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Comment by hosh | Hacker News Reader

Ok. Leaving aside quarantine, do kids really need to talk to other kids through a personal computing device that they carry around as a constant companion? Does that foster something developmentally that could not happen without it? What do kids lose if they use such devices as their primary means of communication?

And let’s say, we think the “constant companion” is the problem, and we restrict the kid’s interaction through an old school, family computer. Is that necessarily any better?

I have already seen first hand how social media interaction at the middle school (when kids are starting to form social identities independent of their parents) gets toxic.

And looking at the social-media-fueled culture wars since 2014, it does not get any better for adults. (https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/03/06/a-quick-battle-field-g...).

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I don't really know how I'm going to approach this once my child is old enough to use devices but I think one might be able to argue that it makes sense for them to learn how to interact with the world as it exists, rather than a fantasy world where devices and the internet doesn't exist.

> rather than a fantasy world where devices and the internet doesn't exist.

The fantasy world is also the one that the likes of Facebook want to lead us to.

My wife and I decided on a no-social media policy for our kids. We have a teenager and a 5 month old.

Our teenager has a phone we found that is a locked down Android, and has no internet (no wifi or 4g/5g). It is just a phone, with multimedia text, and non-network enabled calendar, clock. There is no app store.

My daughter is autistic. Our problems with the phone has more to do with her feeling like we are cutting her off of connecting with people she clings to, triggering some childhood history. I have no idea what will happen when our neurotypical son becomes a teenager.

There is much more to life than just what are on devices, and I have a general idea on how to approach this. I have been studying, and to some extent, applying regenerative paradigms. A good deal of that will involve the kids into the natural cycle of life. To viscerally experience where their food comes from, and where it goes. How to connect with another living being as a whole being in an ecosystem and community, whether that being is a human, animal, or plant. I am going to teach them the ethical framework, “care for people”, “care for land”, “fair share”.

Technology, then, is thoughtfully applied within that context.

What that means, I am still discovering for myself. But I have already made some progress on that —- what Christopher Alexander really meant by pattern languages and a timeless way of building; what Smalltalk and Hypercard had in common, why we had turned our back to it, and maybe it is time to use it; the philosophy of Free Software and how it is different than open source, and why it matters more than basic rights and liberty; how sandstorm.io enables community-oriented and local platforms.

It has not all gelled together for me yet, but I know something is there.

Somewhat ironic that you don't let your children use social media but here you are posting on a social media site.

also remarkably ironic that they seem to want their kids to value life outside of technology but then proceed to say that software project licensing is more important than "basic rights and liberty" - completely out-of-touch

Not really. Kids are not adults. They’re two separate categories of people.

Maybe OP drinks alcohol but they don’t let their kids drink it.

Maybe they own firearms but they don’t let their kids wield them.

Maybe they watch movies with violence and gore but they don’t want their kids watching them.

etc.

There is a double standard, and there should be, imo.

Actually from biological standpoint there are no clear lines between kids and adults. That distinction is post-industrial revolution cultural one.

I’m not a biologist, but isn’t puberty still a thing?

There are no clear lines between summer and winter but sandals stop being appropriate footwear at some point nevertheless.

Okay, but the potential harm / average good of internet access is orders of magnitude away from that of a firearm.

As a teenager, I would have loathed being restricted from the internet the way the above poster describes restricting their autistic teenager's.

(in fact, on one occasion my mother did restrict my computer access because I wouldn't go to the guitar lessons she paid for me anymore, I did absolutely loathe it, and I still consider that mildly abusive)

Devices aren't life, but they're part of ones life. Computers/tech are books, pen, paper, mail, the telephone, TV, radio, music - it is culture. It's the vehicle to connect people to all of that. Dehumanizing it won't do much to help people stay connected to humanity.

I'm not saying it's easy, i've had some epic battles with my kids in how they handle/navigate the complex social structures around technology in the palms of their hands - but i certainly don't think taking that away does anything and may be detrimental.

Society is all of us... There isn't a single one of us that didn't stay up all night reading a book, watching a movie, talking on the phone, writing a letter, sending "beeper" texts out, texting on smart beepers, getting on BBSs, connecting to internet, having phones, then text messages and so on and so forth. It's all connectedness and culture we've always had, but now more readily available.

Help your children navigate it, grow in it and thrive in it. Be there to keep it safe.

There's a big difference between reading at night or engaging with culture and the ephemeral content of social media newsfeeds.

Yes, it's important for children to engage with culture, to read, to explore music but this shouldn't be used as an argument to justify everything that can be grouped in under 'connectedness'. It's interesting you put reading there first because that is actually a solitary activity. Today it's arguably much more important to teach kids how to engage with their own minds and how to spend time alone and build out their own personality and views than hooking them into Instagram feeds. Which is not social in any genuine sense of the word.

Screen time for people that create/learn/do is much different than screen time for people that consume consume consume.

With that said, everything should be done in moderation. It's a skill important to know whether your socializing, or spending time alone.

It is the moderation part I al concerned with. Facebook is incentivized to create UX that draws your attention back to the content. The algorithms doesn’t care which content, just that you keep going with it. That kind of vapid interaction is not engaging meaningfully or socially with other people ... instead, it turns people into social media zombies.

The old school online forums were not designed to create such attention. Posts are made asynchronously. Absolute instead of relative timestamps are used.

There are purpose-designed social media software with UX designed to bring people to consensus rather than dissension. They have been used in highly contentious political debates and bring about policy consensus. But you cannot monetize that.

This is the conclusion I'm starting to come to as well. On the one hand there are things they shouldn't be exposed to until they can handle it themselves, but on the other hand they're going to learn stuff through friends or alternate routes of access. I'm not sure how I'm going to teach them how to have a healthy relationship with technology, besides trying to model one myself.

The "real" world also consists of filth in all its myriad forms. Will you be exposing your kids to these experiences, so they can learn to interact with them as well?

These platforms have very little to teach, so it's not like there is useful tradeoff being made in any case. It's simply an often toxic form of entertainment, worse than television imho.

yes? if they don't know that predators exist or what drugs are, that is setting them up for dramatic failure

There's a difference between knowing they exist and hands-on experience at a young age.

Do you think being on Facebook, et al is a proper course in these subjects? How did you learn about them in the days before social media? The idea that corporate surveillance and conditioning is somehow required for growing up is silly and dangerous to the kids themselves.

besides the surveilence part, yes I do. social acceptance is a huge part of being a teen, no matter the social circle.

I was on irc throughout my early teens.

IRC in the old days is only tangentially analogous to today's sophisticated addiction services.

I suggest watching the Social Dillema on Netflix for an idea. Here's a decent article I recently read on the subject, though there are probably better ones: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lonely-burden-of-todays-tee...

Perhaps my argument is not clear enough, but it feels like we are not arguing the same point. I have no problem with technology, simply that kids should not be the product. There are plenty of higher-quality alternatives, just like there are alternatives to broadcast television and McDonalds.

There is a massive difference between the absurdist reduction you are proposing and what I am saying could be argued:

Everyone uses the internet.

To use a fairly broad brush and a potentially overdramatic example, starving an extrovert of contact with others is tantamount to torture. I know introverts don't understand this on a fundamental level, but the only times I've ever even vaguely considered harming myself are when I was in forced isolation for long periods of time.

To know that there are opportunities to socialize and grow my friendships, and those opportunities are being intentionally and needlessly withheld from me as some kind of "character growth" would evoke a kind of primal rage that would have caused me permanent harm as a child.

I'm extremely grateful my parents saw the value of learning how to build and maintain relationships, and I wouldn't dream of taking that away from my children, or any other children I somehow had supervision over.

Quarantine aside, online relationships are no substitute for those in-person.

I'm 45 years old, my parents asked the same things about me.. the screen wasn't necessarily a pocket companion at the time - but it was computers, consoles and hand-held devices and all the stuff around them.

At first, they fought me... and it was a dumb battle for battles sake. My parents never bothered to understand anything I did and generally just gave up and let me do whatever...

Turns out, they were in the midsts of a relationship failure and there was no time for the kids, so they let me have at the computer...

BUT... It worked :) I taught myself programming, operating systems, I ran a BBS that was the first BBS in texas to offer Linux downloads, I got published in books/magazines/journals talking/writing about OS/2, Linux and DESQview.

In the end, I never went to school, my parents relationship was still crap but I made friends, found my wife and still work online to this day..

My kids are 13 and 17 and its new battles... but i just think back and remember where I started - I try and fill in the gaps of just "Caring" in general and just "wanting a relationship" with my kids in general - and i do that in lieu of trying to prohibit something that is already pervasive in their lives.

Yes, I run firewalls, safety, anti-virus, family-safety, yes there are some things blocked - yes their phones have family safety too but mostly to do what I can to protect them from maliciousness.

The last battle any parent can or should fight is the battles of pop culture, society and social interactions... espeially a year+ into a pandemic.

we had to re-think the whole grounding from devices during pandemic because that was suicide to a teen... and in doing so - it sparked conversations we weren't having and made me realize i was just following in the same ignorant foot steps as my parents.

Kids will get burner devices if they're grounded, they will jailbreak/root phones/devices to bypass controls, they will buy sims at 7/11 to get around time/restrictions - they may find a drawer of old devices and keep one alive for tethering and many other things - lock down their PC? they will install bluestacks and have unlimited android environment...

It's crazy

But damn, if they're doing all that effort and learning/collaborating on all that - they're getting skills that i find many adults still lack

> Kids will get burner devices if they're grounded, they will jailbreak/root phones/devices to bypass controls, they will buy sims at 7/11 to get around time/restrictions - they may find a drawer of old devices and keep one alive for tethering and many other things - lock down their PC? they will install bluestacks and have unlimited android environment...

This brought to mind: Years ago when I was a teen, my mom grounded me and took my desktop away for quite a while, which was like a death sentence even back then. Given that it was an oversized cube case and there really wasn't anywhere to lock it away, I would always just grab it after school and keep using it until she got home. Problem is, she put the computer next to the door so I had to resort to locking the second lock to give myself time to put it back when she got home. I didn't think about it at the time but I. was being blatantly obvious and she clued me in years later that she knew what I was doing from the beginning.

Punishments don't have to be all or nothing, they can be like locks: they won't stop the determined, but they will stop the opportunists. The punishment is the inconvenience of the workaround and often has the added benefit that enforcement requires spending more time with them. </parenting "advice" from a coddled nonparent>

> we had to re-think the whole grounding from devices during pandemic because that was suicide to a teen.

Parents who impose "grounding" on children tend to impose sanctions that last far too long. Children have a poorly developed pre-frontal cortex so very short groundings (ten minutes, an hour for most severe things) is more effective that longer groundings.

I played Zak Mackraken on my C64 for 18 hours in a row until it crashed and I could not restore my save... I started over.

I was 10 back then. Both my parents were in academia and wouldn't just let me play all the time, but at some point they gave up.

Later, I played Civilization for so many hours and through the night that once I fell asleep my dreams were filled with hexagons.

Then there was Tetris. Oh, and, Wolfenstein, and the all legendary Age of Empires!

And, here I am, 25 years later, and I am doing just fine. I am healthy, mentally stable and don't care about any computer game no more (ok, I am addicted to HN but that's a different story...).

As a parent, those always present computing devices have been a problem. Instead of doing a variety of different things... many of which build life skills... my kids want to just stare at rectangle screens.

I now wonder what society will look like in 20-30 years.

By life skills I mean things like creativity, being able to work out things on their own, in person interpersonal skills, grit, etc.

We used to stare at square radioactive flickering screens all the time, and they were completely passive which can't be good for child development either.

I too share some concerns as a parent of 1 and expecting 2nd soon, but I don't mind accepting that I have no clue what kind of world our kids will live in. I might be out of touch with it in similar way current old generations are from phones and internet. It could also be that shielding kids from it at all costs because we think we know what's best for them might be a significant harm for them later in life.

Some things will disappear, some will get different and/or better, and new ones will come. Fine by me. I just wish it wasn't Facebook, a company with crystal clear amoral values through and through. Anytime Facebook wins, mankind loses in long term. But that might be just me getting already out of touch with current reality out there.

If ever present computing devices were gone, I think we'd be looking at the on-demand content from providers and the streaming services as the great ruiner of children. At least when I was growing up, you could actually run out of content on the idiot box. Your show wasn't on and you didn't have enough channels to find something else.

We'll see how this plays out, though. I think some aspects are constructive. The growing content creation community seems to be a Good Thing. The even faster growing content creation consumption community, doesn't seem to be. Personally speaking, I've found myself at an expert at a ton of things, but haven't actually done any of those things.

Leaving aside the quarantine means leaving aside the single most important factor in the last two years.

And an entirely irrelevant factor for the future, which therefore should be left aside.

This past year might have felt breezy if you're in your sixties, or bearable if you're in your thirties - but if you're in your teens or younger you've been deprived of a lot of social development time and there will be long term damage from this.

Additionally - I don't know if it really is an irrelevant factor for the future. This is a flu variant that could continue to mutate and cause havoc if governments act irresponsibly or if a particularly large segment of the population continues to resist vaccination and mask wearing while being egged on by idiots on TV. Lastly, global habitat destruction increases the chances we discover fun new world ending diseases, hopefully we won't see another one for decades, but it's unlikely that we'll be spared another global pandemic for the next 100 years.

It is for this reason I consider “zoomers” as an appropriate label for the Gen Z kids.

But here is something else I also know: the modern way in which kids develop through the teenage years is already screwed up, even without the internet, smart phones, and social media. It seems normal now because it is normative.

> but if you're in your teens or younger you've been deprived of a lot of social development time and there will be long term damage from this.

Exactly. So let's not make it worse by making children communicate through devices without even a flimsy justification.

who says its irrelevant for the future? some experts are saying the quarantine is going to be semi permanent in some form or another.

Not a chance. That is fascist and evil to deprive people of social interaction by government decree.

Yes, epidemiologists. Who tend to focus way too much on preventing infectious diseases, just like policepeople tend to focus way too much on public order, security experts tend to focus way too much on security, etc.

My personal anecdote. I'm still very good friends with all of my friends from high school and college and it is almost entirely due to the ability to constantly group message. We all talk almost every day and I've since lost contact with most friends not included in the 3 group chats I have. We're all in our mid 20's now so getting together is more difficult but since we talk so often it drives us to hang out in person more. In the absence of constant communication we would probably all drift apart and rarely if ever hang out in person. There's a big difference between generic public social media interaction and smaller more intimate direct messaging and group chats. It's definitely different for kids cause they are forced to spend all day together in school but I think there is immense value for adults.

Phones are like drugs and sex... kids are going to use them, and trying to ban them outright will often lead to destructive behaviors. The effective approach is to teach them boundaries, enforce those boundaries, and let them experiment within those boundaries.

My kid does not use M:K as a "constant companion". It's on his ipad (e.g. his tv), and it's a way for his extended family to be able to reach out to him directly. He actually uses it more like email. Maybe engages with his messages once a day. Doesn't sit and "chat" on it like an adult would.

I spent a large portion of my teenage years chatting with strangers on IRC. As much as 12 hours at a time, I would stay up through the night talking with groups in channels I frequented.

I'm not sure if this is good or bad for my personal development. Though it did jumpstart my education in computer science and career as a software engineer.

The only thing I can think of that sucks is kids feeling left out when all their friends have iPhones.

They also prevent children from deleting messages.

Messenger kids has been great for my family, especially the times when we've had to self isolate and couldn't meet friends outside.

You must have hated when kids got cell phones.

My wife and I tried letting our teenager have her own cell phone, and that informed a lot of what I saw. We eventually found a locked down phone purpose-designed for kids, but I have no problem with getting a landline if it continues being an issue. (The issue with my kid and phones is not what we were discussing; she is on the autism spectrum, and so it is not quite the same; I have no idea yet what I will do with my neuraltypical son when he grows into a teenager)

Are you guys also on the autistic spectrum too because that is no way to raise kids. When they leave the carefully curated and filtered walled garden that you've created for them and enter the real work at 18 or so, they are going to be hit like a truck. In college its always the kids whose parents were the strictest that act out or become alcoholics when the finally get a taste of freedom. You cannot do everything for them, it is better now for them to experience more of the world/ internet when you still can influence them/ they have a high opinion of you rather than ten years down the line when they feel betrayed or whatnot by you and don't want to speak.

Yeah, GP is cutting their kids off from society. We aren't living in the 60s anymore, much of the infrastructure for growth and development at that age does not exist outside the internet. Just look at libraries, social clubs, etc... They're all replaced.

I was trying to comment on parent comment and some others but it hurts. “Going to be hit like a truck” — it involves luck for that line to remain figurative.

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