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

[Anonymous]

I let my 17mo watch cartoons in my native language only (Russian) on youtube a few times a week. We do not have a wired house and stay pretty unplugged....no Alexa or other BS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am not in tech, but DH is and has loved computers (not just games, but coding) since he was a kid. We do place limits for our 2 year old (TV shows really only on trips or when she’s sick; otherwise it’s at most 10 min/day of videos of herself or nursery rhymes on YouTube). However, we have yet to see research that suggests it’s as harmful as people seem to think, especially if kids are also doing all sorts of other things. DH and I both spent hours playing video games and watching movies as kids (sometimes 5-6 hours a day) and we both have successful professional careers. We also did plenty of other things as kids, including free play outside.

I guess I would just say that, I think critical thinking is needed to figure out the right way to use this powerful tool, especially in school. Neither paranoia nor blind use of it is reasonable.

There's only so many hours in a day. Screen time is wasted time when you consider what your child could be doing.

[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.

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 [b]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.

I'm PP. Yes, it's very creepy. Read the recent exposes of people quitting Google and Facebook, who say they are afraid they didn't know what they were doing and that they might have "broken democracy" by messing with people's willpower and attention. Social media and other technology are designed to be maximally addictive in order to increase ad revenue. The more time you spend scrolling, the more money they make.

In any case, I don't feel my kids will be missing out on anything. Who knows what the technology will be in 10, 15 years -- certainly nothing like what we have today. For me the most important thing is to raise grounded kids with social-emotional skills, who are empowered with curiosity about the actual world and how things work. The way things are trending they will really need to develop a thick skin against the daily bombardment of information, ads, addictive interfaces, etc. and focus on what matters.

A few things that might influence my view, aside from my time in Silicon Valley: 1) I was raised in the 80s with zero TV. I think we maybe watched a show or two on the weekend. We spent most of our time playing outside, swimming, learning music and creative writing and things like that. It was fun, albeit more effort for my parents to limit. 2) I work in a university and have seen so many young people addicted to technology. Technology addiction causes all kinds of mental health issues. Gaming and social media are huge problems that no one is addressing. What a shame to lose a formative decade of your life to something more addictive than a drug.

More than ever, what you pay attention to is what you value. It's getting harder and harder to free your mind, even if you're an adult. Why would you possibly want to burden your children with an addiction?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not in tech, but DH is and has loved computers (not just games, but coding) since he was a kid. We do place limits for our 2 year old (TV shows really only on trips or when she’s sick; otherwise it’s at most 10 min/day of videos of herself or nursery rhymes on YouTube). However, we have yet to see research that suggests it’s as harmful as people seem to think, especially if kids are also doing all sorts of other things. DH and I both spent hours playing video games and watching movies as kids (sometimes 5-6 hours a day) and we both have successful professional careers. We also did plenty of other things as kids, including free play outside.

I guess I would just say that, I think critical thinking is needed to figure out the right way to use this powerful tool, especially in school. Neither paranoia nor blind use of it is reasonable.

There's only so many hours in a day. Screen time is wasted time when you consider what your child could be doing.

Thanks for your sanctimony, but my kid is fine -- the few minutes every few days she spends watching a video is not a detriment to her development. She does plenty of other things as well. I also happen to think that watching videos with her and asking her questions about what's going on definitely has value.