When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone • Hacker News Board

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#71

Post by EForEndeavour » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 12:32 PM UTC

reportgunner wrote: post #35

Kid says this about phones: 1. They’re infantilizing, a set of digital apron strings meant to attach you to your mother. (He was onto something there.) 2. They compromise a boy’s resourcefulness because kids come to rely on the GPS instead of learning Scout skills. 3. They make people trivial. That's one smart kid.

The boy didn't say any of these things. The author interpreted them from their son's actions, like using printed maps to get around, and verbally mocking the author with shouts of "texty! emoji!" when he sees her using her phone.

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#72

Post by mcphage » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 12:36 PM UTC

Swalden123 wrote: post #5

newnewpdro wrote: post #4

Smart kids.

It’s a shame the Mother can’t see this

> It’s a shame the Mother can’t see this

The only reason you know how smart her kid is, is because she wrote an entire article telling everyone how smart her kid is.

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#73

Post by vntx » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 12:37 PM UTC

mnm1 wrote: post #60

CalRobert wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

11 year olds can be brilliant, and tragically I suspect far more of them would if we didn't infantilize them.

Absolutely. Then puberty hits and the brilliance seems to take a huge dip. I guess obsessing about sex takes a lot of brainpower. Just a hypothesis though.

That hypothesis is sensible.

According to The Male Brain, by psychiatrist Louann Brizendine, males have 2.5x the space devoted to sexual drive in the hypothalamus compared to females.

By the time males reach puberty, guy’s sexual occupation and fertile female tracking circuits run in the background non-stop like an unkillable daemon process.

That’s absolutely going to divert brainpower.

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#74

Post by Klinky » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 12:39 PM UTC

m-i-l wrote: post #52

I read a report recently on predictions for Generation Alpha, i.e. the generation after Generation Z (in turn the generation after the Millennial Generation) very roughly born after 2010. One of the predictions was that they would be both "digital masters" but also "the new old fashioneds" that would be looking to break away from technology more, perhaps as a result of feeling neglected by parents constantly distract…

No one can really even define what a Millennial is, or who falls in to Generation Y/Z. Even "who is a Boomer?", and the tropes of what a Boomer is, fail when looking at my anecdotal data. Also often activist children are heavily influenced by their activist parents. Generational classification and "analysis" is almost as bad as stereotypes.

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#75

Post by Kaiyou » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 12:40 PM UTC

lonelappde wrote: post #27

TeMPOraL wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you can buy a standalone alarm clock, a dead-tree book, a standalone radio receiver, etc. for a fraction of the price. Now, I love my smartphone for all the non-social features. But I kind of see how the new generation can see these things as a gateway drug to being sucked into social media and having their minds and hearts ruthlessly exploited for profit. On top of that, it's teenagers we're talking about; teena…

How much do you think a phone costs?

About $100-$200. How long do you think a phone lasts?

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#76

Post by im3w1l » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 12:53 PM UTC

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #33

There is a whole subreddit dedicated to probably made up behaviour of children like that. https://www.reddit.com/r/wokekids/top/?t=all

I don't know, children are crazy. They will say all kind of stuff. I bet some kid did say they didn't want a phone. Another cried because they got a phone the wrong color. And a third asked for a hundred phones to throw at turtles. Yet we don't hear of those two latter kids.

The very stupidest ideas are filtered out by parents "no you aren't getting 100 phones to throw". And the merely mundane ideas are filtered out by newspapers "a kid wanting a green phone isn't newsworthy".

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#77

Post by Swalden123 » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 12:55 PM UTC

mcphage wrote: post #72

Swalden123 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a shame the Mother can’t see this

> It’s a shame the Mother can’t see this The only reason you know how smart her kid is, is because she wrote an entire article telling everyone how smart her kid is.

She talks about mum influencers essentially using their kids for fame in the article but is doing the same thing herself. My point is the mum doesn’t see the kids point of view.

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#78

Post by sempron64 » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 12:59 PM UTC

Phenix88be wrote: post #37

Anyone else think this is fake ? I mean, 11 years old can have that level of thinking ? Or maybe I m missing something ?

My teen nephew loves video games but really really doesn't want a cell phone, even though his parents want him to have one. He doesn't want to be bothered all the time. 11-year olds can be quite smart and independent. Don't you remember being 11 or 12? It's a little blurry to me as an adult but I remember the books I read and family vacations and I don't think I was an oblivious dolt :)

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#79

Post by non-entity » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 1:07 PM UTC

MrGilbert wrote: post #36

iamnotacrook wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I cannot imagine how it can be a good idea to reject the internet. Avoid social media all you want, but choosing not to have a search engine, dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps and so on at your fingertips is just bonkers. But we had all that growing up 40 years ago. The internet has made people stupider, as a culture. People learn less because you can just look it up. Yes, you can. It's much easier to look stuff up,…

> It's much easier to look stuff up, but that means people are retaining less themselves. It might be easier, but it's not easy. I see people giving up on searches because they are not able to formulate what they are looking for. Maybe that opens a whole different set of problems.

> I see people giving up on searches because they are not able to formulate what they are looking for

In fairness, a number of things I've read about here on HN and experiences have led me to believe the quality of search engine results has declined as well

Re: When Your 11-Year-Old Says No to a Smartphone

#80

Post by ensignavenger » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 1:17 PM UTC

Klinky wrote: post #74

m-i-l wrote: post #52

I read a report recently on predictions for Generation Alpha, i.e. the generation after Generation Z (in turn the generation after the Millennial Generation) very roughly born after 2010. One of the predictions was that they would be both "digital masters" but also "the new old fashioneds" that would be looking to break away from technology more, perhaps as a result of feeling neglected by parents constantly distract…

No one can really even define what a Millennial is, or who falls in to Generation Y/Z. Even "who is a Boomer?", and the tropes of what a Boomer is, fail when looking at my anecdotal data. Also often activist children are heavily influenced by their activist parents. Generational classification and "analysis" is almost as bad as stereotypes.

This comment is being down-voted, and I sort of understand why, as it comes off as overly abrasive. Obviously demographers use different years to define generations depending on the study. But I think the last part about stereotyping is worth discussion, even if the comment is overly abrasive.

I was born in a year that traditionally was generally not considered "millennial" by demographers, but since it also did not fit with the years they used for previous generations, modern definitions tend to include my birth year as "millennial". This irritates me, because myself and most of those that I know who are my age don't fit the usual descriptions of "millennials" and we don't like the association. Now, I happen to like millennials. My wife is solidly in the millennial years. I have many friends who were born in the millennial years. But I don't like having the label applied to myself and I don't fit the descriptions at all.

In the end it isn't a big deal. I have no plans to ever call myself a millennial. But it is worth cautioning against stereotyping individuals because of the year they were born, as I unfortunately see many people do.