All my family's meals are device-free. My kids don't even question it: they turn the TV off themselves when we call them. We have one TV in the house and it can't be turned on in the morning. The kids don't seem to suffer at all.
She just keeps the TV on at all times.
Watching a show on Netflix on her tablet? TV on.
Takes a shower and is in the bathroom for 30-45 minutes? TV on.
Leaves the house and someone is there, though not watching TV? Let's TV on. I have to shut it down myself.
I have absolutely no idea how she picked up that habit. No one in the (immediate) family does it.
The same is true with social media and internet addictions, although there's also the dopamine kick to contend with, which makes them a bit different.
Practicing meditation, general mindfulness and taking long (more than a week) holidays without internet or even electricity helps me a lot to avoid getting addicted to distractions.
I often see kids as young as 2 or 3 with iPhones in their hands while being pushed in their stroller on a walk, or at a restaurant at dinner.
We allow our 3 year old boy a small amount of screen time each day, as he spends the whole day (9-6) at day care and it helps him unwind a bit to watch Sesame Street, and gives us a chance to prepare dinner uninterrupted. But it's always under our control, we do not hand him the remote or device. Nor do we use it when we go out to eat.
I hate these environments too. I have yet to meet someone who is glued to some screen or watches tons of TV and would still attract me enough (in a purely intellectual way) to make me want to know them more, and try and pursue a relationship with them/have engaging conversations.
Doing the same task most of the time doesn't bring the best out of people (realistically, if you look at your phone during family dinners, when do you give yourself enough time to do something else without distraction ? can anything meaningful happen when you're sucked out of your own life constantly ?). Yes, you can read on your phone, yet people will more likely show you cat gifs and not interesting articles.
We used to let the kids watch an iPad in the car and there was always fighting because everyone wanted to watch different shows. So we took the iPad out of the car and now the kids only have books to read in the car. Since we did that car rides have been so much better.
> "Do they not get car sick from reading books while driving?"
> "Do they get car sick from reading books while driving?"
If so, what is it? Why would a person choose one over the other?
I hope this is coming across as useful. How communication is understood on the web is interesting to me, and understanding how to communicate effectively means also learning how we come across and how that squares with what we intend, and I fear I may not be doing a good job here. Without a response from the people who actually down voted, all we can do is try to look at how people might interpret what was written.
It's pretty clear that Fogest was asking if the kids get carsick and there was no implication that anyone was lying.
In my experience, questions posed as 'Fogest did ("Do they not get car sick...?") or you did ("Is English not your first language?") carry with them additional information. The neutral, default versions of these are "Do they get carsick?" and "Is English your first language?"
To me, 'Fogest's comment reads differently with only that change:
> Do they get car sick from reading books while driving? I remember as a kid on long car trips I would try and read but I'd always feel sick from it, however I was fine watching movies on a portable DVD player.
Another example is your choosing to interpret "not wholly accurate" as an "implication that [someone] was lying". If I'm misunderstanding where you got that, please do let me know, as it's not my intent to misrepresent you. What I meant by that was the implication that 'soccerdave had left out relevant information, that their kids get sick when they read in the car. As you read it as you did, is it my fault for how I phrased it? Yours for how you interpreted it? I certainly didn't use the word "lying" and "not wholly accurate" is not equivalent to "lying" Both of ours?
I'm purposefully not answering your question whether English is my first language as it's mostly irrelevant. There are people who are able to express themselves in written form in a foreign tongue much better than the vast majority of native speakers (Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Conrad come to mind), and plenty of native speakers who aren't aware of how they come across or take particular care when they write. And English in one area is not the same as English in others. (Water fountain or bubbler? Soda? Pop? Coke?)
This is getting very far off from the original comment. I often hesitate to chime in when someone comments some variant of "I don't know why you were down voted". I think it's useful to explore possible reasons as it provides an opportunity to look at how we may come across, particularly to those who disagree with us. That said, it's a difficult place to comment because it's almost by definition a place where there's at best a misunderstanding and at worst trolling or otherwise uncharitable interpretations occurring.
Whether or not someone cares about this is another thing. People may not think that it's worth taking the time to think about or that people should always interpret what's being written in the best light possible. For constructive conversation I think this is crucial. At the same time, I think it's important to understand and take into account the context of where it's being said when commenting on an internet forum stripped of every nuance except the words themselves (perhaps tempered by the reputation of the commenter). Regardless of whether they should, not everyone is going interpret comments in a neutral way, giving the commenter the benefit of the doubt. If I want to be be effective and constructive (and avoid down votes, as that's often used as a proxy for effective and constructive), I think I should take these into account and take care in how I express myself in comments. (Thinking about it, one could posit it's an application of Postel's law to human communication.)
This is the last I'm going to comment on this here, as I don't think I've added anything that wasn't already in the thread, and it's not clear to me that your comment was made in the interest of honest, constructive conversation and giving me the benefit of the doubt.
From 9 to 12, just have fun together.
From 13 to 25, just keep them alive.
YMMV
How are you doing this? I have been for a solution to this for the last few months but nothing really came up. TIA.