I linked to this thread, only because it's what got me thinking about this topic again. Me and my SO talk about phones occasionally, regarding our kids. Neither of them are anywhere close to an age where they might have one. However, as time goes on, we find ourselves so repelled by the idea of the kids having a fully fledged smartphone.

Given the reality that all social media apps are effectively skinner boxes, training you to use them more, the idea of allowing kids on them feels like offering a 10-year-old a cigarette. I have to remind myself that the internet I grew up on is dead and gone. I may have been exposed to some weird ass shit in AOL chat rooms, but there wasn't any kind of algorithmic content feed keeping me itching and scratching.

So far, the only time the oldest uses an iPad is when they use mine, and the only apps they use are Procreate for drawing, and an app that helps kids learn to write letters and words. Watching TV is probably the worst thing we get into at home when it comes to just pure content consumption, but we keep the list of watchable stuff pretty small, and regularly axe shows we feel don't meet our standards when we venture off that list.

I guess this has evolved into a larger discussion about media consumption as I have typed this out, but at the end of the day, that's what's happening on these phones, right?

  • itappearsthat [he/him]
    ·
    2 个月前

    the idea of allowing kids on them feels like offering a 10-year-old a cigarette

    Pretty much yes. Like you I was lucky enough to be on the internet before it turned into an engagement-maximizing hellhole so my brain had time to develop its defenses as things deteriorated and I matured. It wasn't without its mis-steps, I got hooked enough on an MMO to fail some of my classes in university but managed to recover and permanently swore off multiplayer games. Throwing kids right into the deep end of that pool is honestly bordering on criminal neglect.