Babies need humans, not screens | Hacker News Reader

Babies need humans, not screens

unicef.org

49 pointsmelenaboija17 comments

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This is incredibly light on real resources and data, and very heavy on over the top language.

I'm willing to believe that screen time should be limited - but this is hardly a compelling piece.

Come back with real data, and the ACTUAL studies/methodologies and maybe it would be worth reading.

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Here - I'll do the work for them, since they don't seem to really be interested in a real discussion:

The first quoted Doctor is Patricia Kuhl - The quote "What we’ve discovered is that little babies, under a year old, do not learn from a machine"

Yet when you look through her recent published work - I see an entirely different and more nuanced view:

Ex - http://ilabs.uw.edu/sites/default/files/2019_kuhl_lim_etal_d...

A recently published book advocating for digital learning. Including the use of many screen based digital tools.

Or http://ilabs.uw.edu/sites/default/files/2018_lytle_garcia-si...

Which states that infants don't learn well from a screen alone, but do much better when another peer is present - DRASTICALLY different than "infants don't learn from screens".

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So my take from this: Babies don't learn communication/language skills well from screens in isolation. This is insightful and helpful, but an entirely different message than what's conveyed in the published piece.

It seems the screen is fine - Just the screen by itself is not.

I vividly recall a world before the Internet, and in the USA California, low-education mothers would give their infant children potato chips, sugar drinks and other low quality food. Of course the mothers with education in nutrition were very aware of fruits and vegetables. It is darkly humorous now that the highly-educated parents are thrusting computers and phones at their infants. A different realm but also foolish.

edit- while writing this comment, another highly educated person is defending the screens-for-children, while calling criticism of it with the same word I used. I am absolutely decided that screen time is destructive for children under a certain stage of development.

I think you've got it backwards on the class difference? The "screen time" opposition seems more trendy in the social elite.

I've found even the poor food diet tendency is very mixed. While some poorer groups tend to rely highly on cheap sodas and snacks, a lot of upper class folks I know did the same thing. They just started it a bit later-- but a 7 year old having free access to sugary drinks and high fat snacks is still at a huge risk. Conversely some groups in the poorer classes are highly against that-- I can mostly speak to the Indians in my community where the older generation has an attitude the "home food is the best food, fast food is garbage". Some of my more well to do friends would eat cheap fast food happily, while I grew up with it being a special treat sort of thing. Even then it was treated like it had no nutrition and I was told by my parents to eat home made food soon after because fast food couldn't be nourishing(though I lost this when I moved in alone in college, I wish I still thought like that). Point being I think a lot of this falls more along lines of thinking than class. The same way some in this comment section consider giving kids tablets to be an issue, while other consider it a good thing

I believe a good brain benefits from less stimulation and periods of downtime where one can think of a problem peacefully.

When studying diseases of the brain, there are some dementia cases where a good approach is to modify the environment to be very simple and minimalist so that the brain stays focused and keeps a grip on reality. There is no reason to think that this doesn't also help healthy people.

Linus Torvalds famously works from an empty room with light green walls and a nearly silent computer to enhance his focus. I do similar.

I sometimes see people who are known to be scatterbrained and their work environments are obnoxiously overstimulating. I think to myself, "It is no wonder such a person struggles to grasp difficult concepts and repeatedly fails in their code. The work environment is basically a barrier to their ability to focus."

All of this is to say -- do not overstimulate children. Do not introduce them to low quality content that will rot their brain.

I read this it is foolish. In the real world few people have the time of their own to devote that much time to a child - unless an only child and she has the resources to deal with the house, child 2, child 3, gather food, work at home - laundry etc. I feel screen time can be a valuable adjunct to raising a child. By screen, I mean an active screen that might show the passing scene on the street at times, and interactive education, and interactive play, the mother father at work and so on. All these can be valued adjuncts to human interaction to avoid a child being left alone while not wanting to sleep just yet. A kid awake and alone is in a sort of pleasant jail - boring, which should be avoided.

No, boredom should very much NOT be avoided, it is essential, even for grown ups.

Constant stimulation is a net negative.

I'm curious as to the reasoning here. I've heard that advice before but never the why of it.

Constant dopamine novelty seeking. At least broadcast TV would get boring. What defines our age is how it’s algorithmically seeking your attention, be it through likes or swipes, the system knows what is novelty to you and will turn it into a feedback loop. The same is valid for content creators who try to adapt to whatever trend is going on. This is how we got to Elsagate, it wasn’t some Pizzagate conspiracy (well mostly) it was an algorithmic dance between consumers and producers creating ever more despicable productions for children (similar to what happens in free porn).

PS sorry for the rant

Yes, a little boredom helps flights of fancy, too much is bad for some kids

You clearly haven’t had to deal with bored kids.

I have. Your responsibility as an adult is to have greater patience and self-control than your child. Nobody said this was going to be easy, did they?

The life of a parent is full of inconveniences for the good of your children.

When I was a kid, and came to my mom with the "I'm bored" complaint I was told to go outside and find something to do.

That is irrelevant to whether it’s good or bad for the development of the kids though.

Patience, as most virtues, are like muscles that must be trained and maintained.

> In the real world few people have the time of their own to devote that much time to a child

The world is why we make of it. Maybe we should collectively find a way to spend more time with other people, rather than being “too busy”.

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