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Comment by TaupeRanger | Hacker News Reader

For every one of these anecdotes there's another where the kid got unrestricted access and is now incapable of going anywhere or doing anything without having their tablet with them, and is chronically addicted to the screen at nearly every waking moment, to their extreme detriment in school and social encounters. I have a family member like this.

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I have two nephews like this. Their future looks incredibly bleak. Although I believe the culprit is that their parents are always "phone on" as well.

I think the more important thing is fostering your children to have other interests - when the electronics are given just to make a kid shut up it can eventually become their "real" parents. When parents are active and make an effort to show their children other activities and find what they're interested in, the electronics won't be as enticing.

Maybe that requires a child having some built in proclivity towards some manner of creative expression or physical activity, who knows.

Those other interests don't have a real chance to compete against endless YouTube etc, real life is just slower and gives less stimulation per second than the output of a whole industry trying to play their mind.

I don’t know, I see it with the children around my family all the time. They’d rather play with one another then sit around on their phones. You’re not giving the children enough credit :)

Like I said in another comment, phones and tablets are portable slot machines. Gambling wins over "other interests" every time.

That can't be true. If it were, no kid with access would have other interests.

Not all kids are the same. Not everyone gets gambling addicted either.

Yeah, every time is a huge exaggeration.

That’s just not true for every child. Children are not so reductive.

Ah ok, so you are fine with taking your child to Las Vegas and sitting them in front of the slot machine with a handful of quarters? Maybe just give them a small heroin injection too, there's a chance they wont get addicted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

Also, giving your children unfettered access to the internet is not the same thing as giving them money for a slot machine. They don't have money unless you give it to them. It's not difficult to prevent them from having unlimited access to your credit cards.

Children will grow up into adults that have access to all this stuff anyway. Better to teach and manage excess early then restrict.

I reject that it's reductio ad absurdum. We do not know the effect of this kind of stimulus on children and how it can affect their development.

So clearly it's comparable to heroin and slot machines at Vegas then, if we don't know the impact. Just gotta get a couple more years in to know for sure whether we can compare it to opiates :)

Yep and what's worse is no parent is going to ever admit that they gave their child unlimited screen time and now their child is addicted. Anecdotes that exhibit this kind of asymmetry are effectively worthless.

Yep, all these people don't understand they are handing their kids slot machines disguised as harmless kid games. Completely irresponsible.

There is no black or white on this point, still clearly there is an unprotected risk.

Indeed. People growing up isn't a function of one variable

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