Post: #1

Saw this 30 second clip pop up in my YT feed. I don't know anything about this guy found myself agreeing with everything he says here.



Edit: not sure if legislation is the way to go, but it would be nice to see schools push for this by treating smartphones in the hands of minors as banned substances.
I'm all for kids having cellphones capable of making/receiving phone calls, but a smartphone/tablet... what possible productive use could a child under 16 have for one

Post: #2

My future kids that are swimming around in my sack at the moment are already banned from smartphones until they are 18

Post: #3

They shouldn't. We don't need more government control in our lives. We need less. This is the parents job to decide and do.

Post: #4

Better yet ban all smartphones for women. They're allowed a flip phone, but no more than that... highly regulate the selling of them and require a massive licensing fee as well as a character check to be even considered for one.

Post: #5

(02-11-2019 11:30 AM)realologist Wrote:  They shouldn't. We don't need more government control in our lives. We need less. This is the parents job to decide and do.

Well in a perfect world you would be correct. However modern parents are FAILING MISERABLY to have any kind of limits on ipads/iphones/Fortnites.

Post: #6

Parents should do this. Have a PTA meeting and get it done-Not the government though, keep them out of it.

Post: #7

I agree that government action is probably not the way to go with this. Parents should not be giving their 5 year old an ipad when he starts crying to sedate him - I see this shit all the time.

There's a reason that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates never let their kids have phones until they were 14 or 16, because they know what this tech does.

Most people don't use these devices as tools, but as boredom suppressors, and that is the biggest issue of all. You could create the next empire from your computer and phone, but most people are using them to scroll endlessly on their high school crush's instagram and play flappy bird.

It's all in how you use it.

Post: #8

Can we ban them for everyone? It would solve some problems.

Post: #9

Schools should ban them, if there is some sort of family emergency they can call the school, like they used to do.

Post: #10

I was a wedding reception recently and saw my cousins with their children using a tablet as a pacifier. I flinched thinking this is what must feel like to old. Its hard to imagine my grandparents doing the same thing for my parents at that age.

I then have to remind myself I was the kid who played a Gameboy in the back of a car trying to catch a few seconds of orange street light to see anything. Pretty sure I developed my persistence trait there. But you know at least the batteries died and it was only in the car, and I never took it out when other people were there, unless they had their own.


When we were out, we were out.

Post: #11

It's pretty common to see kids on iPad's or whatever at restaurants, these little brats need to be entertained 24/7 now.

Post: #12

We have zero screen time tolerance for our kid. Its tough at times, especially in public when our patience is already low. But you know what? You make the effort to connect with the kid and see why they are melting down. Or you take them for a walk. Or you let them sit on your lap for a minute. And now our 3yo can sit in our local pub for hours with no issues, which has made our lives so much easier in regards to social happiness.

And there is no excuse for kids over 4 having them as pacifiers. If your 4yo needs distraction in order to not be a little shit, then you have failed. But yeah, toddlers and babies given screens are going to be kids that need screens. When I see strollers with a phone holder over the babies face so they can watch things while their moms shop, I want to destroy it.

Post: #13

I didn't get a smartphone or a phone for that matter until I was 18. I even remember in high school the teachers would ask everyone to use their smartphone for an activity and I was awkwardly forced to pair up with somebody, good times.You merely adopted the smartphoneless life. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't get a smartphone until I was already a man and by then it was nothing to me but confusion

Post: #14

It's an appropriate age.

I didn't get my first phone until 16. The reasoning for it at that point was because I was driving. Smartphones and data were really expensive at that time, but a phone was good to have nonetheless.

The easiest solution to all of this is to not pay for a kid's data plan or phone service. If they want a phone, they can pony up the monthly fees for it (ie they can't).

16 is sort of a watershed age. You can drive, you can date, and you can have a smartphone. Simple as that.

Post: #15

For my three kids , smartphones and ipads are not allowed .
i only allow it for 5/10 minutes (football game or brick game , similar to tetris ) after behaving nice during a very long day in a bus or at guests.
They know the rule and dont get mad when we stop after 5 minutes

I am always shocked at how parents are lazy and give tablet to a kid just to have peace. it is irresponsible

Post: #16

(02-11-2019 01:15 PM)Syberpunk Wrote:  I was a wedding reception recently and saw my cousins with their children using a tablet as a pacifier. I flinched thinking this is what must feel like to old. Its hard to imagine my grandparents doing the same thing for my parents at that age.

I then have to remind myself I was the kid who played a Gameboy in the back of a car trying to catch a few seconds of orange street light to see anything. Pretty sure I developed my persistence trait there. But you know at least the batteries died and it was only in the car, and I never took it out when other people were there, unless they had their own.


When we were out, we were out.

I remember that gameboy zelda game got me through Nevada on a road trip as a kid. Now I can't even imagine how teachers keep the kids attention in school, surely they're all playing on their phones under the tables.

Post: #17

(02-11-2019 06:21 PM)Polniy_Sostav Wrote:  For my three kids , smartphones and ipads are not allowed .
i only allow it for 5/10 minutes (football game or brick game , similar to tetris ) after behaving nice during a very long day in a bus or at guests.
They know the rule and dont get mad when we stop after 5 minutes

This seems like the ideal strategy. What's your current/planned policy for their social media usage?

Post: #18

Smart phones should not be in the hands of:

"Lovers...
And dads and mothers
And little girls and their brothers."*

In other words, no one should have them.

They're a way for corporations to turn workers into 24/7 drones and they've created the Helicopter Parenting culture where parents are tethered to their teens every second.

I could not imagine being a teenager in the current cultural climate. In high school my folks were considered overprotective, but compared with parents today, they were devil-may-care. If I had to "check in" with them every hour or more, I'd have had no life.

* The little poetic phrase I posted above is actually paraphrased from the lyric of an obscure surf music tune from 1966 called "I Live For The Sun" by the Sunrays. Link here.

Post: #19

(02-11-2019 07:52 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  Smart phones should not be in the hands of:

"Lovers...
And dads and mothers
And little girls and their brothers."*

In other words, no one should have them.

They're a way for corporations to turn workers into 24/7 drones and they've created the Helicopter Parenting culture where parents are tethered to their teens every second.

I could not imagine being a teenager in the current cultural climate. In high school my folks were considered overprotective, but compared with parents today, they were devil-may-care. If I had to "check in" with them every hour or more, I'd have had no life.

* The little poetic phrase I posted above is actually paraphrased from the lyric of an obscure surf music tune from 1966 called "I Live For The Sun" by the Sunrays. Link here.

Imagine going off to college with your mom constantly beeping at you in your pocket.

It's the end of empty nest syndrome too.

Post: #20

(02-11-2019 02:08 PM)Laner Wrote:  We have zero screen time tolerance for our kid. Its tough at times, especially in public when our patience is already low. But you know what? You make the effort to connect with the kid and see why they are melting down. Or you take them for a walk. Or you let them sit on your lap for a minute. And now our 3yo can sit in our local pub for hours with no issues, which has made our lives so much easier in regards to social happiness.

And there is no excuse for kids over 4 having them as pacifiers. If your 4yo needs distraction in order to not be a little shit, then you have failed. But yeah, toddlers and babies given screens are going to be kids that need screens. When I see strollers with a phone holder over the babies face so they can watch things while their moms shop, I want to destroy it.

Couldn’t agree more. This issue is that it takes work to actually stimulate your child. I see a lot of modern day parents who don’t take their responsibility seriously enough and realise that it’s down to them.

Our win though. These kids will be brain dead and my kid will be smart when they’re older

Post: #21

Quote:I then have to remind myself I was the kid who played a Gameboy in the back of a car trying to catch a few seconds of orange street light to see anything. Pretty sure I developed my persistence trait there. But you know at least the batteries died and it was only in the car, and I never took it out when other people were there, unless they had their own. When we were out, we were out.

Yep. I've seen so many really young kids zoning out on tablets and smartphones while their parents sit in front of them and do the same exact thing. There's a world of difference between playing a gameboy for half an hour a day in the backseat of a car like kids did in the 1990s and being non-stop attached to a huge hypnotic bright screen 8 hours a day that disrupts every social interaction.

Gen Z and the generation that will come after them are already autistic af and massive amounts of screen time on developing brains will make the problem worse. We're fucking with social development on a massive scale in ways we don't understand because some oligarch invented a shiny new thing that gives us immediate gratification.

Some parents actually think a billionaire CEO and a conglomerate of leftist tech companies have their child's best interests in mind. No smartphone or tablet has ever had a comprehensive longitudinal child developmental study conducted before a product roll out. That means when you give your 8 year old a screen to pacify them you're making them an experimental guinea pig.

Post: #22

Despite the negative press, apparently Huawei phones are still quite popular here in Australia.

The default mode of Homo-Sapiens is that of the serf / slave...

Post: #23

Impossible. Teenagers live for discovering workarounds.

Post: #24

I was with a client the other day, while we were talking she had her four year old daughter playing/watching videos on her iPhone. She took her iPhone from her daughter to get some info I requested and her daughter had a literal meltdown, stomping and screaming and everything. It was pretty sobering to see this four year old child already hooked on the smart phone. Her generation and the kids a little older are going to be all kinds of nuts

Post: #25

(05-07-2019 12:00 PM)BlastbeatCasanova Wrote:  I was with a client the other day, while we were talking she had her four year old daughter playing/watching videos on her iPhone. She took her iPhone from her daughter to get some info I requested and her daughter had a literal meltdown, stomping and screaming and everything. It was pretty sobering to see this four year old child already hooked on the smart phone. Her generation and the kids a little older are going to be all kinds of nuts

I have experienced this with a 12 year old as well only with internet access. Many broken promises down the road, ignored warnings, and attempted web based version workarounds of apps that weren't allowed, we finally take away her internet access for a week or something, and she ends up fetal on the floor crying and screaming.

All the agreements she made about which sites she could use and who she could interact with online, evidently was just grown up bullshit she agreed with and promptly ignored, repeatedly, assuming for some reason that all threats to restrict internet access were just empty threats and that she was guaranteed a modem no matter how she acted or treated other people.

She seriously could not believe that she would be held accountable or that we were going to do what we said we were going to do.

She devolved into something primal.

A shocking thing to have happen in your home with someone you think you know.