this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
150 points (93.1% liked)
Technology
59629 readers
2617 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's absolutely crack. My nephew and niece is 7 and 4, they don't watch a lot of tv and aren't allowed on the phone a lot, but when they are it's fucking crazy. They don't even have to do anything on it. When he was 5 and his friend was also 5, we had a Christmas family party. My phone was on the table and it blinked. No joke, they were like zombies, starring my phone down. He reached for it and i told him not to touch it. Their fingers kept moving on their own, and all they could to is stt the time, yet that was the most interesting thing in the universe to them. They were unable to not touch it.
When they are allowed on the phone for like 15 minutes all they do is to watch the biggest most meaningless garbage i can imagine. They would pick looking at a phone over pretty much anything. Before my sister had kids i would always think the whole ipad kids thing is blown out of proportion and i would teach them things with it, because after all, it is a useful tool. Not anymore, fuck that. I feel bad for ipad kids, i can only imagine the brain rot.
I have kids that age and a little older, and we have strict rules on screen time because of this. When I ask what they want to do, two will be uninterested in watching something on the TV or tablet, but if I let the other do it, they'll all watch whatever is on the screen. My kids will try to grab my phone from me randomly during the day, and if I'm doing anything on my phone or computer, they'll try to see what I'm doing. If I let them watch something on YouTube or something, they'll watch stupid, high-engagement videos (e.g. Minecraft "challenges" or whatever), and my oldest was practically addicted to a toy review channel (they weren't even interested in the toys) until I banned YouTube entirely (we let them choose how to use their allotted screen time).
There's no way I'm letting them have a phone until they can demonstrate the smallest bit of restraint. I'm considering leaving my old phone around for emergency calls, but I know the moment I let them access it, they'll get on the internet and watch random videos.
I think devices can be a fantastic learning tool, and I sometimes let them use my devices for educational reasons occasionally, but even then, they need strict limits on total time and per session time. We let them "earn" time by reading, but again, we have those strict limits so they don't binge.
When my kids can be trusted with a phone, I'm not going to let them bring it unless they have a legitimate reason to have it at school (e.g. they have an after school activity w/o a fixed end time).
You're really good at writing compelling fiction.
Maybe y'all are just boring AF to these poor kids? I would greatly prefer a phone over somebody condescending to me.