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

[Anonymous]

A friend of mine doesn't allow any screen time. When her kids visited and saw a show on tv they sat like they were hypnotized while my children played.

At some point your children will be exposed to "screens". Many adults overcompensate for whatever mistakes they think their parents made.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A friend of mine doesn't allow any screen time. When her kids visited and saw a show on tv they sat like they were hypnotized while my children played.

At some point your children will be exposed to "screens". Many adults overcompensate for whatever mistakes they think their parents made.

Are you the people who ALWAYS have the TV on in the background? Drives me insane.

[Anonymous]

That seems reasonable and not particularly strict. Common sense.

[Anonymous]

YouTube is big in my house. I have some of the content blocked. Its hard because my kids use it for watching others play video games, music videos (2 Cellos or similar), and history/culture shows. So we have to be vigilant with watching what the kids are watching. We have rules in place similar to what Op posted. We have been known to take certain tech away for a week and not allow the kids to compensate for the loss by using other devices. We are less stringent with Kinects games because the have to move and all of the ones that we have really getting them sweating and moving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Giving kids screens is easy so it must be bad. This explains about 90% of parenting rules.

The easiest short term solution is often the most damaging in the long term.

there is no evidence of this rule; it's just a puritan belief that everything that is easy or feels good must be bad for you.

+1. The parental freak-out over this issue basically boils down to this. I’m not too concerned myself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I saw this article and it was really lacking in any proof.

However, we have always limited screen time.

+1

This is just an opinion, backed by nothing.

Lol, it's an article/op-ed; not a scientific paper. There are plenty of scientific studies on this. Shame on you for not doing your due diligence.

Here's one...

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mental-wealth/201402/gray-matters-too-much-screen-time-damages-the-brain

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I saw this article and it was really lacking in any proof.

However, we have always limited screen time.

+1

This is just an opinion, backed by nothing.

Lol, it's an article/op-ed; not a scientific paper. There are plenty of scientific studies on this. Shame on you for not doing your due diligence.

Here's one...

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mental-wealth/201402/gray-matters-too-much-screen-time-damages-the-brain

i have a phd in experimental psychology and i don't have to do "due diligence" by reading fourth-hand garbage.

[Anonymous]

Television affects the brain differently than the internet; it's not nearly as addictive because it's not interactive. Meanwhile, a single hyperlink in a 500 word essay debilitates a reader's ability to focus.

There's a growing body of research chronicling this kind of stuff. Before you scorn the people in that Times article as Chicken Littles, try reading The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains (Nicholas Carr), which offers a readable (and pretty frightening) overview of emerging research. (https://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/0393339750)

Unfortunately, I'm already a fully fledged addict -- not of TV, which never interested me even as a kid, but of the internet, social media, and forums like this. It's really unfortunate and I'm not sure how to break the addiction without getting rid of my smart phone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I saw this article and it was really lacking in any proof.

However, we have always limited screen time.

+1

This is just an opinion, backed by nothing.

Lol, it's an article/op-ed; not a scientific paper. There are plenty of scientific studies on this. Shame on you for not doing your due diligence.

Here's one...

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mental-wealth/201402/gray-matters-too-much-screen-time-damages-the-brain

i have a phd in experimental psychology and i don't have to do "due diligence" by reading fourth-hand garbage.

Shame on you for being so "well educated" but ill informed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you seen this nytimes article? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/phones-children-silicon-valley.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

"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.”

He has five children and 12 tech rules. They include: no phones until the summer before high school, no screens in bedrooms, network-level content blocking, no social media until age 13, no iPads at all and screen time schedules enforced by Google Wifi that he controls from his phone. Bad behavior? The child goes offline for 24 hours."

Wondering if you all severely restrict screen time? Kinda scary that the makers of this tech are afraid of it for their own children

Used to live in Silicon Valley, and yes. The makers of these things know firsthand that they are designed to waste hours of your life. Of course they don't want their kids on them. In their minds, there are the people who create and make money, and the ones who buy into it.[b]

Also, I think those rules sound pretty minimal. I do not intend to allow social media at 13. Too early. Our five year old gets basically zero screentime, only when traveling.

This is kind of creepy. I am one of the ones who “buys into it?” And I am exposing my kids to it? I don’t know why, but this makes me feel kind of sick. Like that scene on Erin Brokovitch where the lady looks out at her kids swimming in the pool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you seen this nytimes article? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/phones-children-silicon-valley.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

"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.”

He has five children and 12 tech rules. They include: no phones until the summer before high school, no screens in bedrooms, network-level content blocking, no social media until age 13, no iPads at all and screen time schedules enforced by Google Wifi that he controls from his phone. Bad behavior? The child goes offline for 24 hours."

Wondering if you all severely restrict screen time? Kinda scary that the makers of this tech are afraid of it for their own children

Used to live in Silicon Valley, and yes. The makers of these things know firsthand that they are designed to waste hours of your life. Of course they don't want their kids on them. In their minds, there are the people who create and make money, and the ones who buy into it.[b]

Also, I think those rules sound pretty minimal. I do not intend to allow social media at 13. Too early. Our five year old gets basically zero screentime, only when traveling.

This is kind of creepy. I am one of the ones who “buys into it?” And I am exposing my kids to it? I don’t know why, but this makes me feel kind of sick. Like that scene on Erin Brokovitch where the lady looks out at her kids swimming in the pool.

not spending every waking minute making money does not equal "wasting your time". I would much rather have a good DCUM read than go to the zillionaire pointless corporate meeting... or, for that matter, ride horses like one of jobs' daughters does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you seen this nytimes article? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/phones-children-silicon-valley.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

"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.”

He has five children and 12 tech rules. They include: no phones until the summer before high school, no screens in bedrooms, network-level content blocking, no social media until age 13, no iPads at all and screen time schedules enforced by Google Wifi that he controls from his phone. Bad behavior? The child goes offline for 24 hours."

Wondering if you all severely restrict screen time? Kinda scary that the makers of this tech are afraid of it for their own children

Used to live in Silicon Valley, and yes. The makers of these things know firsthand that they are designed to waste hours of your life. Of course they don't want their kids on them. In their minds, there are the people who create and make money, and the ones who buy into it.

Also, I think those rules sound pretty minimal. I do not intend to allow social media at 13. Too early. Our five year old gets basically zero screentime, only when traveling.

having fun online vs being corporate drone - the choice is not as obvious as some drones think.

[Anonymous]

oh an also - if access to internet cost 30 grand a year people here would forget everything about frying brains and addictiveness and would instead boast that they were able to pay for junior's access to this incredible enriching learning tool that will prepare him for the workforce of the future. bonus: 10k subscription to the highest quality in visual arts via Netflix

[Anonymous]

fake news

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:oh an also - if access to internet cost 30 grand a year people here would forget everything about frying brains and addictiveness and would instead boast that they were able to pay for junior's access to this incredible enriching learning tool that will prepare him for the workforce of the future. bonus: 10k subscription to the highest quality in visual arts via Netflix

So true!!!!