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Comment by zaptheimpaler | Hacker News Reader

it sounds like the author confronting their own inferiority complex.. "techies" are somehow the smartest people in the room, but also they actually aren't and are full of hubris.

i dont get this weird journalist hate fest about "techies" as if average software engineers call the shots on what their employers do either. its such a well orchestrated distraction. the average engineers job is to execute, not to decide what to build. just like every other industry, a few people at the top call the shots on what to do, the rest of us are executing or making tiny decisions on how to do it. me and Mark Zuckerberg are both "techies"... no difference right?

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I agree. Something about the tone of this article felt fundamentally dishonest (perhaps an edu-tech puff piece) and too keen to prove a point about a whole class of people using vague allusions.

> "technologists know how phones really work, and many have decided they don’t want their own children anywhere near them"

I do. And I have. Although I speak for only one technologist.

> "These articles assume that techies have access to secret wisdom about the harmful effects of technology on children."

Some of us do because we _design_ it, and under conditions of NDA. Only recently leaks of emails proved this precise point. Many more of us have "not-secret" wisdom as we proudly publish scientific papers about it. Moral judgements aside, we know what this stuff does. But the author attempts to insinuate the language of conspiracy.

> "Based on two decades of living among, working with, and researching Silicon Valley technology employees, I can confidently assert that this secret knowledge does not exist."

Then either the author has not been living, working and researching very well, or his confidence is misplaced.

> I do. And I have. Although I speak for only one technologist.

Same here. I'm a programmer, and my goal is to delay phones for my kids until the last possible hour.

My kids spend time drawing, doing sports, reading books, swimming, playing with friends and animals.

Phones and devices are like digital crack for kids, and they prefer to keep hitting that lever over any of these other activities when the option is there.

very interesting. For my kid (4 years old) I made sure to only install app that are not "crack". Not all apps are bad (I agree 95% of them are).

You can just look at "https://marbotic.com/" for example, it's not worse than having your kid play scrabble or chess.

If somehow you kid get addicted to it then after they played all the level they will be able to read write and do math at the 3rd grade level :)

What age have they reached without tech and what's your best case scenario looking like?

They're not being raised without tech at all, they just don't have their own devices, or any open access to one.

Their screen time is limited to a small amount of passive consumption per week (2 * 1/2hr episodes on Netflix per week, or a movie), and engaged or creative use of a tablet for about 2h/week. Lately that's been drawing tutorials on youtube, duolingo, wordle.

We're pushing off allowing them to have their own phones for as long as possible. We're friends with a lot of families with the same approach, but also a lot of friends of my older (10yo) kid do have phones already. At some point it will be very difficult when they start getting left out of the party (so to speak).

My best case scenario is that the extra time this frees up will give them the space in their lives to grow talents and health that they wouldn't otherwise. I'm much happier to see my sons getting really good at pencil drawing and playing soccer than having a social media profile or being good at some video game. I feel having a really healthy body and some old school analogue skills like drawing will carry them further than whatever general digital distractions have to offer.

Thanks, this is very interesting for a soon-to-be parent.

We're taking a different approach, where we teach limits on tech. TV is not inherently bad if the right content is played for the right amount of time. Phones are not inherently bad if used for the right activity for the right amount of time. Evening gaming is not inherently bad, if used for the right amount of time.

Yeah, we don't want to raise a phone zombie. But I believe you can do that without totally shielding them from tech.

edit: a word

> "technologists know how phones really work, and many have decided they don’t want their own children anywhere near them"

Exactly. Is there any actual data showing software engineers and the like are less likely to have phones or tablets for their kids?

My guess is that it's the opposite, but that would undermine the author's point.

In my anecdotal experience the difference has been strongly tied to socioeconomic factors. And the first study I was able to find [1] on this topic confirmed this is the major factor. See page 18.

There's an extremely strong inverse correlation between education/income and how long people allow their children to use screen media devices. Low income, low education = high screen media time with a sharply increasing trend. High income, high education = low screen media time with a mostly flat trend. This is also happening at the same time that low income families are also having a declining rate of home access to laptop/desktops.

Suffice to say that if it turns out that screen media is indeed detrimental to the development of children then we're basically ensuring that the socioeconomic divide is going to turn into a chasm.

[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20211230141505/https://www.commo... (This study for some reason has been removed from their site, and so I am linking to the archive.)

> if it turns out that screen media is indeed detrimental to the development of children then we're basically ensuring that the socioeconomic divide is going to turn into a chasm

Depends on what's the alternative for all that screen time. If these parents could substitute screen time with healthy family / healthy / educational activity, then sure, media time is making things worse. I'm pretty convinced that the extra presence of screen time at the lower socioeconomic scale is a consequence of parents' lack of time, education and resources to provide that kind of alternative. So, the actual alternatives to screen time might likely be worse (inattention, boredom, early exposure to adult world, etc).

You're assuming things like boredom are not only bad, but worse than endless entertainment. I'd claim that necessity is to invention as boredom is to creativity.

> necessity is to invention as boredom is to creativity.

Well said.

We have a no B-word rule in our house.

"Boredom" is a cultural malaise. Neither my partner nor I ever use the word. Until age 5 my kid never had the concept of "being bored". But after starting school she started coming home, huffing and shrugging like a teenager and saying "that's boring!".

She gets sent to her room to "find something interesting to think about", and 30 seconds later she's happily playing a dolls game or shooting her bow and arrows at the wardrobe.

To take a Wittgensteinian approach - words "stand in" as templates for as yet unformed concepts - young children use words with no understanding of their adult meaning, so they'll say, "that's gay", or "that's spazzy", (or whatever word they picked up in the playground) which means something like "I want be in control, and so I reject whatever it is you think I want". In 2022 "boring" is the worst accusation that can be levelled against anything.

It's adults who create and propagate the conceit of "boredom". How could anybody actually be bored in this world, with all the marvels and freedom we have?!

What adults mean is something different; "Don't leave me alone with myself, exposed to the existential chasm in my soul, and my abject learned helplessness".

> What adults mean is something different; "Don't leave me alone with myself, exposed to the existential chasm in my soul, and my abject learned helplessness".

I've come to accept and adopt my late father's idea about the purpose of portable music players, which he formulated shortly after the Sony Walkman had got competition from other brands of cassette players, and which now, after an (in retrospect rather short) interlude of dedicated MP3 players, applies to the music player apps in smartphones:

That's why everybody[1] nowadays walks around constantly marinating their brains in a drizzle of background music[2]: To drown out their own thoughts -- or to cover the lack thereof.

___

[1]: i.e. more or less "everybody", at the time of writing, under the age of... Idunno, ~50?

[2]: Or muzak, as Dad may have put it.

> I'd claim that necessity is to invention as boredom is to creativity.

This is a good point, but I would say that while one is fairly necessary for the other, it is far from sufficient. In the kind of context we were describing, it's certainly possible for people to pursue creative endeavors, but in most cases not in a way that opens up many avenues to break out of that environment.

> > we're basically ensuring that the socioeconomic divide is going to turn into a chasm

Yes I think that positive feedback cycle is already well established.

> Depends on what's the alternative for all that screen time. I'm pretty convinced that the extra presence of screen time at the lower socioeconomic scale is a consequence of parents' lack of time,

What is "lack of time"? A careless reader would assume you meant they are busy working [1]. No. The parents are on their phones. From birth all these kids see is mum's face lit from below with a blue light.

To start with, the kids try to break through neglect and inattention by calling "mum" mum!" and trying ever more naughty things to get attention. Eventually they are given a phone of their own (aged 2 is the youngest I have seen) as a pacifier. The parents give their kids the same digital drugs to be free of their "disruption" so they can indulge their own addictions.

> So, the actual alternatives to screen time might likely be worse .... early exposure to adult world

I know what you meant (sex, violence, alcohol...), but the stark reality is that the "adult world" is staring into a 6 inch screen for 12 hours. Adults don't have time for anything else nowadays. These pacifiers work for all ages. It's natural that children want to copy what they see adults doing.

[1] It's actually when the parents are working that these digital orphans get better childcare, as they're usually at school or with an adult caregiver who has them in mind.

> What is "lack of time"? A careless reader would assume you meant they are busy working [1]. No. The parents are on their phones. From birth all these kids see is mum's face lit from below with a blue light.

Sure, that may exist. But your generalisation is so sweeping as to be in effect just a slur against the poor.

> I know what you meant (sex, violence, alcohol...), but the stark reality is that the "adult world" is staring into a 6 inch screen for 12 hours. Adults don't have time for anything else nowadays. These pacifiers work for all ages.

Ah, OK, so it's a slur against everybody? I suppose that's better... Somehow.

Or are you still talking mainly about the less-well-off? Then my point above remains.

I agree that high SES parents tend to better regulate screen time. I don’t think that’s the same thing as banning phones/tablets/video games generally, though.

The cultural meme is, “these techies don’t give their kids phones or other tech, period,” which I think is unlikely to be a widespread phenomenon. I mean sure, some techie parents do that, no doubt, but I’m guessing it’s far from the majority.

"it sounds like the author confronting their own inferiority complex."

CONTRIBUTORS

Morgan G. Ames

Morgan G. Ames's book, The Charisma Machine: The Life, Death, and Legacy of One Laptop per Child (MIT Press, 2019), chronicles the history and effects of the One Laptop per Child project and explains why - despite its failures - the same utopian visions that inspired OLPC still motivate other projects trying to use technology to "disrupt" education and development. Ames is on the faculty of the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley.

https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/about/profiles/morgan-ames

Martin Heidegger’s The Question Concerning Technology is relevant here.

I do not disagree with you, but Heidegger makes some very important points about how “just executing” does not imply guilt but it does not imply innocence either. It’s complicated.

https://philtech.michaelreno.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/...

The author has a CS degree from Berkeley herself, so I'm not sure what exactly she's supposed to feel "inferior" about.

"i dont get this weird journalist hate fest about "techies" "

Then you are likely part of the problem. :)

Tech destroyed journalism's ad-driven revenue model over a decade ago, and their attitude since then has been a mixture of inferiority complex and white-hot rage and contempt.

Also, hearing "learn to code" on Twitter pissed them off.

TBF, "learn to code" pisses me off too, and I've already done it.

I hear it at every code review

Thanks for the laugh :)

Why’s it piss you off?

Because it's like telling a poor person "just don't be poor", or a depressed person "just lighten up". Coding simply does not come easy to large swaths of the population, one has to respect that fact and don't assume we're all neurologically wired to talk to machines all day.

Also, people might well be better suited to very different activities. Would we be richer, as a society, if Van Gogh had decided to drop this "paintings" business and start a boring but profitable civil-servant career instead?

Last but not least, the value of each individual programmer, in a capitalistic society, inevitably decreases as the labor pool increases, with obvious consequences in the long run for the profitability of the profession. Car mechanics used to be respected and expensive professionals too.

Do you have a better idea for how society should determine where to direct society’s resources other than using prices?

Prices and movements in prices indicate where supply is needed (or not needed). I have not yet seen a better mechanism.

It’s funny because the truly wealthy and powerful seem to rely more on favors and intangible relationships, not by putting a price tag on things. Indeed, we see money as a corrupting influence

So you are satisfied with a world wherein if the price the market puts on your labor is too low to ensure your survival, you are chaff?

That is not what I wrote. I asked what the better alternative is. Simply complaining makes for uninteresting conversation.

I am not opposed to a universal basic income, given that all other subsidies are ceased.

How would society increase the number of surgeons, who require a decade of intense study and risk to become one? How would society incentivize people to live 2 hours from the nearest hospital in order to farm the land and create food for the country? What would society have to do to incentivize people to work jobs where they have to commute somewhere to work, or many places for work, rather than work from their own home?

It's entirely driven by spite and class warfare.

Elite politicians and journalists were the first to happily bark "learn to code" at freshly-unemployed blue collar workers with all of the apparent condescension you described.

Others flinging the phrase back at later-unemployed journalists are merely returning proverbial fire, with subsequent Twitter bans meted out by those that can't take what they dish out.

"Learn To Code" was aimed at journalists after they published some derisive business at blue-collar workers, that laid off coal miners should "learn to code."

Having it thrown back in their face is what irritates them.

> Also, hearing "learn to code" on Twitter pissed them off.

IIRC, the phrase "learn to code" was either coined or quickly co-opted by right-wing trolls to use to taunt journalists and others.

Not really right wing trolls.

It was in response to them telling other the same thing. It was never pointed at the blue collar people who lost their jobs, but instead pointed at elite people who had no compassion for those that had the world they grew up working in, being ripped from them.

Oddly I see this as a "for the worker" phrase. Don't tell my 60 year old welder dad that just lost his 40 year job, that he should learn to code, and get a better job. Empathise with him, and come up with real plans.

It was used to taunt journalists, and others who spouted the platitude.

> Not really right wing trolls.

It was right wing trolls: /pol/ was involved [1].

> It was in response to them telling other the same thing. It was never pointed at the blue collar people who lost their jobs, but instead pointed at elite people who had no compassion for those that had the world they grew up working in, being ripped from them....

> It was used to taunt journalists, and others who spouted the platitude.

No it wasn't. It was used to taunt journalists generally [1]. Your justification, frankly, is just bullshit meant to help justify acting like an asshole. The most charitable interpretation requires the taunters relying on sloppy stereotypes akin to someone who generalizes that all black people are criminals based on seeing one black guy mug someone. Except in this case, the taunters didn't even see someone get mugged, they just misinterpreted someone loaning someone some money. Look at the origin timeline: it was Mark Zuckerberg and Michael Bloomberg who were being condescending and aloof, and the journalists where just investigated the questions that condescension raised (e.g. Mike Bloomberg says they're not capable, but he's wrong).

That was confirmed to me the last time someone tried to justify this taunting, and the only "example" they could provide of the supposed condescension of journalists was a sympathetic profile of some coal miners who did, in fact, learn to code, which the taunter-apologist thoroughly misinterpreted through their bias.

[1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/learn-to-code

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