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Comment by shp0ngle | Hacker News Reader

I don’t know if I will.

I was a computer addicted kid since I was about 8, when parents bought me a computer in 1995. When faster internet came, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I was on the internet nonstop. And later on social media - LiveJournal, Blogger, Flickr, YouTube, but also some local servers that people here won’t know.

I don’t think it hurt me that much? Now I am a developer and making more money than most of my friends from that time, that were not sitting all day on computer.

So… it would be kind of hypocritical from me to restrict my kids doing the same? I don’t know

My kids are still too young to understand computers though (1 and 3). So let’s see

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I largely agree with you.

Its interesting to see what I believe to be a generational divide in these comments.

I'm 28. My parents limited my internet and gaming time when I was younger and it mostly just caused resentment and anger at what I believed to be their controlling behaviour. I couldn't wait to move out. When I did move out in University the freedom I spent too much time on the things I wasn't allowed to do before and my grades suffered for it.

I think a lot of comments here have very draconian policies that aren't going to work out the way the parents intended it. I think the harder and more desirable way is to somehow teach them to manage their own time but I have no idea how.

My life path, including our ages +/- a year, is exactly what the person you're responding to described. I think the "screens are demons" approach to the screens of the 90s would indeed have been overkill and even counterproductive. However, I think (many/most of) the screens of today are nothing like back then.

A while back I saw a ~5 year old watch the entirety of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5dUzc476Ws (pick any random 10 seconds to get the idea)

My spouse and I discussed it later in private, and we were both horrified. In the moment we had both had visceral little gasp reactions to how bad it was. We were until then only aware of a problem to the extent of "my kids are staring at screens all day", which does of course sound like 90s parents. The real problem is that some significant portion of those screens are now putting out absolutely horrifying cognition poison.

You can’t compare writing blogs or early YouTube to current trends: short videos, addictive productions, irrelevant contents, etc.

My son has a friend who can watch YouTube and Tiktok for hours without supervision. When he comes home I freak out: he gets bored watching a movie, music videoclips are too long, and if you try to read a short story at bedtime he doesn’t even listen to you.

It’s not about using computers and participating in online communities but undermining their attention, vocabulary, etc.

How is your own attention span? I've watched old cartoon movies from the 80s and find them dull and boring but I remember them being my favorite at the time.

I also have this other observation. If you really get into classical music, jazz and to some extent blues/bluegrass... modern pop songs just sound like crap and boring.

> If you really get into classical music, jazz and to some extent blues/bluegrass... modern pop songs just sound like crap and boring.

I feel this might be a 'look at me I'm so smart thing'. I've enjoyed classical music and jazz and blues/bluegrass, and partake in playing all of those. I also enjoy pop music. There's nothing inherently bad about pop music. Like jazz and classical, it's based on a simple circle of fifths progression. In fact, most modern pop is more harmonically and rhythmically complex than classical music.

My point was about novelty and simulation capturing attention. I find Pop music tends to be less complex and repetitive which is boring. Especially if listened to say bluegrass and then pop back to back.

repetition is a fundamental part of good music.

Is it though?

Similar background here. I’ve been Very Online for 25+ years and have made a pretty good life for myself as a result.

However, the modern internet and current trend is much more consumption based and non-technical than it used to be. Toxic content, communities, and celebrities were always around (and always will be) but with so much more overall volume you can easily become encased in a bubble of negativity and hate.

I would curate and limit access for children into their teenage years, say 14 or 15. After that I’d just want to know what they’re generally up to so I could step in if, for instance, I had a son who started following Andrew Tate.

I'm absolutely convinced that this is not the same internet now and that kids have to deal with a lot more challenges. Everything is actively built to be addictive and to fragment your attention. There are big players who don't want you off the internet. The content itself has also changed and there is a lot more false information that is indistinguishable from the "good"

You can't compare your own childhood to this, I don't think we even get it. You have to set limits both on time and content.

I feel like content and internet use was wildly different back then. I did the same thing in that timeframe with a similar result. But I was constantly constructive with what I did. Not because I was a workaholic, I was just really curious and interested in everything.

Linux? Cool let's install and play around for a while. How many fun logos can I make in GIMP for my cheesy geocities site? Oh half-life comes with a level builder, let's build some levels!

As time goes on, I end up exploring less and less and now just absorb media when I'm not working. And it's not even fun or satisfying, but the dopamine hit is easy. It could be just partially growing up and having real responsibility and a full time job, but I feel the content delivery bears some of the blame.

Indeed, the modern day web is closer to what TV was back in the late 1990s or early 2000s than the web of that era. Except more tailored to you, so probably more addicting than the television.

I'm not sure if you could re-create the early web experience. It might be possible with a VERY highly curated twitter feed, but it would still be challenging, as the medium doesn't promote the same type of long term engagement as the older style PhpBB forums did.

We are roughly the same age, and I firmly believe the internet we grew up with is not the internet we have today. I don’t think you can use our childhood as a reference point for how to raise kids nowadays.

Strongly agree, the internet I grew up with taught me how to code, run my own networks, how to build websites and provision servers without being a constant distraction. That's the internet that gave me my career.

Also I was able to books without poisonous addictive social media apps and YouTube distracting me at every instance. I doubt I've really learned much or anything from social media. In fact I'd say it's highly one sided relationship where I'm the loser.

This is a different internet than the one we had, is my own apprehension.

I've been addicted to the internet since 2010. I learned a lot and became a developer because of modding communities and general PC building. I've also wasted a lot of time on reddit and youtube. Can't say anything productive has come out of my time on the phone or consoles though.

It makes me wonder how the shift towards mobile and consoles will affect how useful internet addictions can be. I would have never become a developer if I remained a console or mobile gamer.

The communities that I was in are still around but I'm unsure whether young people will actually find them. Why learn how to mod games when you can scroll tiktok, browse reddit, and watch youtube for the entire day.

especially games, modern games aren't as supportive to modders than older games - it's more profitable to not provide modding tools and just to run any multiplayer servers officially with microtransactions.

I wonder if we should tolerate hypocrisy a little more? I always liked this section from "the diamond age" https://www.likevillepodcast.com/articles/2020/8/14/our-obse...

I think things have become MUCH more addictive as monetization and engagement have evolved.

In the your era there just weren't the sort of a/b tested hooks to get you in, behavioral techniques to keep you engaged and dark patterns to prevent you from leaving.

gotta watch out for your kids. Get them outside, with fresh air and exercise.

I was addicted to computers when I found them in middle school. My parents banned me and I didn't follow my passion at university. Now I'm a programmer with above average social skills and below average computer skills. Not sure it was the right decision.

This is my philosophy and I had the same experience. We also had cable tv that I sat in front of reliably for a long time. I remember duck tales, saved by the bell etc..

Where I went to college though did not have internet access in the dorms! That was a mistake. There were schools I could have attended that did. I did spend a lot of time in the computer lab but I think I would have benefited from a direct link.

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