s D&D/satanism scare mongering.

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

#59

Post by tejohnso »

Tehchops wrote: post #30

I think it's less about the screen time, and more about what's on the screen. Echoing some of the existing comments: Games and sites today are vastly different than they were 20 years ago. Games like Civilization, Quake, Diablo, C&C, Mortal Kombat, Tony Hawk etc... were definitely addictive. But modern games like Fortnite and Clash of Clans are not engineered the same way. They are specifically designed to function l…

Can you explain how overdoing it with Quake and Diablo is not the same ball-game as overdoing it with Fortnite?

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

#60

Post by danesparza »

kartan wrote: post #55
Tehchops wrote: post #30

I think it's less about the screen time, and more about what's on the screen. Echoing some of the existing comments: Games and sites today are vastly different than they were 20 years ago. Games like Civilization, Quake, Diablo, C&C, Mortal Kombat, Tony Hawk etc... were definitely addictive. But modern games like Fortnite and Clash of Clans are not engineered the same way. They are specifically designed to function l…

> They are specifically designed to function like a slot machine. I work in the gambling industry, making literally slot machines. Slot machines are heavily regulated and there is a lot of "engagement" tricks that can not be used in the gambling industry. The kind of trick that Candy Crush will use. The dangerous side of gambling is for people that think that they can "win money". But the games themselves are kind of…

You've gotten me wondering: Why AREN'T certain games subject to the same regulations as slot machines?

Is that a state-by-state regulation? A federal regulation? And does the regulating code specifically mention physical machines?

Thanks in advance for satisfying my curiosity.

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