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Comment by radoslawc | Hacker News Reader

This might be unpopular opinion, but whatever happened with paper and crayons? Or Legos? I can understand how it can be tempting to have few quiet hours after work, giving your young ones tablet of phone to watch this specially crafted media to attract their attention (and show them ads as it turns out), but I don't believe it's healthy for young organism to stare blankly on screen 10 inches from face with worse possible head position (almost always bent forward). My friend said once, that she's so grateful for technology advancement, that she doesn't know how she would manage to change diapers without tablet.

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Why do you say "stare blankly"? My young organism stares anything but blankly at the iPad screen when he's allowed to use it.

I think you're painting phone/tablet usage in a very negative light here, as if parents are only using them as a pacifier to occupy their kids so they can have some quiet time of their own. Sure some people do that, but that's the least charitable interpretation I think.

Saying that "some people" do it is a big understatement. The majority of parents do that in my personal experience.

Don't think I live in a bubble on that front, but perhaps there are researches on this that can prove me wrong.

Well I was hoping for something stronger than your personal anecdotes to back this assertion up.

In any case, crayons and tablets are not mutually exclusive choices. You can in fact use both, and other things as well.

Unpopular opinion: having some time on your own is important for your psycho-hygiene. Only few are able to keep calm without it and that affects interactions with kids too.

They can have both. A touchscreen offers really interesting experiences you can’t get on paper, and there is plenty of good educational content.

That’s not unpopular, just unpractical.

Crayons for instance don’t help kids test their knowledge of letters or numbers or full words, and I’m not sure Lego brings that much over Minecraft for instance.

I visited my grand parents and they have an attic of single purpose toys. We live in a 5x smaller home yet get the kid to play with a lot of different mechanics and check things.

It’s just a lot more difficult to set bounds, but I am not sure it’s really worse. Kids 20 years ago would steal matches and perhaps accidentaly burn the house, our kids will take sneaky looks at passwords and perhaps buy dozen of toys on amazon.

> Crayons for instance don’t help kids test their knowledge of letters or numbers or full words, and I’m not sure Lego brings that much over Minecraft for instance.

Anedote but I don't allow any tablet– or phone–play, yet my daughter is more than able to test her knowledge of numbers and full words. She can write out words and get to practice hand-writing at the same time. When it comes to numbers and words, she is at least on par with others her age if not ahead (disclaimer: proud dad).

Crayons and paper bring one advantage over apps: a creative boredom, where, having completed something somewhat structured, she gets to pause and them come up with a playful approach to trying to spell new words, trying to draw new things, all in an unstructured way. We set the framwork but it's a lot looser and she gets to play within it, recombining ideas in different ways.

When she visits relatives that have tablet games, it's amazing to see how her mind just goes blank in front of them and then for the rest of the day the creative vibe seems to be gone.

>but I don't believe it's healthy for young organism to stare blankly on screen 10 inches from face with worse possible head position (almost always bent forward).

People used to say the same thing to me on my PlayStation 1. Relax, technology is a part of our lifes.

Perhaps they were right.

I think that since we're all IT people here that stare at screens 8 hours a day that it's fine.

Not saying kids should do it, but screens being unhealthy to the eyes is not one of them, it's a social problem.

> young organism

What the hell?

Many kids don't like drawing. Drawing is not possible in many situations where tablet is possible. Ditto lego plus, there is not that much lego for under 5 years old.

You don't get few quiet hours of work with tablet. You might get peaceful car ride or waiting for doctor etc.

Duplo is for smaller kids. My boy is just 5 and he has been building Lego Creator boxes on his own for the last six months.

Both of are kids are allowed to play the tablets. We didn't plan on it, but we've spent the last two and a half years sleeping badly because my daughter (who is almost three) is a nightmare at bedtime and sleeps badly. By the time it's weekend you're in a half comatose state. Letting them play iPad lets one of the parents catch up on sleep on each of the weekend days.

I also bought my son a Switch because I hate YouTube and f2p games; he has finished Super Mario and is now playing more complex games (Mario Rabbits, Minecraft, Zelda) and is very good at them.

I'm also addicted to a p2w mobile game; at first I used it to stay awake whilst feeding my daughter, but it eventually became a coping mechanism for the pain caused by the insomnia.

When my daughter gets past this phase (I pray that it's just a phase) then I want us to go screenless.

You can draw on a tablet…

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