That's cool you, a tech-savvy HN poster, has managed to wield technology to find a high-reward/low-risk way to parent using devices, but perhaps your 'correct' solution may not work in all contexts for all people.
Perhaps you just have a kid who has the right temperament to handle devices when young.
Perhaps you work few enough hours or have the resources necessary to parent in a way to make this work.
Perhaps the kids around your kid are generally a good influence.
If there's any truism to parenting (and education) its that there's no one size fits all solution. We're in a moment in time where devices are not exactly great for children given the tools and understanding available. Socializing less device use in a society saturated with addictive devices and experiences doesn't seem that bad an idea, right?
well, I am not telling everyone should do the same as me. I just don't want someone telling me that I should not do it.
Because that's the final goal of such movements: start with "voluntary pledges", move into social stigmatization of dissidents, capture organizational rule, and then, finally, the law. The same script as the prohibition. It is an inexorable and fairly predictable movement, probably a cultural heritage from Calvinism.
This is a fair concern. I have thought about bringing this to the attention of our school board, so that they can publicize it. But I wouldn't want it to be done in a heavy-handed way that implied that 'good parents' wait until 8th.
We need to recognize that different kids may have different needs based on how they get to/from school or extracurriculars, for example. But in the US, I don't see there being much of a risk that kids having smartphones would be stigmatized...the current rate of adoption is quite high, and it's seen as a sign of wealth/status.
I respect that you want to make that call for your kids, I'm not in favor of one size fits all solutions.
What you're describing here tho is a textbook slippery slope argument [1] in reaction to a small movement suggesting some restraint around an incredibly powerful force affecting most people on the planet.
Perhaps it may lead to prohibition, but perhaps it may just lead to OS developers building better controls than the terribly weak ones we have today. Movements raise awareness, and there's lots of room for spaces in-between. After all, we never banned TVs, books, or games, and they were all in this class of problem.
Personally, I see this as 'antithesis' to the smartphone's 'thesis', and we will probably find a synthesis somewhere in between as the dust settles.
fwiw, "If your kid is addicted to screens, it is on you" and (paraphrasing) 'this is not the correct way out of the problem' is what you said, which sounds a lot like you're implying others should do the same as you. You wrote a long and thought out enough comment to add nuance but you didn't, so its hard not to assume thats what you meant.
> Perhaps it may lead to prohibition, but perhaps it may just lead to OS developers building better controls than the terribly weak ones we have today. Movements raise awareness, and there's lots of room for spaces in-between. After all, we never banned TVs, books, or games, and they were all in this class of problem.
Actually, "we" have banned all of those things, and continue to do so.
Do you know about promise rings? Kids kill themselves because they get raped after being told their whole life that being impure means their parents love them less. This is just another thing parents get together and organise -- see, it doesn't need to end in prohibition to cause harm, it just takes parents organising to define wrongly what wisdom means to a child.
> in reaction to a small movement suggesting some restraint around an incredibly powerful force affecting most people on the planet.
That's not what I see. I see a group of people, some well-intentioned but some others who are not, and they are organising to restrict the ability for children to learn things and to communicate with others. The well-intentioned need to be made aware that their intentions are not good enough and that children will be harmed and the future made worse because of this.
Sure, some of those people just want to ban "addictive games" or "targeted feeds", but others want to read and approve every message in and out of the house so they can behave differently in public than they do in private, and you can't let them do this.
Don't you see? It's slippery on both sides! That's why there needs to be a better way.
I don’t read that as implying that conclusion, but rather closer to “if you’re not getting the outcome you want, you should change something” versus “you should do what I’m doing”.
> Because that's the final goal of such movements: start with "voluntary pledges", move into social stigmatization of dissidents, capture organizational rule, and then, finally, the law.
This is the first I've heard of voluntary pledges ending in prohibition via law.
I think that’s a bad example because it’s 100 years old and was reversed and, hopefully, is the last time the US does this.
There are tons of “virtues” that aren’t resulting in laws- exercise is good, sugar is bad, coke is bad, etc etc
Saying we shouldn’t encourage voluntary pledges to help our kids because it might be mandatory is probably not a good idea. The tangible benefit from the pledge seems more likely than the low risk of some future mandatory regulation.
Easy to find in the context of child rearing. Beating children was common, started being socially stigmatized and finally became considered child abuse.
A more recent example: the ban on plastic straws. Lots of restaurants were shunning them before they became illegal in several jurisdictions
This is the perfect reply. You said it better than I could. This parent has the three "perhaps" and hardly knows it. This is another good example of HN exceptionalism.
It is ironic that the Silicon Valley millionaires made rich by the attention addicting apps also work very hard to limit their own children's access and screen time.
> It is ironic that the Silicon Valley millionaires made rich by the attention addicting apps also work very hard to limit their own children's access and screen time.
When people work in or adjacent to the sausage factories, they don't want any of it at home knowing how it's made.
At my Silicon Valley area elementary school, none of the kids have a phone.
I think it makes sense here because of the peer pressure effect of middle school aged kids. It’s hard when your kid is the only one in 5th grade class who doesn’t have instagram and Snapchat and everything else.
So definitely not dumb as hell. Also, this isn’t one side fits all as there’s lots of room for variability. It’s no more “one size fits all” than not allowing drivers younger than 16.
Perhaps you just have a kid who has the right temperament to handle devices when young.
Perhaps you work few enough hours or have the resources necessary to parent in a way to make this work.
Perhaps the kids around your kid are generally a good influence.
If there's any truism to parenting (and education) its that there's no one size fits all solution. We're in a moment in time where devices are not exactly great for children given the tools and understanding available. Socializing less device use in a society saturated with addictive devices and experiences doesn't seem that bad an idea, right?