You are completely correct. I'm watching the same thing happen to my little cousin. Please hear me: take the phones and take the computers and take the ipads and make them go play outside. We do this when my cousin visits and it's amazing how quickly he shapes up. But there will be a point at which it's gone too far and the damage is much harder to repair.
You can youtube-dl whatever is good and stick it on a raspberry pi running kodi with no internet. You can get them el cheapo kindles and load them up with all the books they could ever read. You can let them use computers supervised for khanacademy. But please, as the rare adult who's aware of and cares about this issue, don't let your kids fall victim to it.
I completely agree (I use yt-dlp to download curated content onto VLC on the iPad) but in practice, for two working parents and 2+ kids, there are often times where you're too exhausted to do anything but plop them in front of screen so you can take a sanity break / do some chores / prep meals / etc.
I'm fortunate enough to make enough to afford live in child care and a stay at home wife, so we're able to avoid almost all screen time. But the vast majority of families don't have this luxury.
"If you can't responsibly parent, why did you have kids?" This is a very difficult choice for many people. The drive to have kids is fundamental to being human. But it's very expensive and hard.
Yes, yes, yes! There is no way my 5 year old daughter gets access to apps like YouTube. Occassionally, I let her use a drawing app or we watch some photos or music videos together, but that's about it regarding mobile devices. She may watch kids shows/movies on DVD while I'm preparing dinner, but not more than 30 minutes.
She spends her time with toys, puzzles, drawing, painting, crafting, Legos, books, playing outside, playing with friends, playing with her little brother, etc. She can easily do Origamis for one hour. I hope I can sustain this as long as possible. I know it will get harder and harder once she goes to school.
Yes. I don't know at what age it's no longer feasible to restrict apps, but my young kids will never get access to youtube, tiktok, twitch until at least middle school if not high school. Until then, it's slower moving kids shows on Netflix or downloaded high quality content from youtube. And yes, even those are the last resort for when it's raining outside, we've already cycled through all the indoor playgrounds, no one is available for play dates, the toys and puzzles and books have been all cycled through, and both parents are unable to provide supervised play.
Agreed. Doing this from the start yields great results.
Imagine going the other way round is detox, you need to pushback hard since they will fight you on everything.
I think it's worth it even in that case. Though obviously if you never offer that option from the start, you're golden. Toys, puzzles, long form entertainment, etc.
Yes, thank you. It feels like whenever this topic is brought up everyone argues between some false dichotomy of letting the kid binge on algorithmic slop or personally engaging with them in some wholesome activity.
Meanwhile a couple generations of us grew up with two working parents who were happy to just throw us in front of the TV or our lego sets when they needed a break. And that seemed to work fine?
Our daughter is only 2, but she's still absolutely thrilled whenever we let her zone out to some Disney movie on the TV, and has yet to even hold a tablet (that we know of, at least). I know things will probably change for us as she gets older, so I try to withold too much judgement from the parents I see happily plopping a tablet with YouTube in front of their kid. But for now, it's just hard for me to even imagine doing that.
I'm sure many would ask "whats the difference between a movie on TV amd YouTube on a tablet?" Well, tons, just from my personal experience. But her pediatrician, early child development professional we work with, and research I've read, all seem to indicate there's a pretty big difference.
A movie requires following a plot line for a sustained amount of time (like 1.25 hours). YouTube shorts are like 30 second dopamine hits that make a movie seem like a chore. Think about that. What we used to do for fun is considered by some to be exhausting now.
I was really shocked last week when I met two women in their early 20s in a bar. Someone mentioned The Lord of the Rings. I said I'd read it.
They were shocked! They were asking about the film.
And I was probably more shocked when they said they don't read books because they don't have the patience. One said she once read a whole book and it was really good, but hasn't don't so since.
I have to disagree on this. I was not an "easy child", and there were periods where both my parents worked, but they never budged and pacified me. I never had a videogame system and didn't have a cell phone until I got a job and earned the money. TV was almost never permitted; generally when someone was sick or family movie night a few times per year. If they had conceded when my siblings and I were young, if they had established they were weak and could effectively be bullied into giving us our way, that really would have been poor parenting. It's how one winds up with spoiled brats. And I remember vividly during the various tantrums of various children, my mother in particular would tell us, "I refuse to raise a brat."
I know I probably sound incredibly boomer rn, but I see the effects of this in my generation (zoomers) and much, much more sharply with kids. I can't say it's "easier", but from my limited experience handling kids, it's trading a short-term hassle for huge long-term benefit.
The worst is both parents working high pressure jobs that bleed into hours outside of "9-5 on weekdays" and even when not working, the stress is omnipresent. I haven't met a single person who is superhuman enough to work one of these jobs and be an involved parent while not allowing their own mental/physical health to deteriorate. One of us had to become a full-time parent and the size of the paycheck determined who it was. Taboos be damned, it felt like life and death at that point.
You are right but in my experience sticking with clasic entertainment solutions works out better.
And I think people are responding to your dilemma with the very sensible solution of just not having kids. Unless you have a very flexible setup somehow, or lots of cash (or both), yeah, child rearing is nightmare fuel.
This is an area where Americans’ lack of a functioning government is so incredibly glaring and obviously harmful, that I’m amazed nobody seems to mention it. Have regulations become so stigmatized that sensible, widely supported steps to protect the minds of our youth (arguably every bit as important as ensuring their food is not literal poison) isn’t even worth debating? I think this is another symptom of how totalitarian capitalism has been allowed to erode the common sense of society well past the point it can reasonably function.
You can do both. I'm not sure why people have this as an either or thing. My kid (6) plays outside after school and watches youtube or whatever on her tablet. I don't consider it much different than when I did the same and came home to play videogames. I have greatly restricted youtube because I do think it's a blight on my kid's mind, but she has other apps like PBS and hell even good ol' digital junk food silver surfer. Everything in moderation.
In the 1990s, there wasn't a free TV channel for children in Britain. At the right time of day there might be two choices, later only one, then nothing.
It was not unusual not to want to watch what was available, and have to do something else.
I think this is a huge difference compared to modern video media.
You can youtube-dl whatever is good and stick it on a raspberry pi running kodi with no internet. You can get them el cheapo kindles and load them up with all the books they could ever read. You can let them use computers supervised for khanacademy. But please, as the rare adult who's aware of and cares about this issue, don't let your kids fall victim to it.