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Comment by viraptor | Hacker News Reader

I wish people pushed for a more targeted approach. This seems like a baby-with-the-bathwater situation. I know it's easier to do that way, but you can do lots of things with your phone apart from social media. For example there's lots of books I read on the phone as a teenager just because of I could easily access them on the go. But on top of that, why limit 1:1 communication? Email? Maps access? Etc. I hate the "screen time" idea personally, because it's generalising way too much. We don't take away "reading time" just because kids could read the wrong thing.

I hope a few places that overreact this way will make it more popular to provide restricted tech experience rather than a full ban.

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What is your exact proposal?

Kids - specially young ones cannot self regulate against billion dollars corporations that build features to keep people hooked

So please tell me a concrete applicable way that we can apply today to protect them.

I will not accept as solutions because is not applicable today by parents: - retricting social media account (the ones over 7-8 years old will find ways to say yes to a screen that asks for age) - saying Facebook or Tiktok should fix it - they will not - saying we should give them restricted phones - does not work practically - family should educate them - that works individually but it does not work society wise

So how do you protect the kids from this as a society?

> saying we should give them restricted phones - does not work practically

I'm not sure why you dismiss that one. Whitelisting apps works - that's the whole idea behind kiosk devices. There are guides available, but basically you enable only the allowed apps, uninstall webview, lock the account.

Yes, it's not trivial and not everyone will want to do it. (It's available though https://support.google.com/families/answer/7103340?hl=en#zip...) That's exactly why I wrote the last paragraph. Full access was one extreme. The ban is another extreme. (And is not exactly easy to implement either)

Once enough places overreact with the complete bans, the lockdown mode will get better documented, more popular, known by schools, finally (hopefully) easily available from the installation screen.

> because is not applicable today by parents

That's ok. This problem will still exist in a couple of years and this will be a bit easier to do each month. It was actually impossible to implement a few years ago, but we made progress.

My nephews were showing me how kids in their school were using Google Docs comments as a social network.

Point being, humans are highly adaptive creatures. You have to cut the source.

I don't see it as an issue. The bad part of social networks is feeding you never ending crap. If kids want to talk to each other... what's the issue with that? We had phone calls and party lines and passing notes before. (Or letters for those who were into that) They were as much a social network as Google doc comments.

It's the feed that allows them access to public posts that is a big problem. Let's start with children accounts where the feed is restricted to friends / followed accounts and only in chronological order.

As I type this, I realize this is exactly what a lot of us have been saying should be done for adults too. And why is it that all social media either moves towards this nebulous endless feed or actively pushes it. Very telling.

> Let's start with children accounts where the feed is restricted to friends / followed accounts and only in chronological order.

That's basically an instant messenger which supports groups.

That sounds like hacker spirit :)

> kids in their school were using Google Docs

They haven’t bottomed out yet, they still have Teams.

That seems fine. Nothing wrong with social networks with you friends.

Everything wrong with for profit social networks with algorithms designed to suck you in and share the worst of humanity.

I am dismissing it because I don't see if feasible to implement this. To keep this practical, please tell me how would you implement this for 10.000 kids.

Concrete plans: - Will you give parents those free phones? - Will you control entering the schools by type of phones? - Will this be a list of 2-3 phones allowed? Is this an intervention in the economy that other companies will do? - What kind of timeline will be needed to implement this?

I do agree we should start implementing long-term solutions. But as a parent, I want a solution now, these years :) for the current generation

Those are not new phones. You can do most of those restrictions on modern phones right now.

I'm not sure why you're putting all those requirements on an idea that can be self enforced in a community. We're commenting on an article where a community implemented a phone ban (not even covering everyone if I understand correctly)

> Is this an intervention in the economy that other companies will do?

Relevant companies already did most of it. Don't wait for the industry to rescue you.

Search for "(your phone type) parental control" and you'll find how to do that right now. Write it down in simple words. Tell other parents. It starts with you.

My kid does not have a phone yet but he is still young.

I talk with parents of kids a bit older like 10 and it is very hard to keep these limits when most of their colleagues don't have these limits.

I agree with you that what we do now is that we are trying to educate other parents about this. But it is hard and the years are passing.

I think access to mobile phones for kids is a big problem and indeed there is no simple solution.

I don't say we should do what the article is describing but I empathise with the parents that want a total ban of mobile phones for kids. It is simpler to enforce and explain this rule than explain everyday why my colleague has access why don't I? And try to explain that without also expressing a judgement on those kids or their families.

So here is a situation: the kids that have access to mobile phones and games at home goes to kindergarten and they play there only with other kids that know those games. They talk about levels and characters from those games. They don't have mobile phones at kindergarten but the fact they use it at home already creates two groups of children: those with access to mobile phones and those without access. And this is kindergarten/pre-school (4-5 years old)

Are you then also not allowing the use of a browser? You don’t need apps for most things.

Just try to allow a browser and block YouTube videos, without dns tricks. Even with block lists, there’s always another site that will show them.

Yes. That's what I'm saying. Alternatively you could play with domain following, but the request here was a simple solution.

There are people here that help build or aspire to build the things that are making kids and people sick. they'd rather do the damage and get the money playing devils advocate. you won't get much for ideas that are actually socially responsible.

Not to mention,this stuff is making adults insane, they're addicted too. Just read these comments. Addict caveates and excuses.

> So please tell me a concrete applicable way that we can apply today to protect them.

Data allowance. Not just mobile data, Wi-Fi as well.

You can blow through 1GB of TikTok in an evening, but the same 1GB gives you more text than you can consume within a month.

Gradually increase it the same way you would with money.

not a bad idea.

thou im not sure that 1GB of <comments on anonymous internet forum> will do less harm than a few hours of vanityfair videos.

True, which is why this will not be the only technique I'll use once my daughter comes of age.

Education and setting an example are two others I have in mind for now - the latter is of course easier said than done but honestly, if we truly believe something is healthy, why not do it ourselves?

Please let's make a difference between what a parent can do (and what you propose is doable) and what a community can do.

I allow restricted access to my kid: no mobile phone access, limited time to watch cartoon, no tv, limited access to laptop only for scratch for example, limited access to some educational videos about nature... He can use command line or repl to play for example with math questions... While also getting used with keyboard, mouse... Trying to find a good balance.

But unless I plan to keep him at home he goes to community and socialize and I have to explain why we don't do this or why we don't do that and to explain why others are playing games or have phones. And I do explain.

But I am also concerned about the social groups they are all growing. The majority are not like this. So he will live in a society maybe with people hooked on screens. Maybe he will find a bubble maybe not.

I believe we can use AI here :-) It is suddenly scalable to help kids develop critical thinking skills live in real time.

I've got 5 year olds, 8, 10 and a 12 year old, and they've been my beta testers for Wonder [0].

It uses AI to help direct kids towards positive content online, and defers to me to help my oldest navigate this tricky online world.

Let me know if you have kids and would like to try it out!

[0] https://gotwonder.com

> So please tell me a concrete applicable way that we can apply today to protect them.

Don't allow corporations to build those features, and mandate that they build features that forcibly give children time away from their phones (e.g. caps on usage: no usage between 10PM and 7AM, no usage during school hours for entertainment products, maximum time to play games, mandatory labeling for all websites and products, etc.).

You can even go further (like China today, and the US during the Silver Age of comics) and enforce mandatory outcomes for creatives targeting children. For example the TikTok algorithm in China must output educational resources for children and perhaps children's entertainment could be forced to not glorify certain topics such as school shootings, revenge on bullies, sociopathy, etc.

Largely agreed, +1. However, a loosely related example: I think I have benefited quite a bit from never ever having seen neither of my parents drink vodka (aside the traditional shot for the deceased at funerals). Because of this, it is easy for me to avoid the mental and physical addiction of alcohol altogether in my adult life. It just wasn't part of my childhood culture, period.

Youtube algorithms and the most stupid smartphone games are obviously addictive, so it does make sense if parents step in with a well-considered "thou shalt not" at times. This is far from a perfect solution, but in the long run, it is very probably better than doing nothing at all. I've seen really horrible results of screen time overuse on a teen girl -- basically, a lively and clever 7yo developed into a 18yo with no social skills whatsoever, and the habit to even scroll her phone while brushing teeth!

It's like decidedly putting away those candies when you sense your child has had too much for today. The same thing. No need to punish the child's brain and coping mechanisms for the parent's inability to... parent.

Best solution, obviously, is simple parental role model: the entire family putting away smartphones for the evening. (In our case, for example, nobody in the family has a smartphone; only dumb phones here. So far, with our oldest child being 9yo, I don't notice this being a problem. He is clearly fine not having one.)

I have also observed that careful explanations of what gaming or smartphones do to the child's brain also make a lot of sense. Our son is clearly interested in these effects, so he is always setting himself timers to limit his gaming. (Doesn't always follow them, but often, nonetheless, does; I think it is the purpose that counts, not 100% execution.)

I think children need to see cause and effect of smartphone overuse already at early ages. They need to understand and feel that by reasonable, down-to-earth limiting, parents are actually protecting them and their brain.

> I think I have benefited quite a bit from never ever having seen neither of my parents drink vodka

Counterpoint: my partner's father was an alcoholic who abandoned her after her mother died and ended up homeless for two decades, her aunt was also an alcoholic. She didn't grow up to be an alcoholic and doesn't drink alcohol. I don't drink alcohol. Most adults are capable of managing themselves.

> I've seen really horrible results of screen time overuse on a teen girl -- basically, a lively and clever 7yo developed into a 18yo with no social skills whatsoever, and the habit to even scroll her phone while brushing teeth!

Could equally be undiagnosed autism and/or ADHD, which is infamously underdiagnosed in women.

> Most adults are capable of managing themselves.

Yet having family who smoke leads to kids who take up smoking. It's not guaranteed on the individual level, but statistically very significant for the population. The same goes for domestic violence, excessive drinking, and, of course, smartphone use.

Anecdotal observations of exceptions don't really make a counterpoint to the general (and well documented) trend.

Inhaling second-hand smoke is an entirely different mechanism of exposure than just witnessing something. I loved the smell and effect of my grandmother's Marlboro Reds, and I loved the smell and effect of my father's Golden Virginia tobacco. I'd shut the windows as a kid and teen and hotbox the room so I got some, and sure enough, I ended up smoking for many years.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-sec...

> Most adults are capable of managing themselves.

Adults are children in first place, and children model themselves a lot from parents.

There's certainly a significant randomness at play, and it's admirable when adults manage to deviate from problems of their parents, but exposure to them ultimately presents a high risk factor, if one wants to put in mathematical terms.

Screen time is actually a very concrete problem in the context of parenting. There's again significant randomness at play (I myself grew up watching lots of TV), but at the end of the day - literally, what happened during a given day - the difference in educational quality between households with and without¹ screens, is night and day².

¹=with "without" I mean extremely limited quantities of screen (no tvs, no internet, not checking out smartphones etc.etc.).

²=there is certainly a spectrum of screen time content in terms of quality, but the vast majority is garbage.

> I think I have benefited quite a bit from never ever having seen neither of my parents drink vodka (aside the traditional shot for the deceased at funerals).

Seeing your parents get drunk while partying and feel embarassed for them act ing stupid rather then it being super fun makes alcohol seem a lot less cooler.

This is the tactic we are using: set a good example in front of our kid. If you don’t want your kid glued to phones and tablets, don’t be glued to phones and tablets yourself. I deliberately keep my phone off when the kid is around—don’t be seen using it. Set a positive example for her to follow. Lots of her friends are already addicted to phones, and if you go meet their parents, lo and behold, the parents are addicted too.

I doubt kids ever took much notice of smoking parents, with a cigarette in their mouth all day long, telling them they shouldn't smoke; first, heal thyself. It was that thought process that influenced my 'Monkey See, Monkey Do' cartoon.

They're banning smartphones, not (say) laptops. Presumably the latter are less of an issue since you're not tempted to be using them constantly at all times.

In what ways do you believe your comment to be a response to the parent?

Quite simply, they’re saying that all those things can be done on a laptop if necessary. Duh.

They didn’t make that claim.

For many people the only computer they have is their phone, I’d say well over half the people I work with have only their phone, and especially young people.

I’ve got one, two, thr… I don’t, maybe nine computers, and have read zero on any but the phones.

Books are also available as these big papery things - they don’t have adverts, videos or other distractions, though.

These strange papery things are also rather portable.

But they cost money and are not as easy to access when you want a specific one. Especially ones in other languages.

They frequently cost less than ebooks, particularly if you buy them second hand. I don’t think I’ve paid more than €1 for a book (apart from rare volumes) in years. Abebooks have it all.

There's this cute little series that could be fun for a teenage girl learning French. Not that expensive, tell how much it costs at Abebooks:

https://www.amazon.fr/Angélique-5-révolte-Anne-Golon/dp/2266...

Between less than €1 and €3.

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&cm_sp...

You can get them for free in these things called libraries.

Libraries are an odd artifact of history. They exist today because they are an undeniable public good.

If they didn't already exist they would never be allowed to come to exist in today's world. It would be considered wholesale IP theft and people would be arguing that the very notion of the idea would be the death of creativity.

Many of the problems of smartphones are not intrinsic to the technology but are a reflection of that modern world. Many people would call that late stage capitalism, but without much of that capitalism the technology wouldn't exist.

This has turned into a ramble, I apologize.

Can't find english books as easily in libraries if you are in a non english speaking country.

Teenage back health is important. I remember filling my bag with books back then, I’m glad my son won’t have to. His posture should be better than mine.

Hopefully he's not hunched over a phone screen instead of bent double under a backpack of dead trees.

I remember shoving a paperback in my pocket. Weighed about the same as a phone. Do textbooks no longer exist? I’ll confess I’m out of touch, as my kids aren’t yet of school age.

I don’t know, but it seems like there is more lean into school issues tablets now. They get real books also, just no need to go overboard.

Until I started taking AP classes, I didn't really have to carry around any textbooks throughout my schooling. High school class of 2019 here.

> These strange papery things are also rather portable.

I remember having books transported through an ocean and paying half of my allowances every month to get two of them while I was in middle school. Same when my kid was born: pre-school kids' books are massively absent from ebooks, publisher assume they won't have a device and don't really care about accessiblity, and it's a real PITA to find books that are either out of publication or in foreign languages.

Portable they are not, at least compared to a few MO of data this days.

I think the underlying assumption in this thread is that "books" are a commodity and are purely interchangeable. You just give "books" to your kids and they'll like it. I'd disagree.

1. Books are portable, but they're much less portable than phones.

2. Not all books are available, or available locally, or available locally in the language you want.

3. Phone book readers don't normally have adverts, videos, or other distractions. If yours does, you should check other options.

Source: Read most of Patchett from my phone on the bus to school, it was not available locally and even if it was I would definitely not add any more books to my backpack.

I don't think we should kill more trees and require that kids continue lugging around backpacks full of heavy textbooks when we have a better alternatives. (To be fair, an e-reader without constant internet access would fit the bill, at least for this particular example.)

Kids aren't addicted to phones. They're addicted to certain types of apps on phones.

My dad brought home an old, destined-for-the-trash computer from work when I was 8 years old, and that was my first introduction to computing, an event that changed the course of my life. If he'd decided "no, I'm not going to let my son use this because he might play a violent video game or download pixelated porn from some BBS", I would not be the curious technologist I am today.

Don't ban the neutral, multi-use technology. Ban the specific thing on it that does harm.

Do you have any stats on resource use of making an ebook reader or ipad versus books? I don't but would be curious.

I don't have the sources available, so the following is a short summary from memory:

Paper is produced using a mix of recycled paper and newly harvested trees. Overall, paper is usually recycled up to 7 times, and it really is due to the need of recycled paper for each production. Actually, paper manufacturers have whole departments responsible for the sourcing of recycled paper.

Trees come from, most of time, dedicated tree farms. Those are, by virtue of being needed, operated in a sustainable manner, meaning new trees are constantly planted to replace the harvested ones. Due to the growth periods of trees, there are a lot more trees in those forest than are needed for harvesting (fun fact, the term sustainability comes from 19th (?) century book about wood and forest cultivation).

While paper production requires a lot of energy, the industry is by now really good in serving as a way to load balance grids. They sell and buy energy, mostly electricity but also heat / gas, on spot markets and through long term contracts. Bring to readily pull huge amounts of energy, and also being able to reduce energy consumption almost immediately (production and production planning just love that by the way), their overall impact on energy consumption is nowhere as bad as people think. Added benefit, the majority of theirbraw material actually are renewable, they even store CO2 while growing.

On the other side you have electronc devices: rare earths, needing internet and server farms, have to be charged all the time. Raw materials have to be reycled, and not at a reasonable rate. Recycling happens in poor countries and causes all kinds of health environmental problems.

The main reason why retail moves from mailed advertizing to apps is simple: data. Putting the ads in an app, connected to whatever benefit program people are part of, allows for much better data collection and analysis that paper based advertizing.

Books are similar, added benefit of books is basically unlimited storage capability.

> I don't think we should kill more trees and require that kids continue lugging around backpacks full of heavy textbooks when we have a better alternatives. (To be fair, an e-reader without constant internet access would fit the bill, at least for this particular example.)

Those dead trees can survive up to 50 years in the hands of children, mobile devices tend to break down significantly faster and create considerably more waste. Just have a copy of the books for school and one for home and you would probably get rid of 90% of the pointless book carrying I did as a kid.

Lets be real - ebooks are way more portable than paper books.

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