Our precocious angels have been transforming into sullen monsters at the onset of adolescence since the beginning of time. Do we really think they would have stayed precocious angels forever, if only they had never discovered comic books or rock'n'roll or TV or video games or whatever the current teenage vice happens to be?
Sure, there is good evidence that smartphones are more addictive than a lot of other pastimes and devices, but the fact that your daughter turned into a teenager isn't that.
It feels like a bit of both. The phone is probably a focal point for other issues. But, I don't think we should downplay the fact that the finely tuned, variable reward scheduled, Skinner boxs that are many modern apps are anywhere near comic books, rock'n'roll, or videogames of old. I'm pretty conscious of intrusive notifications and apps that aggressively vie for my attention. Even with those limits in place, I'm acutely aware of the effect of having reddit available from my pocket in < 2 seconds. Maybe I'm weak, but I feel that it affects most of us in a fundamental way to some degree.
I'm not saying that you said anything counter to this. I just think that apps which are hyper-tuned to captivate our every moment are a different beast.
I turned off all social media notifications on my devices so that I feel more like they're there to serve me rather than me a slave to it. Having it in my pocket is a lot less enticing when it's not constantly nagging me. I feel a lot more in control of it these days. I'm able to leave it on top of the microwave for hours at a time without feeling the anxiety of missing something.
I'm with you. The only audible notifications that I get are phone, text and a couple of other messaging apps that I barely use (I'm talking one message per month per app). I get visual notifications for my personal email. Contrary to many people apparently, I also view texting as an asynchronous activity; I don't fee any urge to view and reply instantly to texts.
I even turned off the visual notifications on my email, facebook, linkedin, everything else that would normally give people the impression that my device is there for their benefit and not mine. The only audible notifications I get are from my girlfriend on WhatsApp and phone calls... which reminds me, I've put my phone down somewhere and I should probably go find it... after my cup of tea.
I had the opposite take. I also feel like an addict with my iPhone, and I’m old enough that they didn’t exist when I was a teenager. I’m not sure why the author thinks waiting until her daughter was 14 would have changed much, she would just end up addicted then.
My kid's first "social" app is Roblox and part of my justification for is that it's easier to talk about some of the issues of social media while they are young and will listen to me.
We talk a lot about addiction and the tricks games play to make you want to come back every day. We talk a lot about safety and what predictors are looking for and what they say to try to sound like a friend. I hope these are good discussions and I hope they stay with my kids as they grow.
If I'd started at 14? They've already learned to tune me out by then.
She'd get a childhood without being a phone junkie. 9 hours a day is extremely worrying for an adult to spend on a phone but for a child it is way worse, they are in their formative years and that would turn into their baseline
> I had the opposite take. I also feel like an addict with my iPhone, and I’m old enough that they didn’t exist when I was a teenager. I’m not sure why the author thinks waiting until her daughter was 14 would have changed much, she would just end up addicted then.
I have 4 active mobile phones and I cannot understand the allure people who claim to be 'addicted' to phones have with them. I actually dread the time I spend on them, as the UX is so much worse when used to interface with Internet than a PC/Laptop in my opinion.
I also grew up at a time before smartphones but I grew up on the Internet using computers/laptops and admittedly spend a large time of my Life on both, for work and leisure, but I still cannot understand this seemingly prevalent disease that has afflicted so many. And I do have what some may deem an addictive personality, specifically to adrenaline and endorphins.
I think the common variable is the lack of time spent outside cities and their homes and have an almost pathological aversion to Nature. I can assure you that the latest Twitter beef seems incredibly insignificant after a 10 mile hike and watching the sunset in total silence, more should try it. Believe me I was there for its first incarnations and the forum 'flame wars,' of the 90s and early 2000s; they're only fun so many times until you grow out of them (ideally in your teens) and they all predictably start and end the same way. Its really not that interesting.
> Im not sure why the author thinks waiting until her daughter was 14
As for this, I agree with OP; I went to private school most of my life with many helicopter parents who swore their children were supposed prodigies only to seem them 'throw it all away' after they left the 8th grade and got their first taste of freedom they discovered members of the opposite sex, cars, status, drugs and booze and many ended up in continuation schools as they did it all in excess.
I'm personally glad I went to one night school class (as I always skipped morning classes) my freshman year of HS just to see what happens to people like that, it was massive learning experience but also a deterrent to not fall into those traps.
It also got me interested in computer networking as I was in a class sponsored by Cisco and my fascination with tech went beyond just soldering/hacking Playstation and Dreamcast consoles and ripping games to sell at school.
I think the bias and their views tends to lean toward their disappointment, but some people are just too easily susceptible and are often coerced by their parents into a certain path, and once they have any semblance of freedom they just rebel against it all. And I can understand that as I have a few cousins that ended up that way and we could all see it coming from a very young age.
To be honest the people who I found to be most successful in Life, beyond just financial and material wealth, and over all well adjusted were people whose parents just let them become who they wanted after their toddler years and then nurtured and supported their skills and talents that way. They had very healthy relationships with their families, often after turbulent teenage years, and were very open and free thinking about problem solving and World views.
Everyone is prone to peer pressure, especially in your early teens when you have no idea who you are and often are so quick to give into group think to fit in (we're biologically hardwired that way for survival), so I can see why some parents may want to wait until 14 or older. But I finis it hard to accept the consequences these devices are supposedly creating. Social Media 'balling' and the supposed depression that follows for so many seem insignificant when you grew up seeing what job your friend finished for Arab Shieks in Saudi Arabia and Dubai to a bunch Zonda Rs and Helicopters for a lark on a Tuesday morning. It was just funny, and kind of sad to think anyone with much money was that crass and had such poor taste.
I personally think its a mistake, but I understand the reasoning.
As, anecdotally, I mentioned I grew up on the Internet and I'm very grateful to my family that I was allowed the freedom and the opportunity to be subjected to all of those positive and negative influences in the early days of the Internet as it helped narrow down who and what it was that I really wanted in my Life.
Sheltering your children from the harsh realities of the World may seem like the right thing to do, I still recall the aftermath online in the Columbine shooting to this day, but it has many unintended consequences; the World is a very messy place and being a *young adult) and having never developed any coping mechanisms for stress or dealing with difficult situations as you get coaxed into the World is one of the saddest things I have ever encountered. I think this what you are really seeing on many campuses in University in the US and Canada (I started to see the rise of it as I left in 2009) and the toxic rise in cancel-culture online that's bled into the real World.
It's pushed by people who never learned to deal with the often very brutal realities, that the World is marred with conflict and filled with paradoxes and that its a constant battle for sanity and reason to prevail; but equally that it is your responsibility as a Human to navigate that and make the most of it and your Life. Because if you're a student and must have a job to pay for tuition, rent and bills you really aren't going to be getting riled up about the 'Sociological and degrading Epistemological implications' of not having gender-less/trans bathrooms on campus and need to riot and disrupt classes until the entire campus becomes a safe space in order to cope with those ramifications while you waste the next 6 years to write a dissertation on gender studies as a result of it.
If neural lace's primary use is going to be participation in the global network of advertisement-funded Skinner boxes, then honestly, I won't be getting one myself, despite how hyped I am about brain-computer interfaces in general.
This is how these things always go isn't it? We invent this incredible technology that augments what we do, what we can be, what we can learn, and what we can believe...
and then we turn it into an almost-exclusively advertising tool designed to convert a human being into a money making machine.
It's one of the reasons I'm not enthusiastic about technology anymore. I see what we do with it. Every. Single. Time.
I'll third this. I was so excited about the applications for speech/smart interfaces in the home a la Cherry 2000. But we got Alexa. A tool to buy stuff and spy. I won't denigrate the actual useful functions these devices have - I like to ask Alexa to tell me jokes when I'm at a friend's house that has one. However, it's all the things that come with it that turned me off.
I'm currently pursuing open-source tools to run home automation but it's slow-going. It's complex.
Our precocious angels have been transforming into sullen monsters at the onset of adolescence since the beginning of time. Do we really think they would have stayed precocious angels forever, if only they had never discovered comic books or rock'n'roll or TV or video games or whatever the current teenage vice happens to be?
Sure, there is good evidence that smartphones are more addictive than a lot of other pastimes and devices, but the fact that your daughter turned into a teenager isn't that.