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Comment by prepend | Hacker News Reader

What’s the average screen time of these five year olds?

Intuitively, this seems like a simple result of over screening because kids don’t behave like devices.

Every time I go to a family restaurant, I see a tiny kid (frequently too young to even speak) sitting with a phone or iPad watching and maybe swiping away. And usually I experience a tantrum when that kid has to break away from their screen to do something in the real world.

If young kids spend more time with youtube than friends, that’s going to result in lots of stuff.

Fun fact, if you ever bring up how screens are bad for little kids you will fight with parents.

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Your intuition doesn't really mean much, and it's super easy to finger wag at parents who don't raise their kids the way you think they should. Even easier if you don't have kids of your own. Judging parents is much easier than actually raising children.

Our 4 year old (now 5) was depressed and anxious for months during lockdowns. Why wouldn't she be? People aren't meant to be cooped up together all day like that, and she needed space from us as much as we did from her. Space we couldn't really give her in our tiny home.

By the time she went back to school she'd been home, away from almost all other kids except her baby sister, for like 8 months. That's basically forever in 4-year-old time.

As to screentime, you don't know anything about those other "parents". If I let my daughter play educational games for 20 minutes so my wife and I can actually have a conversation over dinner, what's the problem with that?

> Judging parents is much easier than actually raising children.

I have seen this line used often. However, from an anti-natalist perspective, actually raising children is a mistake. Therefore, no one should actually expected to actually raise children, and simply judging those who do without that firsthand experience is perfectly reasonable.

I'm not sure why you think the thread stemmed from an anti-natalist perspective.

Even then, raising children is not what anti-natalism condemns. It's bringing children to life. It's not reasonable to condemn a care giver who didn't beget the child (and it's usually impossible to know whether they did).

I think my intuition means quite a bit as young kids use a lot of screen time.

I’m not sure why discussing facts wild count as finger wagging. I’ve patented and continue to parent a bunch of kids and understand how hard it is, although everyone’s experience is different.

The scientific literature is pretty settled that even “educational” games are counterproductive. [0] The American Academy of Pediatricians discourages all screentime, except for video chat, for kids under two years.

The problems with me, or you, giving a screen for twenty minutes is called out in the article I linked.

It’s not the end of the world, but it’s a negative contributor to many factors including obesity, anxiety, sleepnessless, violence.

It’s also funny that you assume I and others aren’t parents and can somehow know my situation.

I’m not criticizing you and I’m sure you and your wife deserve to have a conversation. I was just bringing up how the study should have looked at confounding variables like screen usage that could partially explain what’s going on.

[0] https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/childrens-healt...

> I think my intuition means quite a bit

This is just as meaningless.

> This is just as meaningless.

...as your own screed above.

Home schooler here: our children have way more 'screen time' at home than the norm, I would guess. There's plenty of time left over for school work, board games, exercise, socialising, cooking, etc. No tantrums, no panic attacks.

I doubt that 'screen time' is a thing any more than 'page time' would have been a thing a century ago. I suspect it's an issue to do with mainstream schooling/parenting but I'm not sure what exactly. Maybe because computers aren't used much in schools? If you think about it many adults have 8 hours screen time per day, and what is education supposed to be if not preparation for life?

Screens or not, people are isolated in COVID times. Even hardened criminals go mad in isolation. Children are way more sensitive than that.

> Every time I go to a family restaurant, I see a tiny kid (frequently too young to even speak) sitting with a phone or iPad watching and maybe swiping away. And usually I experience a tantrum when that kid has to break away from their screen to do something in the real world.

I've seen this too, but often from overworked single mom or people in a difficult financial situation. I think people already did this before by putting kids in front of the TV.

I agree and I’m not passing judgement on the parents, more of remarking on what’s occurring and that it contributes to negative outcomes.

It’s hard being a parent and dealing with the stresses it brings. Although I think that I and most of my social circles are pretty well off and we plugged our kids in front of iPads.

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