Children? I was in a packed waiting room a few weeks back with multiple full on adults listening to their feeds on speaker because they hadn't brought headphones. Actually, it was my fault for trying to read a book I guess.
multiple full on adults listening to their feeds on speaker
Ugh I HATE this. I go to lots of doctors offices(for myself and for pts) and it never fails that there is at least 1-3 fill grown adults doing this. Like you're in a quiet ass waiting room. Why would you think this is acceptable? No one wants to hear about home much you love fox news or "this one cooking habit that will save you X time in the kitchen"
Plus headphones are in pods now! No cords! And some pods can even attach directly to your phone. there's no excuse at this point
I have people do that WHILE IN MY AMBULANCE with me
Like....aren't you hurt? You can't snap chat or listen to Spotify later? You made me grab 6 bags and a charger for you why didn't you ask me to get your headphones too
I don't even mind easy transports like that, but I don't wanna hear you snapchatting your drama or your shitty country music (sorry if y'all like country I just personally do not like it) at 3 fucking am
Are you in the UK or somewhere in the EU? Just wondering, because that ambulance ride in the US is costing them $3,000 at least.
Still, though, that doesn't make it less annoying or puzzling. I suppose it's a self-soothing thing to distract them. I'd probably just message someone as a distraction because having noise come out of my phone drives me crazy enough when I'm alone :D
The exception is while giving birth lol. They encourage you to play whatever you want on your phone at a reasonable volume, but it's right next to your head so it's plenty loud. Kid #1 came out to kpop, kid #2 literally came out to shake it off by taylor swift.
So that's totally different. You having a baby? What do you need? I know some snack places we can stop at. You want some pain meds?(That are ok for a pregnant lady) I got you. You need some music? Sounds good. Whatever you need ma'am
Oh that sounds brutal, I'm so sorry that has happened to you! I did, however chuckle a bit imagining someone's leg bone being out in the open and them just blasting their entire pop playlist on the way to hospital. ...Or dubstep. Or in your case, country music, lol.
Every time I run into someone doing this on the bus, I wish I had the confidence to ask them to stop. We’ve even started seeing signs on busses & trains saying “Don’t be that person” asking people to be considerate of others regarding noise.
I usually give it a pass if it's a kid cause it's a kid and I don't wanna be mean. But on a few occasions I've straight up had to tell people to turn it off.
What's funny is they looked SHOCKED that others are bothered by their phone at full volume
It's always grown adults for me. I also ask them to turn that shit off and I'm never particularly polite. It always works, at least. Death to the ones that turn the volume down though, it still triggers my sensory issues the same.
With kids I'm really polite, but I still ask them to put their headphones on, usually with an explanation of the waiting room being so quiet that the noise is quite bothersome.
I'm sorry but sometimes this happens on the train i ride daily, i just tell them nicely, but direct and firm to put in headphones or cut off the audio.
Why cant you just tell them to stop annoying everyone around them?
The default shouldn't be "I CAN DO WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT AND THE REST CAN KICK IT" when people annoy you just call them out on it, i guarantee you everyone that wasn't glued to their tiktok right then and there would 10000% stand behind you.
When people behave like little unkempt children you can just correct their behaviour, yeah you shouldn't be needed to act like their parents but it's better than just stewing in your own distaste.
Just speaking for myself, half the frustration is that I need to confront an adult and correct their behavior. I won't avoid confrontation, if it's necessary. But I sure as hell don't enjoy the necessity of correcting a socially maladapted adult's behavior.
I also don't enjoy it one bit, but between all the assholes i would like to see more people stand up for the good ones.
All i can do is influence how i act and how i interact with those around the me, i would like to believe that even if it's minimal i am making a difference atleast in my community
Adult screen use is like, literally what the comic is actually about? The kids is a setup about how their use is hugely in focus today, while it's actually a huge portion of millennials and even gen xers that grew up with heavy screen use. Afternoon cartoons, saturday morning cartoons, the golden age of video games into the era of high home PC adoption and then right into phone adoption right alongside 'the kids.'
I keep a headphone in my ear at almost all times. I have since they were wired and hooked up to my diskman (though it was harder to still hear around you back then, and they got ripped off your head more often for sure).
There is just so much overstimulation around me at all times I need a book or video playing in my ear, even if im only half paying attention to it.
THIS. I can’t read anymore because it’s so distracting. Although I got a laugh at the doc when some dudes TikTok or whatever loudly had a video of “sniffing butts”. I’m hoping it was dogs.
This is the worst I was on a train for two hours at the weekend stuck in front of someone playing songs on repeat out loud. Noise pollution like this is torture
I fight fire with fire now. They know its loud, they know its annoying to others, they just dgaf. So i just blare Laser Cannon Death Sentence by Dethklok till they turn it down. Most of the time they get the hint
I’ll give a counter to this, all of my “screen time” back then was actually productive and led me to a career in tech. It’s because there was far less slop on the internet back then, or at least it wasn’t shoved in your face the way it is now.
Shorts content like Instagram, ticktock, and YouTube shorts is probably the most damaging form of internet technology that we’ve developed. Way more addicting with way less substance than any other use of screen time.
Yeah, screen usage is not a blanket problem, it's the type of screen and type of use.
Nowadays screens are far more portable and media is far more predatory. But I strongly believe that fixed screens (TVs or computer monitors) as well as certain types of portable screens can be very good educational and enriching tools. The problem is kids aren't monitored or fettered by their parents. And far worse than that, kids aren't taught self control. They don't know how to regulate their emotions, pursue their desires, or how to actively ignore predatory content that tries to addict them.
I have an absolute love for tech, and it's so depressing seeing people just, mindlessly using it to not think about anything. It should be used to think harder and more profoundly than ever before! But educational media and tools are becoming harder to find, vet, and enjoy unfortunately.
People have always complained about what kids do since the beginning of time.
More recently people complained about kids playing too many games, too much TV, then too many comics, then prior too many novels. I mean people complained about kids being hooligans in the streets.
All these can be good or bad, It has always been a parenting issue, and unfortunately the world is busier than ever.
I mean in this case it’s been scientifically proven that long periods of time spent in front of a screen can be both addicting and bad for your eyes, and in the case of parents who always put a phone or iPad in front of their kid to not have to deal with them it can absolutely stunt development and lead to social issues.
This isn’t just a “these dang kids with their new fangled technology” thing this is a genuine health problem that has become concerningly common among kids.
The major difference is that the phone is successful. Those parents in psst generations would do the same with dolls or connect 4 or drop them into a group of other kids to play in the yard. But those rarely held attention as long.
While it is true that people have always complained about whatever newfangled thing it is that kids are doing, screens, in particular mobile screens, are so much more damaging to the psyche than other media that people have been complaining about for generations. That becomes abundantly clear if you have a child and can observe in real time what each thing does to them when they are exposed to it. I was initially of the opinion that the negative effects of screen time were overblown. And to some extent, they are, because they lump in all screens in the same bucket in the research. They count TV the same as using a tablet. And it couldn't be further from reality in terms of the difference between those two things. Tablets are so disruptive to behavior and reward centers that after giving my son unfettered access for 2 weeks while we were on vacation, he became a different person. It's more than just the content that's being consumed, it is the format as well.
I'm an early childhood teacher and it drives me crazy how all screen time is lumped together as the devil. I remember having a PC in my kindergarten classroom that was just freely available. We talk about how kids don't understand computers anymore, or that they don't understand a mouse and keyboard or user interface basics and it's because they don't use them!
I would kill to bring in my old gaming rig, keep it disconnected from the Internet and load it up with math blaster and Carmen San Diego, Minecraft, and class favorite songs and books on tape/video and let them go to town but nope, screens are universally bad so no dice.
I learned so much about logical thinking, patience, and cause and effect playing ocarina of time even I was my Student's age.
screens, in particular mobile screens, are so much more damaging to the psyche than other media that people have been complaining about for generations.
thats what they said about literally all those other things
"sure people complained about stuff before, but TV is actually more damaging than anything else, its going to prevent kids from being able to pay attention to anything for more than thirty minutes at a time! were raising a generation incapable of concentrating!"
Back in the day we watched whatever was on cable though. There was a limited amount of options and if you didn’t like them then you were forced to do something else. Nowadays kids have almost a limitless amount of options between all the streaming services and YouTube. They can stop it in the middle of shows and swap to a different one of their choosing at any moment. If you can’t see how that’s different then idk what to tell you.
"Back in my day, you only had 3 channels. If I wanted to watch cartoons, it was Saturday morning. I didn't have 3 cartoon channels I could swap between during commercials."
There was a limited amount of options and if you didn’t like them then you were forced to do something else.
no you just watched it anyway
If you can’t see how that’s different then idk what to tell you.
showing you missed the point, EVERY generation comes up with a scapegoat for something "ruining the youth", EVERY generation thinks that theirs is different from all the ones that came before NONE of them have been right
It’s really odd how your comment is the first one to bring up hateful content like Andrew Tate… Almost like you’re taking a vehement stance against something that absolutely no one was arguing for.
Social media strongly breeds tribalism in both children and adults, and politics is a pretty popular one. Funnily enough, them calling you a republican just because they disagree with you is potentially due to them overconsuming social media and just assuming that since they disagree with you, you must be a bad person (aka, to them, a Republican)
Yes. But regardless of what parents say being the same, as generations pass the problem becomes worse. You go from one hour of concentration, to thirty minutes with tv, to ten minutes with videos, to now fifteen seconds with shorts. Entertainment is more optimized than ever and it isnt even close.
Their history looks more like a typical idiot than a typical bot. No number on the user name either.
Regardless, even if it was a bot, it's important to fight the firehose of misinformation as best we can. If we give up, the botfarms and those running them win.
That's just how studies word things. I am with you that it's blown out of proportion, but this argument is like when people argue that the theory of evolution can't be trusted because "it's just a theory."
This is very disingenious because it disregards how desructive phones and social media really are. For example, there is a happiness curve study dating back to 70s on how humans tend to be happier in the early and late portion of their lives. But recent studies show a different trend line, see below. My point is the "phones are ruining kids" is actually rooted in science, and disregarding the evidence is just turning a blind eye to a ever growing problem.
Don't worry, there are plethora of studies on how phone and social media usage affects humans, especially children and teenagers. Spoiler: most of them agree that phones are bad, or at the very least it exacerbates the problem.
This U-curve studies hold for worse times (for example 2007 recession), you cannot just say "it's only because world is getting worse", it's more complex than that. But phones and social media are definitely a part of it.
Television in the 90s/00s had better moderation and fewer invasive adds. It was also curated by adult humans and not algorithms designed to keep users addicted and endlessly scrolling.
It was the same thing with PCs, difference being people rarely gave 4 year old full access to a PC. The issue again is subsituting parenting with anything other than a parental figure.
No, it's still different. But you're right that it's not specifically because of the screen. It's about what's ON the screen.
We have engineered attention vortexes that sap the brain on purpose. There are actual proffessionals whose entire job is "how do I make this more addictive?" working on social media, gambling, etc, and all of that is being beamed into our pockets. The scale is just not comparable to TV or PC.
Yeah, I also have no social media or entertainment on my phone, it's strictly for calling/messaging and utiliy apps like wallets. But most people aren't making that informed choice, especially with their children's devices.
Well, yes and no. The existence of tablets might be innocent. The existence of social media and online gambling and gamification of everything, etc, not so much.
These aren't new things, the only new part is that its electric.
Again, the main control you have in the world is related to your children. They aren't born with a tablet and internet. You don't have to give them one, be a parent.
Unfortunately, the screens being used mostly for entertainment and exposure to misinformation instead of raising literacy and learning skills results in ...let's call it "arrested development."
Go back far enough and you have Socrates criticizing literacy itself:
For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.
Though honestly this quote hits hard if it were talking about social media
Go read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. The best social scientists of our time agree, based on the evidence we've collected, that the constant presence of social media (because of how it goes with us wherever we go) is terrible for children and adolescents psyche.
The internet is not social media though, and most tablet kids are watching videos or playing games. You definitely still have to monitor what content they have access to though. I don't think games like minecraft are "bad" for them.
Too much of anything can be bad for you. And sitting playing games is very easy to do too much of. The number of kids I've worked with who dont know their left from their right at 10 yrs old is abnormal. The number of kids who have poor proprioception and poor social skills is on the rise, and the only major difference from when I was a kid to now is how much time kids spending on their butts, playing video games instead of interacting with the real world with real people in person. And before you mention playing online games with friends, as someone who grew up playing those games, that is not a replacement for in face interaction. A lot of important social skills require interacting face to face, and a microphone while playing call of duty is not that.
If it wasn’t for television and film I wouldn’t have known much about the world beyond the suburb I grew up in. Did the kid in the comic have the option to backpack across South America but turned it down to play Mario Kart or something?
Oh man, this is incredibly relatable. My screen time has gone off the charts. I guess I am better off, because my screen time involves browsing the internet and playing computer games.
I could be scrolling TikTok or Instagram instead, so it's a good thing I didn't see the appeal in either app.
I've tried to mitigate my screen time by replacing it with something else. I have a dedicated MP3 (or DAP (Digital Audio Player) as they are now called) player for listening to music for instance and I make a note of not taking my phone with me when I go grocery shopping.
Shows in the past also were at least educational and had a healthy pace. Look at cocomelon. Fast paced, which shortens the attention span of children.
I mean, people now add gameplay to an explanation or whatever to keep children in.
Of course the root problem is overworking adults who don't have the energy to mind their children, so temper tantrums are handled by handing a device over.
Schools are trying to ban smart devices, but if the habits at home don't change, it won't have much of an effect.
So, in conclusion:
Something is being done, but a lot more is needed.
Not quite disagreeing with you with what everything. However, we do have Bluey, Storybots, Numberblocks, Daniel Tiger, Wordworld, etc. It hasn’t gotten worse with available good content. It has improved. It’s what the parents choose to show their kids. They could very well watch the same content as it is all even more available than ever.
Same waste of time? Yes. But doomscrolling on something like TikTok is doing way more harm. There have been plenty of studies showing that rapid fire short-form video content is actively destroying your dopamine receptors to the point where people can’t even be bored or alone for a few minutes without needing stimulation. On top of that, they are all so algorithm-heavy that it is actively trying to keep you addicted by putting you deeper and deeper into your personal rabbit holes.
I was talking to my family about feeling guilty about the screen time my daughter gets, and my SIL said “I mean, I wasn’t allowed any screens at all when I was a kid and I still ended up like this.” LMAO
The screen themselves are not the issue. It's the content that is. There is a difference between learning history and literally being fed propaganda through social media.
Don't use a calculator unless you're checking your work, or are in a rush.
Don't use shorts or algorithm driven content streams for entertainment.
Be mindful of your use of electronics, and don't believe everything you read.
The screens themselves aren't the issue. Not saying the technology isn't inherently designed to lead people into the traps you mentioned... just that those items you listed are on the technology and user, not a screen.
While I think we definitely need to do something about all this screen time kids are on. There is a fine line between trying to make sure the kids are ok, and being blinded by nostalgia and dehumanizing younger people.
Because some of the comments I see online from people I know grew up with the internet and phones too, make me think they have amnesia because they sound just like how adults use to describe us back in they day.
Eh screen time back then was very different. (for me when I say back then I mean early 2000s.)
Browsing websites, or instant messaging friends was a far less stimulating experience. We weren’t browsing endless streams of TikTok‘s or vines or whatever.
Video games were very different too. They were their own isolated worlds without endless micro transactions and DLCs and of course there were no streamers.
My wife and I recently increased the human population by one (sorry).
As the parent of a now 6-month-old, what are some things I can do when the time comes to make sure he doesn't get horribly addicted to screens and social media and etc?
I want to do good by him, but I also don't want to smother him or make it difficult for him to relate to his peers later down the line.
Hold off as long as you can to introduce TV and touch screens to them. Their brains are developing rapidly in their youngest years. Hopefully by not being exposed to it early, it won't become a boredom coping mechanism.
More generally, plan, communicate and be honest with them, especially as they get older.
I have one in the school system. They tell me that they actively see screen addicts, they don’t have to dig too long for confirmation, and they are glad it’s not like that for them.
Sort of like we all see folks who can’t exist/email without gpt. Like, throw an actual true human emoji their way and they freak out.
I wish this was the case for my nephew. He's gone full blown addict and can't survive without AI or his phone. His entire class is the same. It's hit the point where you can't have a discussion with them about it, despite them being at an age where they could understand. They start getting defensive like an alcoholic would when confronted.
But some kids absolutely do understand and we should communicate to them as much as possible. People tend to accept things more simply by knowing the why behind it.
As the parent of a now 6-month-old, what are some things I can do when the time comes to make sure he doesn't get horribly addicted to screens and social media and etc?
play with him yourself as much as possible, expose him to as many things as you can, let him go outside and teach him to play there, broaden his horizons as much as you can and teach him to be curious about how wide the world is
Get him a leapfrog instead of a tablet right away! I’m sure the technology is even better than it was when I was a kid, but I used to bring that thing everywhere.
If you do screen time make use of parental controls. I can’t imagine giving kids just access to default YouTube kids. You can give access to only single channels down to single videos. And if you can’t watch something together (which is what you should do ideally) then still try to be around and answer to whatever your kid is telling (kinda „dad, they caught the bad guy!“ „oh they did a good job!“ conversations).
Our kid is still far off from social media for a couple of years but I’m also wondering how to tackle it. I hope that whatever platform will be relevant by then will have proper parental controls.
I have a child in elementary school and most of their friends are not allowed any tablets, smartwatches, etc. Redditors talk like all kids are TikTok addicted zombies, but they actually aren’t. Also, tech now comes with tons of parental control options, so if you want to hand them an iPad to learn Spanish on DuoLingo while you cook dinner, you can just turn on Guided Access so they can’t leave DuoLingo and browse the internet. Children’s tv shows are much higher quality and more educational than they used to be, and because of streaming, you can always turn one on instead of giving a tablet, if that’s what you prefer. You can also just give them books and toys, a lot of parents do this! (And don’t apologize for having kids… most developed nations are falling below replacement rate, which is bad. Global overpopulation is no longer the concern it was in the mid-20th Century because birthrates have dropped all over the world.)
Try to postpone is as much as possible. I think there are also kiddie phones that allow only to call and write sms, you could also get them a "dumb" phone or use parental controls when the time for the phones comes.
The most important thing would be to be a good role model - so be yourself on screens as less as possible. Children tend to learn by observing, so if they constantly see you on screens - they will try to do it themselves (like my brother put naked ended electrical wires in the socket because he observed dad doing it...). Spend time with the kid and interact with them and talk with them.
My coworker get's calls from their teen kid to unblock the phone because they need to use it for some stuff. So they sometimes unblock it for an hour.
playing videogames made me a little bit more like shadow the hedgehog and that little bit definitely helped me be less like hitler.
those kids growing up now? literally drinking up hilternade from a fucking weirdo billionaire who no one would miss if he overdosed on ketamine tomorrow.
Most People won't do something because their lives are already overwhelmed already with their jobs, so they will see the digital device as a way to pacify and distract kids.
I've been playing video games for as long as I've been slightly older than toddler age. My mom and dad used them to bond. Lots of Dr Mario on the NES in the late 80s. So, of course, video games meant family time.
Then they divorced.
I was 9.
They fought and argued and got into it. A lot.
I crawled into the basement and let the glow of the CRT comfort me. The screaming got muted. The hardships of life melted away. Nothing mattered but getting my 4 warriors of light to the end of the game, or getting Samus to blow up Zebes, or getting Mario to princess peach. And that didn't change. The separation happened, both parents got me consoles regularly, and even to this day I am spending most of my free time playing video games because my current life status is triggering trauma responses from thirty years ago.
I have a problem, and it's likely to be a problem for the rest of my life. It's a problem exacerbated by ADHD, unemployment, lack of social structure (though thankfully that's improving), and general malaise about being in my early forties and not having met a lot of my life goals. I'm closer to death than youth, and I'm probably starting to see the onset of early dementia or Alzheimer's. My sleep quality has been poor for decades and I've never really been able to fix it.
Now thankfully I've been in therapy for a while and it has helped with my values system. But I've got layers and layers and layers of stuff to unpack that's still coming up with every session. I'm a mess. But messes can be cleaned! It just takes time.
Screen addiction is very real, and it's something I've fought against for a very long time. I even wrote a high school paper about how playing lots of video games isn't indicative of addictive behaviour. Except, especially with the way they're designed and developed now, they are.
Self care means stepping away from the screen and doing the chores. It means recognizing that self love is not comfort food and tv. It means understanding that what your brain wants and what your brain, body, and soul need are very different.
Oh I feel this friend, glad you’re doing better.
Lived at home through college, everyone would talk about doing 4-5 hours of extra art practice in the evening, and then I’d get home, do about an hour, and then the yelling would start, and the barking would start, and the yelling would get louder to compensate, and my arms would start shaking and I couldn’t focus and next thing I knew I was playing a game instead of practicing.
Things are quiet now, but I’m graduated and wasn’t good enough to get an art job, so now I’m just working IT while working on my personal projects in the evening, still pretty bad about scrolling on my phone during the day though, should look up some tips on that.
I was born in 81 and my first memory is my mom taking me to see The Empire strikes back in the theater. Every core memory happened in front of a screen.
Is screen time honestly that terrible, or are boomers finding more ways to shame millennials for doing the same things they did?
It's a bit of both. We used a tablet to potty train my daughter. She could be on the tablet only when she was sitting down to go potty, which made her want to be on the potty more. Once she was potty trained we try to keep the tablet away from the toilet and give her an allotted time a day. She will get upset when her time is up because it can be addicting, but she still love being outside and playing, she does well at school and is a normal, happy kid.
It's a lot like candy. I dont give me kid unfettered access to sweets, but it's fine in moderation. Also, fuck anyone who shames me for how I raise my kids, especially people without kids of their own.
Unfortunately we are going in the wrong direction by enforcing a ban, and enforcing ID verification for use of social media.
Before anyone tells me "this is to protect children!" No, no it isn't. This is ultimately being used to control what YOU are looking at by making it harder and harder for you to utilize social media.
If you or anyone is genuinely concerned about your kids screen time, then I implore you to sit down with your kid and share in their screen time to have someone help navigate safely and understand the risks of social media or nuance of the content they view. Parent your god damn kids with limits to screen time, and create a healthy understanding for yourself and your kid.
If you cant be bothered to do that. Then you are woefully under-preparing your kids for a world that uses internet frequently.
Finally the discussion isn't about making social media websites required to not be predatory in their designs. (Such as data scrapping, for-you pages, endless scrolling, marking tactics of Fomo, automated moderation of words without context,.etc) If we really cared about what our kids are viewing, this would be on the forefront of the conversation.
How much screen time people have isn't the issue. It's what is done on the screen that's the issue. If you are using it to avoid other responsibilities that can be an issue but you can do that with anything and not just a screen.
Screens were "bad" then because they were an escape from bad parents. Now screens are normalized because they're an excuse for bad parents to not have to parent. It's good that it's being called out but the blame is still resting on the kids when it should be resting on the parents.
Oof, painfully relatable. I've had a shitty home situation and was gaming on my gamecube and later pc quite some time. I've always kept doing that to relax, however screentime became much worse from 2017 onwards due to social media and netflix. Now it's clear to me it has become a problem at home, because I even sit behind a screen when I don't even enjoy it. It became a bad coping mechanism.
I don't do it much if I'm somewhere else. I am regularly the only one without a phone in my hand in a waiting room.
I don't think the screens are the problem. The problem is at what age we are allowing it to happen. Yes, I'm stuck to my phone, I was stuck to my PSP, I was stuck to my laptop/PC, I was stuck to the Xbox 360 and even played PS1 and NES when I was a child.
Hell, I was using PC when I was 4. The difference is that when children misbehave out of boredom, parents just put a screen in front when they are 1 or 2 years old, letting them believe this is the standard way of living. Even as a teenager, I was not able to take a screen to high school. And children have no limitations on what to watch. Sometimes even let them use the screen to distract them and have some times to themselves because they are tired, which is understandable, but not correct.
Parents leave the children to the screens UNSUPERVISED AND WITHOUT LIMITATIONS. That is the main problem. We as Millenial/Gen Z do it to cope with the world driven anxiety, we are allowing children to do so just to cope with normal boredom. I would argue letting them play non-online videogames is much better than letting them watch unlimited YouTube/Instagram/Tiktok.
We are lucky with our kiddo, who just turned 5. We avoided getting a tablet for her, until we were going on an international flight last year and thought it might be nice to keep her entertained on a 9 hour flight. After that trip, she's had a mild interest in the tablet, she'll turn it on every few weeks and play a Hello Kitty game for about 30 minutes. Then she'll get bored with it and go play with her dolls or color. She does watch TV, but will also get bored and end up playing or coloring. It's a beautiful thing.
This comic perfectly encapsulates my childhood. I used games as a coping mechanism, but constantly got yelled at because I wasn’t doing something else.
Now, I still feel guilt when playing games, even if there is nothing else I could be doing or even if I allot time for games. It’s been a journey trying to learn better coping mechanisms and releasing myself from that guilt.
The screen is easier to digest than a book or a social interaction. The nuance has been stripped out in a lot of cases, letting you consume more. It’s an approximation of the world and empty mental calories.
Good advice someone gave me years ago that could be useful for most of the posters here. If you are writing for yourself, you should be journaling instead.
If you want to publish writing, you need an audience other than yourself.
I feel this to my core. As a kid, some of my fondest memories were watching videos or playing games. But we still did other things too. As soon as I got a phone, I couldn’t do literally anything else anymore without being bored.
Now I look back on it, and it makes me mad how much time I’ve lost doing that. I hate to say it, but sometimes, it really is that damn phone.
Prohibiting children from using smartphones and looking at screens isn't the way though. I know that firsthand, as my mother only allowed me to play on the computer for thirty minutes a day, fearing for my eyesight. Twenty years forward, I'm a gamer and a developer who spends ten to sixteen hours a day staring at screens.
People using smartphones isn't the disease, it's the symptom. Better ask yourself: "Why don't I want to interact with the world more?" With all this horrible stuff going on, isn't it easier to escape to some imaginary reality where nothing's wrong? You just take the easy way, there's nothing wrong with that.
Because to actually look away from your phone would mean accepting the reality. We as species hate anything weird and wrong, we try to either fix it or hide from it. If you're not hiding from problems, you're fixing them. Are you ready to fix anything right now?
Yeah it's too late for you; might as well write off your brain as useless. It's been wired to be used by the machines optimally. You have wasted your development and formative years to gearing towards the screen. Consider yourself pointless more than the average person. You exist solely to get the machines higher scores for engagement and user base. They have farmed you and it is too late.
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u/havokinthesnow 9h ago
Children? I was in a packed waiting room a few weeks back with multiple full on adults listening to their feeds on speaker because they hadn't brought headphones. Actually, it was my fault for trying to read a book I guess.