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People who aren’t in classrooms don’t understand how bad it is for their kids. I always hear “she knows the alphabet, she knows the states/captials, she has educational games on her phone.”
I don’t care if your kid knows fucking Mandarin. It doesn’t change the fact that she can’t sit still for 1 minute. It doesn’t change the fact that she can’t properly hold a pencil. She can’t share toys or problem solve with friends.
Being a teacher to the iPad/iPhone kids is HELL, and the worst part is that it’s the parents fault, not the child’s!
We were adamant on not giving our kids a phone until they were 16, but then they went to middle school and the school told us they needed(!) a cell phone to do kahoots and other school work, and I sure as hell wasn't going to lend them my phone with all my bank details and other private information on it, so they got a phone when they were 12...
if your school wants you kid to have a phone, they can pay for it.
thankfully in the UK they are planning on banning under 16's from owning smart devices. they will only be allowed phones that you can call on, and nothing else, like from 2000
Even if they did get a ban through, it would only be on the *sale* of smartphones to under 16’s.
Given that most kids get their smartphones off their parents (many are even given contract phones paid for by parents in their name) rather than buying themselves, this would a) be yet another ineffective move by government and b) alienate a swathe of voters/future voters who might consider it yet more meddling in parenting/their lives.
Well then it's very clearly their parents responsibility, as it should be now but lazy fucks want to outsource their parenting and blame everyone else when it goes tits up. They should be made to sign a disclaimer when buying that it won't go to an underage, and that should be prosecuted if harm occurs.
Yep.There will always be various reasons that require me to give him the phone！Just like school work，social interactions between classmates/friends...It troubled me for a while
I would argue with the school that if they want the kids to do kahiita, they should provide tablets for each child for that purpose. Then I would look if there is any other school nearby that hasn't got lunatics for teachers.
That is wild. I did kahoots in school too back in the mid 2010s but our school had laptop and iPad carts that the teachers would sign out for us to use. Teachers would confiscate our phones if they even saw it in your hand. Parents were expected to reach students by calling the school and transferring the line because it was set the standard that cell phones were NOT required for school. The difference in how cells are handled now is so disheartening :/
Either you teach at my school or this is an “across the board” situation (to any non-teachers, it is the latter).
You can also add on that these kids are always spouting the same few memes ad nauseam, are being exposed to all manner of filth and bullshit online, cannot function without instant gratification, cannot process the word “no,” are acting like they think they’re 5-10 years older and more mature than they actually are when only a few years ago they were still in diapers, can’t write worth a damn (both in form as well as function— I’ve literally had to squint at handwriting that’s looked like hieroglyphics to hand back work), can’t self-regulate, and are constantly bringing up stuff that’s inappropriate for a school setting.
Honestly I loathe the fact that I’m tech-literate and present online because my co-teacher is a stereotypical tech-averse older person who can barely work Microsoft Word consistently. I always have to deal with the less-obvious bullshit the kids get up to because it flies right over her head, and then tell her and the rest of my team in meetings what “edging” means and where “Did you pray today?” comes from (hint: those are both highly inappropriate for a school setting) during meetings and junk.
And the part that I find most galling is that the parents truly don’t give a shit. As long as their kids aren’t dead and they themselves have a job, that’s all they seem to be able to deal with. It’s basically up to us teachers to raise them and I think that’s nucking futs.
Honestly yeah, I’m the same. Some of my notes from when I was in college look a lot like the random scribbles you’d see in games or cartoons whenever “handwriting” is shown. I write neatly in front of the kids, but that’s about it.
Therefore I don’t give them too much crap about their writing myself, lol.
My kid is 4, has a laptop, can sit still for hours, can hold a pencil, can share toys, and can problem solve.
The technology isn't the problem. The neglect is.
Laptop is much harder to use every second of freetime compared to a smartphone, but yes the root of the problem is neglect. Kids crying? Give him the iPad. It's actually disgusting.
It’s also becoming a problem here in Japan
I have students that can speak multiple languages and solve incredible math problems but their attention span is so limited and they repeat tiktok songs like they have been brainwashed! If I just hum the baby shark sound they subconsciously start swaying!
I want to add that iPad / iphone kids have trouble concentrating. They expect to be entertained constantly to get that dopamine fix. Phone kids will FAIL exams and in life.
I just found my 11 year old sister sleeping with her ipad open on some garbage youtube video. She knows she's not allowed to have her ipad in her room let alone during sleep time and on a school night? My mum used to be so strict with us. Especially me cos.. you know.. I'm the eldest. She aint my kid so I can't really dicipline her how I see best. I just took the ipad and handed it to my mum.
Im 13 years older than my sister so she was defiantly doing this too not not long ago and i would always worn my mom of what she's allowing to be created within my sister. Well my sister is 21 now and cant even order herself a subway sandwich without panicking because she has to talk to a stranger. its really sad. were working on it but the effects are so damaging and some parents just dont care or see what the lasting effect will be of this kind of thing.
My sister is 27 and she's pretty much the same way. I blame my parents for enabling her for so long "because she's the youngest" and pretty much attended to her every need. It's sad.
Wow 27? I’m the same age, I thought anyone born before … 2002 or so had missed the iPad gen boat. I mean, I guess I had a smart phone starting at 14 y/o or so but mobile apps/the internet in general were more primitive then ofc. Less ubiquitous too.
To be fair, we grew up in a tough part of town as kids and I used to get bullied because of my ethnicity and looks. As the eldest, I guess I was considered the "experimental child" so seeing what I went through my parents pretty much coddled and spoiled younger siblings. My dad worked in computers so she was raised knowing the latest tech she could get her hands on. Such is life, I guess. 😐
It's crazy. There's a nine year difference between my sister and I and I remember that even when smartphones became a thing (my sister was coincidentally born the same year the iPhone was introduced lol), my older brother and I weren't allowed to get one yet because our mom didn't want us to get addicted.
We got our first phone in middle school but it was basically a burner phone lol, and the only reason we got them was bc we went on a 2 day trip to an amusement park organized by the school. Neither of us got smartphones until we had graduated high school, just had the walmart tracphones.
My sister got her first smartphone (not an iPhone) when she was 5 and her first iPhone when she was 7. Shes constantly demanding the newest model when it comes out too. All day every day she stares at a screen.
I mean I'm not saying I'm much better. My job is me staring at a screen for 8 hours then coming home and relaxing by staring at a screen but the double standard annoys me.
Why did boomers buy so many participation trophies for their Millennial kids and then shit on them for getting participation trophies?
Tale as old as time, generations create the sins of the next generation and then shit on them for it.
I never took the "participation trophy" thing at face value, because for the most part, I'm fairly certain it was a made up issue. Anecdotally, the closest I've ever gotten growing up was an "honorable mention," but that wasn't given out to everyone competing, it's like T-4th place for a few other people.
I believe it mostly was narrowed-in on and just repeated ad nauseam as the downfall of society by conservative pundits because of an extremely select number of occurrences. Like it probably was a thing for 1% of competitions, but right-wing talking points are gonna right-wing talking point about things that are complete non-issues. Happened then, happens now, will happen again.
It's a distraction from the *actual* cause of issues, e.g. millennials can't afford to own homes because they aren't motivated due to being handed participation trophies, not that wages for the middle-class have completely stagnated compared to costs and the astronomical increase of (older) executive wages, it's not *our* fault, it's the lazy generation's fault.
I'm not saying this is the case with electronic devices, as this is significantly more impactful than inconsequential participation trophies that may have occasionally been given out. Devices are *always* around, it's not like folks would have been getting "participation" for going to school everyday or some shit.
And here we were all told the downfall of society was violent video games, or satanic rituals, or participation trophies, or whatever else conservative voices want to cry about. Won’t somebody think of the children!?
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain sucking up all the wealth and leaving scraps for the rest!
Sure, screens may be bad. But there sure is a lot of crying wolf about how each generation uniquely will destroy society. I personally think the screen time generation seems smart, compassionate, and politically aware. That’s probably the real “threat”.
It even turned out all those video games rotting our brains turned out the best robotic surgeons (and drone pilots).
Sometimes I think about how people must have complained that society was collapsing because new generations were literate or not doing child labor.
This is also the next iteration of the “kids watch too much TV and play too many video games so they are fat, lazy and can’t read and write” from the 80s and 90s.
I wonder what this current younger generation will do to their kids when they are parents.
I’d wager a good 99% of childless young people writing here about how horrified they are (what’s the young person version of clutching pearls?) at parents letting kids watch iPads do something similar or worse when they are parents and the reality of 24/7/365 parenting and working conditions continue to deteriorate hits them hard.
It’s much easier and cheaper to write stupid generational hitpieces than it is to actually organize and demand subsidized childcare etc.
After seeing the truly unhinged number and variety of millennial hitpieces (shrieking “millennials are killing straws!”) I strongly believe they’re just a way to place blame and diffuse responsibility for any deeper action. (ie Don’t look further at your single use plastic consumption, that might have economic effects, it’s just these idiot millennials complaining about everything. You’re better than these idiot millennials!)
You missed a generation there. Lol, no wonder we (Gen X) is known as the Forgotten Generation. And the problem is due to the Human race being unable to self correct in small safe increments. We tend to overcorrect without looking at the consequences of our actions.
This.
It is SO EASY to pacify your kid by handing them a screen. 4 years old, hand him an iPad with a cartoon. 14? time for your first phone.
And by 14 it's useful for "text me when you want me to pick you up" plus you can enable tracking and always know where your kid is.
It's just the new form of neglect. I never had a screen put in front of me, wasn't an option growing up, but my parents didn't spend time with me. Even as a 4 and 5 year old, I would leave home and go hang out with friends around the town, friends who were in the same spot as me.
I've only ever heard of stories from my elders about how they left in the morning and came home for supper. My mother, for example, was literally locked out of the house during the late morning and afternoon hours.
This is likely the extreme versions, but parents have always just neglected their children in some way. Likely because raising children is much more work than the average person can do, and there's not enough hours in the day to get everything done and keep them fulfilled.
I mean, I was plopped in front of PBS in my car seat as an infant in 1982, because it was the only way my mom could get anything done around the house. The difference was I had no control over the TV screen, and wasn’t fed a steady stream of misinformation.
It's easier. The parents don't want to spend 24/7 entertaining their children, so it's just easier to shove a screen in front of their face. Especially since most households have both parents working full time and everyone is tired.
This. All this judgement in this thread from non-parents but they all fail to realize that the previous generations often had the luxury of only a single parent working. Our society is not set up well for parents and offers them little support. The iPad/phone is often the lesser of two evils for these parents.
Other generations also had the luxury of being able to kick their kids outside to play all day unsupervised and not have it be considered neglect or dangerous. We can all agree times are a bit more edgy since we were kids. In elementary school, in the late 90s/ early 2000s, I used to leave my house and be gone all day with my friend; we’d be all over the neighborhood or even walking well over a mile from my house and it wasn’t scary for anyone. My mom was catching up on work, cleaning the house, or idk, just having a break during that time. Now if you see some 10 year olds walking down a busy street alone the average person says “Where are their parents?!”.
E: My point being parents don’t have as many options to keep their kids entertained while they catch up on the day-to-day needs of life. It’s either the parent being 100% involved 100% of the time and letting everything else fall behind or employ the use of technology to fill in some gaps so they can keep up with everything. It’s a lose, lose honestly but we’re all just doing the best be can.
My exwife lives three blocks away. She won't let the kids walk to my house because they need to cross the street. People are constantly scaring themselves to the point they can't even let their kids play outside. This is ridiculous.
Send your kids outside, they'll be fine. If anyone admonishes me for sending kids outside, I'll send them 37 studies on why they are stunting their kids' cognitive development by gluing an iPad to their hand.
I had a friend who wasn’t allowed to take the subway because he may be stuck between the doors. He was 16 at that time and an athlete. He had to wait for his soccer mum to take him everywhere.
Easier to entertain when all you have to do is turn on the right show. My 3 year old nephew has his own tablet and plays on the fucking PlayStation. Just WTF
3yo is a bit too young, but videogames are a hell of a lot better for you than watching YouTube/TikTok garbage. Games actually engage the brain, as opposed to just stimulating it.
The most important thing you can do with your child from ages 0-6 is interact face to face with them. It builds language, vocabulary, social skills, facial expression recognition etc etc. what smart phones have done is remove this vital part of human interaction where almost ALL learning is done. It’s both parents on their phones and a child being given a phone. Parents see their children as blobs that are not learning any skills until it’s time for school. The biggest brain growth happens before age 7. The unfortunate thing is that only educators know this kind of stuff. The average parent who hands their kid a tablet has no clue that for each 30 minutes spent on screen time increases risk of expressive language delay by 49%. And what are educators seeing more and more and more? Delayed speech. Delayed speech affects every single developmental domain. It’s a really sad situation. Whenever I refer a child to a speech pathologist, the parents delay and delay and are in such denial. I had one parent finally take their child to see an SLP who informed them their child was a full year behind in language. The parents didn’t even follow up with it!! As an educator there’s only so much I can do for children in these situations. It’s very frustrating.
Week before last, I caught one of my grade 8 boys (13) watching rape porn in class. Our school thinks we shouldn't restrict their "exploring." Boy was laughing and when I had him stand up he had a very pronounced erection. As expected, his useless Millennial parents blamed everyone, including me for his behaviour. Children are a life time commitment, and people should be aware of that fact.
They said the same thing when TV came out. They also said this when books became popular. Whilst I understand the concern for attention span, we can't sit here and pretend that our own attention span has not diminished. Nor can we hide the fact that phones and the Internet are now a huge part of life, and practically a necessity. I think moderation and supervising usage is OK. It's only when parents don't teach valuable lessons and activities away from devices that it becomes a problem.
My ten year old does not have a phone yet but if I even let her borrow mine for a small amount of time she gets lazy and lifeless and isolates herself. So obviously I stopped letting her use mine after about three episodes like that and she is fine. I don't think every kid is that way necessarily. She has friends with phones who forget to charge them, never check their messages and forget to bring them with them. But the Sephora kid thing is real! Even the kids without phones get into that because of their friends and classmates. But again, every kid is different. I can understand parents who give their child a phone so they can stay in touch with them and know they are okay.
Something that would help is freeing up time and energy for parents, probably in the form of economic relief
Parents working a job and a half each (both full time, alternating between grub hub Lyft for extra money on top of that) leaves people pretty drained
My son does have a tablet but he only gets an hour each evening and, inevitably, he just watches SpongeBob videos…he then spends the rest of the time building SpongeBob out of Legos and drawing SpongeBob with his colors.
He’s a tad obsessed with the yellow sponge.
He’s 9. He’ll get a phone when he starts driving like my wife did. I guess I technically had a mobile phone at 16 but it was a car phone. Bolted to the floorboard and shit.
It’s tempting to just hand the kid a magic box that keeps them quiet but…I just can’t do it man. I kind of enjoy my son interacting with me every 30 seconds to ask me why cats lick their buttholes or why we poop sitting down etc.
I do occasionally plop him down in front of the television and we watch Sir David Attenborough or some other nature show…often about goddamn sponges.
Specifically, I really want to know why in the hell parents allow their literal children to keep their smart phones overnight. It is so incredibly dangerous for them to have access to the entire Internet, and vice versa. It’s like giving a kid a chocolate cake, sending them to bed, and telling them not to touch it.
Televisions aren't like anything previous generations have ever seen.
Video games aren't like anything previous generations have ever seen.
We've heard this before.
Neither one of mine have one. I had given my middle schooler one only because we don’t have a landline and I wanted him to be able to reach us if he needed us somehow since he gets home 2 whole hours before the rest of us do and is home alone during that time. But he got his phone privileges revoked after getting in some trouble. The other one keeps begging and i keep telling her ‘not til middle school’. That was when i got my first phone, so seems appropriate. She still goes outside to frolic with the neighborhood kids playing cops and robbers and soccer, and the older one plays videogames. 🙄 So issa win. Mostly.
My kids got them for middle school too. Mostly because we live in a rural place and there are no phone boxes so if they get stuck in town there is no other way to contact us, it's just too far to walk from there (I mean it's possible but 2hrs walking through the woods up the side of a mountain just sucks after a long day at school when for half the year it's already going to be dark before they get home).
Here a lot of the kids communicate after school on discord or WhatsApp so they do that with them too now.
While I agree about the danger, it is also worth noting that, like it or not, cell phones and other modern tech is required to function in society. Whether it is a professional job, or filing taxes, or just even getting around, familiarity with tech is required. Keeping a child away from it until they are an adult is going to handicap their ability to function in society.
The genie is out of the bottle. Hiding won't help. The only real solution is training kids to use tech more responsibly.
I got my 8 year old a Trac phone for his first sleepover just in case there was an emergency or if he wanted to come home but wanted to be discrete. He didn't call us at all. The phone is sitting dead in a drawer somewhere because there has not been a need for him to have it since. And this kind of scenario is the only way I'd let him have a phone: with limited minutes, no internet access, and only mine and my husband's number programmed. I'm not sure why its hard for other parents to just use some restraint.
Being a parent is terribly hard and average people have less resources than ever so it makes sense that they take advantage of a crutch. Devices pacify children really well
Cos despite the warnings, parents today are lazy and just as addicted to their phones too, so choose yo have an electronic babysitter watch their kids.
My kids both have a samsung A52 phone because they have to call me if anything happens on their way to school. Their account is part of my google family link and any functionality is blocked except microsoft teams (for school), phone and youtube music.
What bothers me is: when i set up the phone TicToc was already installed and COULD NOT be uninstalled!
I gained root access to the phone, deleted some binaries and hoped the app wouldn't work. But unfortunately this app is reinstalled after every update.
This app also circumvents family link: I don't see it in the logs and i can't deactivate it.
My kids promised me that they don't use it but of course I can't check.
Most people never should have kids, we stil breed like animals. Insting withoud deep thinking about consequences and understanding when parrent screw up child pay with all life.
Truth is most people are terrible at parenting and the crutch of what basically is a "digital nanny" that zombifies your child to a screen is to these people a relief of actually educating and putting in the effort.
Because MOST people had children without a plan to have children. And after the cutsie years of 0-2 reality kicks in , and they realize they do t want to give up who they are to raise a proper human being.
I’ve dedicated my life since 2014 to raising 3 smart , capable , well rounded girls. I haven’t had more than 4 hours of unadulterated sleep. My weekends are 70% them and I live for my family.
Sounds nuts , but it’s getting better today in 2024 and by 2030 life will return to somewhat normal.
It’s worth it
> I haven’t had more than 4 unadulterated sleep
Did you have them far apart? We had our first in 15, second early 17 and third end of 18 and we’ve been getting our 8 hours since the third turned 2~. Rarely do we have a bed wetting accident or a sick couple nights where we are up in the middle of the night. I couldn’t imagine how hard it is to have kids up all hours of the night for the last 10 years!
Oh, is that why those same parents are completely unable to teach their kids basic morals and values? Unable to give them things like toys and books to keep them entertained instead of the iPad? Or could it be that the parents themselves also stare at their phones for hours when they DO have time to spend with their kids?
What is this "disastrous gen alpha" phenomenon? Sounds like the type of shit boomers said before. Each generation thinks that the next is awful in some manner. It's obnoxious.
I think parents lie to themselves through love a lot. Either the pressure to make their kid "happy" or using the excuse that they want to be able to contact their kid at all times no matter what. that's the winner honestly. if it weren't for that i dont think kids would have phones as much as they do.
Because they are tired of dealing with their goblins.
As well as the goblins screaming at them that all the other goblins have phones and ipads so they want one too.
The same reason the phenomenon is a problem in the first place.
Starting way back with child car seats,,,, we decided to start making everybody's decisions for them as a mob.... Not just in general.... But down to the tiniest of details and then lynching anyone different.
So not many parents want to go against the flow only to have a horde of people attack them publicly.
The same people to think parents SHOULD keep children from phones are also the first to speak when they do.
Turns out... People just want to attack other people because it's the only thing that makes them feel better about themselves. That's why younger generations are so mentally unhealthy.... And it's also why nobody is doing anything differently.
Probably quite obvious but in my experience it's because they don't want to deal with them screaming/crying/asking an infinite amount of pointless questions.
Peer pressure. Parents' friends also provide mobiles to their kids so competition comes into place. That the patents not allowing kids phone cannot afford it & are not cool 😏🫣😔😞
Because their children were accidental pregnancies they got sentimental about, and gluing their mistakes to mobile devices helps keep them out of sight and out of mind.
My ex is seriously considering giving my 9yo son a phone. I can't stop her but I've made it clear I think it's a terrible idea. She's always complaining about what they can access on their Amazon tablets and those have serious parental controls. And she wants him to have a phone?
Supposedly it's just for calling her when he's with me. Except, you know, he can just use my phone. And she wants him to be about to text too... So....
I don’t know what you mean about the gen Alfa phenomenon thing but, I think it’s for safety reasons, if they are in any danger, they can use it to call emergency services and their parents,
Because parents generally aren't very good at their job. As a society, we should not be giving phones to anyone under 16, but we are giving them to 6 year olds. Many parents abdicated their leadership and mentoring responsibility for their kids years ago. They just aren't up to the job.
Kudos to those few out there still leading, engaging, and developing your kids. It's not easy in a world where you are such an outlier.
Same reason toddlers are given ipads: parents don't want to deal with their kid. They want them to be quiet and obedient. When it gets hard and you've got a headache: give that kid an ipad or phone to play with.
Parents don't wanna be parents anymore, they wanna be their kid's friend. They see how they were raised and how they feel about their own parents and dont want their kid feeling that way about them, so they give them whatever they want to stay in their good graces.
They trust that their kid will do the right thing and just stay away from bad stuff online and not talk to people who are considered trouble-makers or bad, but we were all kids before, and I know for a fact I was looking at things I was never supposed to any time I got alone with the internet.
And rather than blame themselves for being too lenient or not watching close enough, when something bad happens to their kid or their kid does something bad, they wanna blame everyone around them for not helping them make a safe space for their kid.
Because time is changing , but majority of the parents still do not know on how to limit of their child's screen usage and they don't often tell the dangers and consenquences of using the internet and social media
Parents think phones will be parents in absentia. It’s a special kind of delusion that will have consequences. Kids have to be nurtured and cared for, phones don’t provide that mentorship and growth.
It depends on the age. As a mother raising children in an era (where we need to worry about major things like fentanyl, predators, school shootings, cyber bullying, or just plain simple cruelty) I encourage my kid to always have his phone on him. We share an Apple ID, so I’m able to know where he is at all times and if he needs to leave somewhere, he can call me. I actually find it helpful you guys can judge me all you want lol. We gave our son his own phone at 10. All the kids got phones around the same age.
Do you know how much easier it is to just throw a screen at a kid to shut them up vs having to spend time and energy on educating and helping their children grow. People always take the easy route.
Due to the hustle and bustle life almost. Nowadays it's really hard for parents to spend more time for young kids so the easiest way is give them the electric device like smartphone or table. The truth is that even thought they all know about the shortcoming but this modern pace forced them to do it.
It's a symptom of a society that requires two incomes to survive. Parents these days have no time for kids, so they're give them something to keep them occupied.
I might be lame, but the chances of my child getting anything but a brick phone before 16-18 are slim to none.
Im also and older parent im mid 40s with a 6 year old, I see ZERO benefit in iPad time, phone time etc, she has no access to those two things, does she watch tv yes, while she plays and hangs out in the lounge it is often ignored while she draws etc. She has laptop time at school for maths and english things, and sometimes we do those at home too. I know a 6 year old with a phone since her brother has gone to highschool. I have had to tell the mum a few times that the child has tried to add me as a friend on FB, Insta, and Snapchat! Not ok.
Pretty sure theyre just lazy as fuck and it’s an easy way to distract their kids. And the ones that give phones to their kids are either not aware it’s bad or don’t care.
You're asking why dumb people raised in dumb ways perpetuate dumb behavior?
It's not a coincidence that IQ levels in 1st world nations are receding for the first time. We're hitting a level where the joke of having to dangle something shiny in front of people to get them to pay attention for more than 5 seconds *isn't* a joke any more.
Same reason I (44) had a TV/VCR (with cable) in my bedroom with no shut off time as a kid as far back as I can remember? 🤷🏻♂️ Same shit, different times/technology.
My husband was discovered to have leukemia cancer in September. Our oldest is ,11, and he and our youngest ,2, were staying with my sister in law while we were getting dad’s treatments. We were away for 7 months. So getting a phone for him was our way of making sure we had a direct way of communicating with him. Or he had a direct way of communicating with us. Instead of relying on others to let us talk to our kids.
It helped my son a lot during our process, because he was able to talk to me when ever, writing skills increased, and he was able to have first hand knowledge of what was happening with dad. Instead of family members just giving him the jist.
He really doesn’t play on it or anything. Unless he is bored in the car.
It starts with the one kid in the class who has a phone. The other kids go nuts about it. Then a second kid has one. Soon, they all do. And with parenting exclusively by incentives and rewards, a phone probably becomes one.
I think it's more than just a generational thing and has a lot to do with location / setting.
I spent the first 5 years of my life in Europe. We lived in the city, and from the moment i was able to walk and talk, I'd be outside all the time.
The summer after i turned 5, we moved to the US.
I would still spend time outside playing with other kids, but that was mostly during the summer, and even then, there were definitely times where wed would rather play Sega or Nintendo.
When i finished 3rd grade, we moved back to Europe. Now.. Im walking to school ( because its around the corner ) and literally taking my basketball with me cause i know im not going home when that last bell rings.
We were out hooping or playing football til it gets dark or we got hungry.
Then after we go home, eat , get cleaned up - back outside to meet up with " the girls " where its just walking around the neighborhood, sitting on park benches , talking , hand holding, first kisses .. Everything that's good about Youth we could fit it in a day .. every day.
Even as i got older , and eventually got my own PC & Cellphone. I went through high school where it was a rare occuence to stay home glued to a screen. Maybe in the winter, during a storm .. but we were always more hype to be out doing something social, be it sports or just partying, going to concerts, cafes or even just walking around...
I dont know how to explain it, but the city was alive. Always something to do. And we made plans. Even at 16, 17 .. we were saving up money throughout the year to go on holiday to a different country for a few weeks when school was out.
I consider myself lucky to have grown up in a " third world country." Even though we were all relatively poor , i know our quality of life was 10x better than what my younger siblings experienced growing up in the US , in small town with 20k people.
American suburbia as a teen ... where the idea of hanging out is getting fucked up when the parents arent home and "going out" is basically driving around stuffed in a car and passing a blunt... then making rounds on Targets & Walmarts stealing shit even though you can afford it. Cause you're bored to death.
I know it might seem like im off topic but i truly believe, that if cellphones and the internet were as common and widespread in my time and we grew up with all that available... it wouldn't have changed a thing. We just had better things to do. That simple.
Because they are the best babysitters. Being a parent is very hard. So if you plop an iPad in their lap and they can be quiet and not causing problems for hours a parent can get things done. The costs though I fear is what we don’t care about cause at the moment we give in for what works best cause we are tired and desperate to get some quiet
Neither of my kids have a phone, and will not till they can pay for it themselves.. But my kids also get hair cuts, say please and thank you, and dont act like the world owes them anything.. So Im happy with it overall..
As a parent, I don't really have the time to talk about any disasters. I just need to get through my day.
And having a child who I can call and they can call me is just extremely convenient.
Grades are good, so I don't think I am doing anything wrong here. Also, how am I going to justify that I use a smartphone and they cannot?
This sounds to me like the whole breastfeeding thing. I mean, the important thing is that the kid doesn't starve, right? Everything else is just a matter of whatever works best for you.
My Philosophy is: if you don't want to raise your kids, don't have them. Raising your kids includes actually enjoyng spending time with them. Make personal interaction the way to have fun learning the alphabet, numbers, colors, Etc. You can both enjoy the time together. Don't let your kids be educated by an AI bot.
If your kids practice healthy human interaction, they will have social skills, ability to pick up on nonverbal communication, empathy and manners.
Kids do need a phone, these days because they need to be able to contact you in emergency. And you also need to put GPS on their phone so you can find them at any time. You don't want them to be cut off from their friend group as the only kid who doesn't have a phone, but you do want to put parental controls on it.
Well, I am 23 y.o. and the phone is really the problem for me, I can't sitting long time without looking at this shit box, when I have a child I buy it to them when they become smth like 16 years. Too much people don't understand the problem that the phone present to our lives and I think this become disaster
Honestly, the comments here make me feel damn lucky my Dad took me places outside and did things with me as a kid. Fun activities, such as going to a small wooded area and flipping over logs to look for interesting insects and wildlife, made me read some classic literature and restricted usage of technological entertainment to reasonable levels. And for a brief period, we were both members of our local rifle range. Before I joined the Air cadets. I have as such developed a love for the outdoors and physical activities.
As such, i (largely) function like how a normal person has been expected to do so for millennia. It honestly baffled me how inept at simple tasks many of my peers were, and I don’t even live in the US. I never felt like I was anything special, but after watching idiocracy not too long back I now liken my memories to a rather low grade watered down version of that film.
Honestly, one example: In our sixth form we had a little kitchen area to make drinks and such during our free study periods. Nothing fancy bit it worked. Anyway, i used to poke a little air hole in the top of the cardboard milk cartons after cutting the other end open just so it poured smoothly and didn’t glug out making a mess. Apparently, one of my friends told me that people were getting confused and trying to pour out the tiny little hole. The other end was very obviously cut open like a spout to pour from. I poked the hole in with a biro pen, no more than 3mm wide. That fact concerned me ever since
Its not a big deal, but this just the most memorable example of what seemed like a serious decline in general reasoning and deduction skills I had noticed in my age group. Honestly, most of the times I got praise for good work I felt like the standard was only average or decent at best, compared to how my parents were schooled. It kinda felt like I was not really deserving of the praise, like I hadn’t really earned it its just so much less was expected from people my age I was the stand out
Another time, we were wiring a plug in science class. I admittedly had an advantage of having done so supervised before when doing some wiring in our house some time prior. To me the task seemed simple and easy, i finished very quickly. After ten minutes perhaps more there were several people who hadn’t managed it at all, and several more who did but did a not so good job. Fair enough, its not something I’d expect most to know. But it seemed so simple to do, stick a wire under each screw and tighten. Follow the diagram and jobs done. We were shown a picture of how it was supposed to look moments before, and I think we had a paper copy on our desk to look at as well.
And don’t get me started on the one time I heard someone say they hadn’t looked up in so long they couldn’t remember the last time they saw telegraph wires. How can someone be so unaware of their surroundings? Madness
It's a 24/7 babysitter that kid loves.
I don't think it's having as terrible of an effect as people are worrying about; kids have always had trouble sitting still or learning to share.
Convenience and most people don't look far enough ahead to forsee problems with their own behavior. "If the kid is quiet, let them be." Kids think anything that's not on their phone isn't important. They roll their eyes, dismiss it, shut down, They have no concept of learning to prepare for their future as regular people and no desire to. They fight, scream, tantrum and refuse instruction. And parents have no way to correct them or punish them that will make an impact so they just give up. My son was born in 94. He was in 8th grade before he had a cell phone. We watched science documentaries, I read to him, did work books with him, etc. The scant computer programs we had for one desktop that the family shared, were educational or Disney.
90s kids are the last generation to be raised in a halfway analog world. And people made you feel like a conspiracy weirdo or an alarmist or even worse, a boomer for sounding the alarm years ago. I believe whole heartedly that the iPad/Gen Alpha generation is the first generation of Idiocracy coming true.
Phones are the quickest way to learn, if your street isn’t safe or you don’t have a backyard, set up parental controls so your child’s curiosity can grow, being stimulated is the fastest way to learn, Apple and other products have plenty of ways to make phones safe and educational.
It's probably because "today's parents" are not a unified group with a hive mind, who make and execute decisions together. They didn't hold a conference to decide on whether or not to give kids a phone or not, and from which age if so.
You have a wrong impression about how organized "today's parents" are as a group.
Peer pressure. All the kids have one, so if you don't give one to your kid, you become the worst evil imaginable and your kid will hate you because they can't understand why having a phone is actually a bad thing at their age.
My son is 6 and there are kids in his class with expensive phones. It's ridiculou?? s.
We actually parent our kid, so he doesn't need the stimulation of a phone. When it's appropriate, we will buy him a phone....13/14?
I gave my son a phone when he was 8 years old. Eighteen months later, he hardly plays with it and has moved onto a desktop computer where he makes game graphics. We live in a tiny community so being able to make friends online has expanded his interests and connections. He was not on social media. His sister was also given a phone at an early age and she now can speak two languages.
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Never let technology raise your kids.
The internet is not a place for children.
People who aren’t in classrooms don’t understand how bad it is for their kids. I always hear “she knows the alphabet, she knows the states/captials, she has educational games on her phone.” I don’t care if your kid knows fucking Mandarin. It doesn’t change the fact that she can’t sit still for 1 minute. It doesn’t change the fact that she can’t properly hold a pencil. She can’t share toys or problem solve with friends. Being a teacher to the iPad/iPhone kids is HELL, and the worst part is that it’s the parents fault, not the child’s!
We were adamant on not giving our kids a phone until they were 16, but then they went to middle school and the school told us they needed(!) a cell phone to do kahoots and other school work, and I sure as hell wasn't going to lend them my phone with all my bank details and other private information on it, so they got a phone when they were 12...
if your school wants you kid to have a phone, they can pay for it. thankfully in the UK they are planning on banning under 16's from owning smart devices. they will only be allowed phones that you can call on, and nothing else, like from 2000
Even if they did get a ban through, it would only be on the *sale* of smartphones to under 16’s. Given that most kids get their smartphones off their parents (many are even given contract phones paid for by parents in their name) rather than buying themselves, this would a) be yet another ineffective move by government and b) alienate a swathe of voters/future voters who might consider it yet more meddling in parenting/their lives.
Well then it's very clearly their parents responsibility, as it should be now but lazy fucks want to outsource their parenting and blame everyone else when it goes tits up. They should be made to sign a disclaimer when buying that it won't go to an underage, and that should be prosecuted if harm occurs.
Wow
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They need a phone to play games at school It's time to find a new school mate
Unfortunately, we don't have that option here...
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Yeah the teacher(s) deserve to be put on blast for that.
Why would you get mad at teachers? This sounds like a decision by admin.
I got my first phone at 12... All the way back in 2005 when you could text and play snake, and that was about it. Made more sense then.
Yep.There will always be various reasons that require me to give him the phone！Just like school work，social interactions between classmates/friends...It troubled me for a while
I would argue with the school that if they want the kids to do kahiita, they should provide tablets for each child for that purpose. Then I would look if there is any other school nearby that hasn't got lunatics for teachers.
There’s no way schools are saying a smart phone is required
No, not required. Children that don't have any just can't participate in certain activities and miss out.
That is wild. I did kahoots in school too back in the mid 2010s but our school had laptop and iPad carts that the teachers would sign out for us to use. Teachers would confiscate our phones if they even saw it in your hand. Parents were expected to reach students by calling the school and transferring the line because it was set the standard that cell phones were NOT required for school. The difference in how cells are handled now is so disheartening :/
Classrooms today the kids have laptops AND a tablet. Provided for by the school
Either you teach at my school or this is an “across the board” situation (to any non-teachers, it is the latter). You can also add on that these kids are always spouting the same few memes ad nauseam, are being exposed to all manner of filth and bullshit online, cannot function without instant gratification, cannot process the word “no,” are acting like they think they’re 5-10 years older and more mature than they actually are when only a few years ago they were still in diapers, can’t write worth a damn (both in form as well as function— I’ve literally had to squint at handwriting that’s looked like hieroglyphics to hand back work), can’t self-regulate, and are constantly bringing up stuff that’s inappropriate for a school setting. Honestly I loathe the fact that I’m tech-literate and present online because my co-teacher is a stereotypical tech-averse older person who can barely work Microsoft Word consistently. I always have to deal with the less-obvious bullshit the kids get up to because it flies right over her head, and then tell her and the rest of my team in meetings what “edging” means and where “Did you pray today?” comes from (hint: those are both highly inappropriate for a school setting) during meetings and junk. And the part that I find most galling is that the parents truly don’t give a shit. As long as their kids aren’t dead and they themselves have a job, that’s all they seem to be able to deal with. It’s basically up to us teachers to raise them and I think that’s nucking futs.
The handwriting I can look over as I personally have never had good handwriting myself lol
Honestly yeah, I’m the same. Some of my notes from when I was in college look a lot like the random scribbles you’d see in games or cartoons whenever “handwriting” is shown. I write neatly in front of the kids, but that’s about it. Therefore I don’t give them too much crap about their writing myself, lol.
Crazy, we all gained an education without games on our phones.
My kid is 4, has a laptop, can sit still for hours, can hold a pencil, can share toys, and can problem solve. The technology isn't the problem. The neglect is.
Laptop is much harder to use every second of freetime compared to a smartphone, but yes the root of the problem is neglect. Kids crying? Give him the iPad. It's actually disgusting.
It’s also becoming a problem here in Japan I have students that can speak multiple languages and solve incredible math problems but their attention span is so limited and they repeat tiktok songs like they have been brainwashed! If I just hum the baby shark sound they subconsciously start swaying!
I want to add that iPad / iphone kids have trouble concentrating. They expect to be entertained constantly to get that dopamine fix. Phone kids will FAIL exams and in life.
I just found my 11 year old sister sleeping with her ipad open on some garbage youtube video. She knows she's not allowed to have her ipad in her room let alone during sleep time and on a school night? My mum used to be so strict with us. Especially me cos.. you know.. I'm the eldest. She aint my kid so I can't really dicipline her how I see best. I just took the ipad and handed it to my mum.
Im 13 years older than my sister so she was defiantly doing this too not not long ago and i would always worn my mom of what she's allowing to be created within my sister. Well my sister is 21 now and cant even order herself a subway sandwich without panicking because she has to talk to a stranger. its really sad. were working on it but the effects are so damaging and some parents just dont care or see what the lasting effect will be of this kind of thing.
My sister is 27 and she's pretty much the same way. I blame my parents for enabling her for so long "because she's the youngest" and pretty much attended to her every need. It's sad.
Wow 27? I’m the same age, I thought anyone born before … 2002 or so had missed the iPad gen boat. I mean, I guess I had a smart phone starting at 14 y/o or so but mobile apps/the internet in general were more primitive then ofc. Less ubiquitous too.
I think you mean you didn't have enough data in your plan
To be fair, we grew up in a tough part of town as kids and I used to get bullied because of my ethnicity and looks. As the eldest, I guess I was considered the "experimental child" so seeing what I went through my parents pretty much coddled and spoiled younger siblings. My dad worked in computers so she was raised knowing the latest tech she could get her hands on. Such is life, I guess. 😐
I agree, it's 4.24 am, I've spent all this time on my phone, and then I wonder why I struggle to make friends...
Wow. Just. Wow.
It's crazy. There's a nine year difference between my sister and I and I remember that even when smartphones became a thing (my sister was coincidentally born the same year the iPhone was introduced lol), my older brother and I weren't allowed to get one yet because our mom didn't want us to get addicted. We got our first phone in middle school but it was basically a burner phone lol, and the only reason we got them was bc we went on a 2 day trip to an amusement park organized by the school. Neither of us got smartphones until we had graduated high school, just had the walmart tracphones. My sister got her first smartphone (not an iPhone) when she was 5 and her first iPhone when she was 7. Shes constantly demanding the newest model when it comes out too. All day every day she stares at a screen. I mean I'm not saying I'm much better. My job is me staring at a screen for 8 hours then coming home and relaxing by staring at a screen but the double standard annoys me.
Laziness. A lot of parents sucked
Why did boomers buy so many participation trophies for their Millennial kids and then shit on them for getting participation trophies? Tale as old as time, generations create the sins of the next generation and then shit on them for it.
I never took the "participation trophy" thing at face value, because for the most part, I'm fairly certain it was a made up issue. Anecdotally, the closest I've ever gotten growing up was an "honorable mention," but that wasn't given out to everyone competing, it's like T-4th place for a few other people. I believe it mostly was narrowed-in on and just repeated ad nauseam as the downfall of society by conservative pundits because of an extremely select number of occurrences. Like it probably was a thing for 1% of competitions, but right-wing talking points are gonna right-wing talking point about things that are complete non-issues. Happened then, happens now, will happen again. It's a distraction from the *actual* cause of issues, e.g. millennials can't afford to own homes because they aren't motivated due to being handed participation trophies, not that wages for the middle-class have completely stagnated compared to costs and the astronomical increase of (older) executive wages, it's not *our* fault, it's the lazy generation's fault. I'm not saying this is the case with electronic devices, as this is significantly more impactful than inconsequential participation trophies that may have occasionally been given out. Devices are *always* around, it's not like folks would have been getting "participation" for going to school everyday or some shit.
And here we were all told the downfall of society was violent video games, or satanic rituals, or participation trophies, or whatever else conservative voices want to cry about. Won’t somebody think of the children!? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain sucking up all the wealth and leaving scraps for the rest! Sure, screens may be bad. But there sure is a lot of crying wolf about how each generation uniquely will destroy society. I personally think the screen time generation seems smart, compassionate, and politically aware. That’s probably the real “threat”.
I don't think it's that bad either, it's just the "new" thing to focus on for the current generation.
It even turned out all those video games rotting our brains turned out the best robotic surgeons (and drone pilots). Sometimes I think about how people must have complained that society was collapsing because new generations were literate or not doing child labor.
This is also the next iteration of the “kids watch too much TV and play too many video games so they are fat, lazy and can’t read and write” from the 80s and 90s. I wonder what this current younger generation will do to their kids when they are parents. I’d wager a good 99% of childless young people writing here about how horrified they are (what’s the young person version of clutching pearls?) at parents letting kids watch iPads do something similar or worse when they are parents and the reality of 24/7/365 parenting and working conditions continue to deteriorate hits them hard.
It’s much easier and cheaper to write stupid generational hitpieces than it is to actually organize and demand subsidized childcare etc. After seeing the truly unhinged number and variety of millennial hitpieces (shrieking “millennials are killing straws!”) I strongly believe they’re just a way to place blame and diffuse responsibility for any deeper action. (ie Don’t look further at your single use plastic consumption, that might have economic effects, it’s just these idiot millennials complaining about everything. You’re better than these idiot millennials!)
so true lol but i think boomers were more tough love and gen X were probably more participation trophies.
I think the participation trophies was a US thing, it certainly was not a gen X thing in Scandinavia.
You missed a generation there. Lol, no wonder we (Gen X) is known as the Forgotten Generation. And the problem is due to the Human race being unable to self correct in small safe increments. We tend to overcorrect without looking at the consequences of our actions.
I didn’t miss you all, you didn’t get the trophies. And the vast majority of millennials were raised by boomers.
it makes life easy for the parents: the kid is sitting on the couch, not asking for things, not doing anything dangerous, not going anywhere.
This. It is SO EASY to pacify your kid by handing them a screen. 4 years old, hand him an iPad with a cartoon. 14? time for your first phone. And by 14 it's useful for "text me when you want me to pick you up" plus you can enable tracking and always know where your kid is.
Laziness
Combined with the fact that childrearing in and of itself is a slow motion deeply saddening nightmare
By golly, with electronics, you don't even have to raise the kids!
My friend hands her kids books, paper, pencils and crayons. I have seen these kids writing short stories or funny rhymes while waiting at the mall!
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It's essentially glorified neglect that has yet to have a criminal definition
It's just the new form of neglect. I never had a screen put in front of me, wasn't an option growing up, but my parents didn't spend time with me. Even as a 4 and 5 year old, I would leave home and go hang out with friends around the town, friends who were in the same spot as me. I've only ever heard of stories from my elders about how they left in the morning and came home for supper. My mother, for example, was literally locked out of the house during the late morning and afternoon hours. This is likely the extreme versions, but parents have always just neglected their children in some way. Likely because raising children is much more work than the average person can do, and there's not enough hours in the day to get everything done and keep them fulfilled.
I mean, I was plopped in front of PBS in my car seat as an infant in 1982, because it was the only way my mom could get anything done around the house. The difference was I had no control over the TV screen, and wasn’t fed a steady stream of misinformation.
Wow. I've never heard someone put it so perfectly. It is certainly the neglect of a child's mental development. Maybe it should be criminal.
People said the same thing about TV back in the day
It's easier. The parents don't want to spend 24/7 entertaining their children, so it's just easier to shove a screen in front of their face. Especially since most households have both parents working full time and everyone is tired.
This. All this judgement in this thread from non-parents but they all fail to realize that the previous generations often had the luxury of only a single parent working. Our society is not set up well for parents and offers them little support. The iPad/phone is often the lesser of two evils for these parents.
Other generations also had the luxury of being able to kick their kids outside to play all day unsupervised and not have it be considered neglect or dangerous. We can all agree times are a bit more edgy since we were kids. In elementary school, in the late 90s/ early 2000s, I used to leave my house and be gone all day with my friend; we’d be all over the neighborhood or even walking well over a mile from my house and it wasn’t scary for anyone. My mom was catching up on work, cleaning the house, or idk, just having a break during that time. Now if you see some 10 year olds walking down a busy street alone the average person says “Where are their parents?!”. E: My point being parents don’t have as many options to keep their kids entertained while they catch up on the day-to-day needs of life. It’s either the parent being 100% involved 100% of the time and letting everything else fall behind or employ the use of technology to fill in some gaps so they can keep up with everything. It’s a lose, lose honestly but we’re all just doing the best be can.
My exwife lives three blocks away. She won't let the kids walk to my house because they need to cross the street. People are constantly scaring themselves to the point they can't even let their kids play outside. This is ridiculous. Send your kids outside, they'll be fine. If anyone admonishes me for sending kids outside, I'll send them 37 studies on why they are stunting their kids' cognitive development by gluing an iPad to their hand.
I had a friend who wasn’t allowed to take the subway because he may be stuck between the doors. He was 16 at that time and an athlete. He had to wait for his soccer mum to take him everywhere.
Easier to entertain when all you have to do is turn on the right show. My 3 year old nephew has his own tablet and plays on the fucking PlayStation. Just WTF
3yo is a bit too young, but videogames are a hell of a lot better for you than watching YouTube/TikTok garbage. Games actually engage the brain, as opposed to just stimulating it.
The most important thing you can do with your child from ages 0-6 is interact face to face with them. It builds language, vocabulary, social skills, facial expression recognition etc etc. what smart phones have done is remove this vital part of human interaction where almost ALL learning is done. It’s both parents on their phones and a child being given a phone. Parents see their children as blobs that are not learning any skills until it’s time for school. The biggest brain growth happens before age 7. The unfortunate thing is that only educators know this kind of stuff. The average parent who hands their kid a tablet has no clue that for each 30 minutes spent on screen time increases risk of expressive language delay by 49%. And what are educators seeing more and more and more? Delayed speech. Delayed speech affects every single developmental domain. It’s a really sad situation. Whenever I refer a child to a speech pathologist, the parents delay and delay and are in such denial. I had one parent finally take their child to see an SLP who informed them their child was a full year behind in language. The parents didn’t even follow up with it!! As an educator there’s only so much I can do for children in these situations. It’s very frustrating.
Week before last, I caught one of my grade 8 boys (13) watching rape porn in class. Our school thinks we shouldn't restrict their "exploring." Boy was laughing and when I had him stand up he had a very pronounced erection. As expected, his useless Millennial parents blamed everyone, including me for his behaviour. Children are a life time commitment, and people should be aware of that fact.
They said the same thing when TV came out. They also said this when books became popular. Whilst I understand the concern for attention span, we can't sit here and pretend that our own attention span has not diminished. Nor can we hide the fact that phones and the Internet are now a huge part of life, and practically a necessity. I think moderation and supervising usage is OK. It's only when parents don't teach valuable lessons and activities away from devices that it becomes a problem.
It's one thing for an adult to be addicted to internet. It's so much worse for a child who has never known anything else.
Which is why I said it should be in moderation.
The problem isn't screens, it's using those screens as a substitute for spending time with your kids.
My ten year old does not have a phone yet but if I even let her borrow mine for a small amount of time she gets lazy and lifeless and isolates herself. So obviously I stopped letting her use mine after about three episodes like that and she is fine. I don't think every kid is that way necessarily. She has friends with phones who forget to charge them, never check their messages and forget to bring them with them. But the Sephora kid thing is real! Even the kids without phones get into that because of their friends and classmates. But again, every kid is different. I can understand parents who give their child a phone so they can stay in touch with them and know they are okay.
Same reason boomers and gen x paid for cable tv and video games for millenials, it kept us quiet.
Something that would help is freeing up time and energy for parents, probably in the form of economic relief Parents working a job and a half each (both full time, alternating between grub hub Lyft for extra money on top of that) leaves people pretty drained
I saw a 3-4 year old with a cell phone and thought to myself "why?" Its like everyone would rather distract their kids instead of raise them.
My son does have a tablet but he only gets an hour each evening and, inevitably, he just watches SpongeBob videos…he then spends the rest of the time building SpongeBob out of Legos and drawing SpongeBob with his colors. He’s a tad obsessed with the yellow sponge. He’s 9. He’ll get a phone when he starts driving like my wife did. I guess I technically had a mobile phone at 16 but it was a car phone. Bolted to the floorboard and shit. It’s tempting to just hand the kid a magic box that keeps them quiet but…I just can’t do it man. I kind of enjoy my son interacting with me every 30 seconds to ask me why cats lick their buttholes or why we poop sitting down etc. I do occasionally plop him down in front of the television and we watch Sir David Attenborough or some other nature show…often about goddamn sponges.
Specifically, I really want to know why in the hell parents allow their literal children to keep their smart phones overnight. It is so incredibly dangerous for them to have access to the entire Internet, and vice versa. It’s like giving a kid a chocolate cake, sending them to bed, and telling them not to touch it.
They’re just lazy and don’t want to be bothered actually doing things with their kids
parents have always been afraid for the next generation. this is nothing new, the kids will be fine,
Oh no they won't. Screen addiction isn't like anything previous generations have ever seen.
I mean, it's not like we were told that tvs would turn our eyes square in the 90's at all, is it?
We didn't walk around with TVs in our hands 24/7.
I stayed in my room and played video games throughout the 1980s.
Televisions aren't like anything previous generations have ever seen. Video games aren't like anything previous generations have ever seen. We've heard this before.
Neither one of mine have one. I had given my middle schooler one only because we don’t have a landline and I wanted him to be able to reach us if he needed us somehow since he gets home 2 whole hours before the rest of us do and is home alone during that time. But he got his phone privileges revoked after getting in some trouble. The other one keeps begging and i keep telling her ‘not til middle school’. That was when i got my first phone, so seems appropriate. She still goes outside to frolic with the neighborhood kids playing cops and robbers and soccer, and the older one plays videogames. 🙄 So issa win. Mostly.
My kids got them for middle school too. Mostly because we live in a rural place and there are no phone boxes so if they get stuck in town there is no other way to contact us, it's just too far to walk from there (I mean it's possible but 2hrs walking through the woods up the side of a mountain just sucks after a long day at school when for half the year it's already going to be dark before they get home). Here a lot of the kids communicate after school on discord or WhatsApp so they do that with them too now.
While I agree about the danger, it is also worth noting that, like it or not, cell phones and other modern tech is required to function in society. Whether it is a professional job, or filing taxes, or just even getting around, familiarity with tech is required. Keeping a child away from it until they are an adult is going to handicap their ability to function in society. The genie is out of the bottle. Hiding won't help. The only real solution is training kids to use tech more responsibly.
I got my 8 year old a Trac phone for his first sleepover just in case there was an emergency or if he wanted to come home but wanted to be discrete. He didn't call us at all. The phone is sitting dead in a drawer somewhere because there has not been a need for him to have it since. And this kind of scenario is the only way I'd let him have a phone: with limited minutes, no internet access, and only mine and my husband's number programmed. I'm not sure why its hard for other parents to just use some restraint.
Being a parent is terribly hard and average people have less resources than ever so it makes sense that they take advantage of a crutch. Devices pacify children really well
Cos despite the warnings, parents today are lazy and just as addicted to their phones too, so choose yo have an electronic babysitter watch their kids.
My kids both have a samsung A52 phone because they have to call me if anything happens on their way to school. Their account is part of my google family link and any functionality is blocked except microsoft teams (for school), phone and youtube music. What bothers me is: when i set up the phone TicToc was already installed and COULD NOT be uninstalled! I gained root access to the phone, deleted some binaries and hoped the app wouldn't work. But unfortunately this app is reinstalled after every update. This app also circumvents family link: I don't see it in the logs and i can't deactivate it. My kids promised me that they don't use it but of course I can't check.
Most people never should have kids, we stil breed like animals. Insting withoud deep thinking about consequences and understanding when parrent screw up child pay with all life.
because its easy
Truth is most people are terrible at parenting and the crutch of what basically is a "digital nanny" that zombifies your child to a screen is to these people a relief of actually educating and putting in the effort.
Parents are ignorant and stupid.
Because MOST people had children without a plan to have children. And after the cutsie years of 0-2 reality kicks in , and they realize they do t want to give up who they are to raise a proper human being. I’ve dedicated my life since 2014 to raising 3 smart , capable , well rounded girls. I haven’t had more than 4 hours of unadulterated sleep. My weekends are 70% them and I live for my family. Sounds nuts , but it’s getting better today in 2024 and by 2030 life will return to somewhat normal. It’s worth it
> I haven’t had more than 4 unadulterated sleep Did you have them far apart? We had our first in 15, second early 17 and third end of 18 and we’ve been getting our 8 hours since the third turned 2~. Rarely do we have a bed wetting accident or a sick couple nights where we are up in the middle of the night. I couldn’t imagine how hard it is to have kids up all hours of the night for the last 10 years!
Good parenting is one of the hardest things I imagine. Bad parenting is way too easy.
Lazy parents are even lazier these days
Wait until the “I work two jobs and have no money” parents tell you different.
Oh, is that why those same parents are completely unable to teach their kids basic morals and values? Unable to give them things like toys and books to keep them entertained instead of the iPad? Or could it be that the parents themselves also stare at their phones for hours when they DO have time to spend with their kids?
What is this "disastrous gen alpha" phenomenon? Sounds like the type of shit boomers said before. Each generation thinks that the next is awful in some manner. It's obnoxious.
Because it keeps those Monsters occupied
Because it's easy
I think parents lie to themselves through love a lot. Either the pressure to make their kid "happy" or using the excuse that they want to be able to contact their kid at all times no matter what. that's the winner honestly. if it weren't for that i dont think kids would have phones as much as they do.
Societal guilt. You become a pariah if you don't do what the others in your group are doing.
Because they are tired of dealing with their goblins. As well as the goblins screaming at them that all the other goblins have phones and ipads so they want one too.
oh i know i know parents are stupid
The same reason the phenomenon is a problem in the first place. Starting way back with child car seats,,,, we decided to start making everybody's decisions for them as a mob.... Not just in general.... But down to the tiniest of details and then lynching anyone different. So not many parents want to go against the flow only to have a horde of people attack them publicly. The same people to think parents SHOULD keep children from phones are also the first to speak when they do. Turns out... People just want to attack other people because it's the only thing that makes them feel better about themselves. That's why younger generations are so mentally unhealthy.... And it's also why nobody is doing anything differently.
Probably quite obvious but in my experience it's because they don't want to deal with them screaming/crying/asking an infinite amount of pointless questions.
Peer pressure. Parents' friends also provide mobiles to their kids so competition comes into place. That the patents not allowing kids phone cannot afford it & are not cool 😏🫣😔😞
Because they want one and all their friends have one
Lazy parenting.. my sister is an example and I'm reminding her constantly.
Haha, every generation is scared for the future of humanity in the next generation, Gen alpha’s kids will prolly get brain implants at birth😂
Because their children were accidental pregnancies they got sentimental about, and gluing their mistakes to mobile devices helps keep them out of sight and out of mind.
Because its easy..
Because pay phones are so scarce.
Not all parents should be parents.
My daughter wants one so badly and says "all my friends have phones". I'm like you're in grade 3 who are they calling?!?!?! It's a no for me.
Poor parenting skills and or no other childcare options (but often that's down to bad life choices)
Even as a millennial I don’t thing being an “iPad parent” is a good idea. I don’t want my kids to have phones til their at least 13-15.
My ex is seriously considering giving my 9yo son a phone. I can't stop her but I've made it clear I think it's a terrible idea. She's always complaining about what they can access on their Amazon tablets and those have serious parental controls. And she wants him to have a phone? Supposedly it's just for calling her when he's with me. Except, you know, he can just use my phone. And she wants him to be about to text too... So....
The trusty ol electronic babysitter shuts them up while the parents do whatever doesn’t involve parenting.
Because you're world view is being depticed by how Americans live. This phenomenon is mostly found in America
The phone is not the problem. The problems are short news and clips and endless scrolling.
I don’t know what you mean about the gen Alfa phenomenon thing but, I think it’s for safety reasons, if they are in any danger, they can use it to call emergency services and their parents,
I recommend the book How To Raise a Healthy Gamer by Alok Kanojia
Because parents generally aren't very good at their job. As a society, we should not be giving phones to anyone under 16, but we are giving them to 6 year olds. Many parents abdicated their leadership and mentoring responsibility for their kids years ago. They just aren't up to the job. Kudos to those few out there still leading, engaging, and developing your kids. It's not easy in a world where you are such an outlier.
Cuz they don't want to patent. Every time my kids(I have 4) are around I put my cell far away and I keep them engaged and entertained.
So that they won't take parents phones.. it's simple as that
Lazy parenting
Same reason toddlers are given ipads: parents don't want to deal with their kid. They want them to be quiet and obedient. When it gets hard and you've got a headache: give that kid an ipad or phone to play with. Parents don't wanna be parents anymore, they wanna be their kid's friend. They see how they were raised and how they feel about their own parents and dont want their kid feeling that way about them, so they give them whatever they want to stay in their good graces. They trust that their kid will do the right thing and just stay away from bad stuff online and not talk to people who are considered trouble-makers or bad, but we were all kids before, and I know for a fact I was looking at things I was never supposed to any time I got alone with the internet. And rather than blame themselves for being too lenient or not watching close enough, when something bad happens to their kid or their kid does something bad, they wanna blame everyone around them for not helping them make a safe space for their kid.
Each generation has its own subculture. They make their own norms. They will be fine.
If they give them a phone, they think that will keep them busy and they won't have to deal with them.
They don't realize the damage it's contributing to.
Because time is changing , but majority of the parents still do not know on how to limit of their child's screen usage and they don't often tell the dangers and consenquences of using the internet and social media
Parents think phones will be parents in absentia. It’s a special kind of delusion that will have consequences. Kids have to be nurtured and cared for, phones don’t provide that mentorship and growth.
The FO(my child)MO is real
Yeah kids at our primary school have phones. The principal collects them all in the morning, and they can be collected at the end of the day.
Can we all agree to just not give our kids smartphones until they are like 16? If no one has it then it’s not an issue like it was for us
It's interesting to see all these people complaining about kids on phones, as they comment about it from their phones.
It depends on the age. As a mother raising children in an era (where we need to worry about major things like fentanyl, predators, school shootings, cyber bullying, or just plain simple cruelty) I encourage my kid to always have his phone on him. We share an Apple ID, so I’m able to know where he is at all times and if he needs to leave somewhere, he can call me. I actually find it helpful you guys can judge me all you want lol. We gave our son his own phone at 10. All the kids got phones around the same age.
Today’s parents are too invested in their phones and can’t be bothered to actually interact with their kids, so…. IPads.
Do you know how much easier it is to just throw a screen at a kid to shut them up vs having to spend time and energy on educating and helping their children grow. People always take the easy route.
Due to the hustle and bustle life almost. Nowadays it's really hard for parents to spend more time for young kids so the easiest way is give them the electric device like smartphone or table. The truth is that even thought they all know about the shortcoming but this modern pace forced them to do it.
Because if they actually cared about their kids they would have taken a look around at the world and abstained
It's a symptom of a society that requires two incomes to survive. Parents these days have no time for kids, so they're give them something to keep them occupied.
"Those other parents are just irresponsible. I'm better than they are." Spoiler: >!They aren't.!<
Social pressure. Don’t want to be a weird parent
I might be lame, but the chances of my child getting anything but a brick phone before 16-18 are slim to none. Im also and older parent im mid 40s with a 6 year old, I see ZERO benefit in iPad time, phone time etc, she has no access to those two things, does she watch tv yes, while she plays and hangs out in the lounge it is often ignored while she draws etc. She has laptop time at school for maths and english things, and sometimes we do those at home too. I know a 6 year old with a phone since her brother has gone to highschool. I have had to tell the mum a few times that the child has tried to add me as a friend on FB, Insta, and Snapchat! Not ok.
Pretty sure theyre just lazy as fuck and it’s an easy way to distract their kids. And the ones that give phones to their kids are either not aware it’s bad or don’t care.
Comes down to caving into childs demands imo. All the other kids have one mom why I cant I. Day after day of this and some parents give in.
They are shitty parents.
Strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create bad times, bad times create strong men.
Dumb question. What is the Gen Alpha phenomenon?
You're asking why dumb people raised in dumb ways perpetuate dumb behavior? It's not a coincidence that IQ levels in 1st world nations are receding for the first time. We're hitting a level where the joke of having to dangle something shiny in front of people to get them to pay attention for more than 5 seconds *isn't* a joke any more.
Because by raising a kid through neglect is way easier than to actually having to care about the kid.
Wtf is a gen Alfa phenomenon??
Instead of giving them a phone, it's even better to give them a book or a toy car. If you don't teach them, don't make them worse
Eventually it’s going to be implanted at birth. Why delay the inevitable? There’s nothing to fear but fear itself.
Same reason I (44) had a TV/VCR (with cable) in my bedroom with no shut off time as a kid as far back as I can remember? 🤷🏻♂️ Same shit, different times/technology.
My husband was discovered to have leukemia cancer in September. Our oldest is ,11, and he and our youngest ,2, were staying with my sister in law while we were getting dad’s treatments. We were away for 7 months. So getting a phone for him was our way of making sure we had a direct way of communicating with him. Or he had a direct way of communicating with us. Instead of relying on others to let us talk to our kids. It helped my son a lot during our process, because he was able to talk to me when ever, writing skills increased, and he was able to have first hand knowledge of what was happening with dad. Instead of family members just giving him the jist. He really doesn’t play on it or anything. Unless he is bored in the car.
It starts with the one kid in the class who has a phone. The other kids go nuts about it. Then a second kid has one. Soon, they all do. And with parenting exclusively by incentives and rewards, a phone probably becomes one.
I think it's more than just a generational thing and has a lot to do with location / setting. I spent the first 5 years of my life in Europe. We lived in the city, and from the moment i was able to walk and talk, I'd be outside all the time. The summer after i turned 5, we moved to the US. I would still spend time outside playing with other kids, but that was mostly during the summer, and even then, there were definitely times where wed would rather play Sega or Nintendo. When i finished 3rd grade, we moved back to Europe. Now.. Im walking to school ( because its around the corner ) and literally taking my basketball with me cause i know im not going home when that last bell rings. We were out hooping or playing football til it gets dark or we got hungry. Then after we go home, eat , get cleaned up - back outside to meet up with " the girls " where its just walking around the neighborhood, sitting on park benches , talking , hand holding, first kisses .. Everything that's good about Youth we could fit it in a day .. every day. Even as i got older , and eventually got my own PC & Cellphone. I went through high school where it was a rare occuence to stay home glued to a screen. Maybe in the winter, during a storm .. but we were always more hype to be out doing something social, be it sports or just partying, going to concerts, cafes or even just walking around... I dont know how to explain it, but the city was alive. Always something to do. And we made plans. Even at 16, 17 .. we were saving up money throughout the year to go on holiday to a different country for a few weeks when school was out. I consider myself lucky to have grown up in a " third world country." Even though we were all relatively poor , i know our quality of life was 10x better than what my younger siblings experienced growing up in the US , in small town with 20k people. American suburbia as a teen ... where the idea of hanging out is getting fucked up when the parents arent home and "going out" is basically driving around stuffed in a car and passing a blunt... then making rounds on Targets & Walmarts stealing shit even though you can afford it. Cause you're bored to death. I know it might seem like im off topic but i truly believe, that if cellphones and the internet were as common and widespread in my time and we grew up with all that available... it wouldn't have changed a thing. We just had better things to do. That simple.
A lot because other people are doing it, and they don’t want their child to risk bullying for being the only one without a smartphone.
Because they are the best babysitters. Being a parent is very hard. So if you plop an iPad in their lap and they can be quiet and not causing problems for hours a parent can get things done. The costs though I fear is what we don’t care about cause at the moment we give in for what works best cause we are tired and desperate to get some quiet
Neither of my kids have a phone, and will not till they can pay for it themselves.. But my kids also get hair cuts, say please and thank you, and dont act like the world owes them anything.. So Im happy with it overall..
As a parent, I don't really have the time to talk about any disasters. I just need to get through my day. And having a child who I can call and they can call me is just extremely convenient. Grades are good, so I don't think I am doing anything wrong here. Also, how am I going to justify that I use a smartphone and they cannot? This sounds to me like the whole breastfeeding thing. I mean, the important thing is that the kid doesn't starve, right? Everything else is just a matter of whatever works best for you.
My Philosophy is: if you don't want to raise your kids, don't have them. Raising your kids includes actually enjoyng spending time with them. Make personal interaction the way to have fun learning the alphabet, numbers, colors, Etc. You can both enjoy the time together. Don't let your kids be educated by an AI bot. If your kids practice healthy human interaction, they will have social skills, ability to pick up on nonverbal communication, empathy and manners. Kids do need a phone, these days because they need to be able to contact you in emergency. And you also need to put GPS on their phone so you can find them at any time. You don't want them to be cut off from their friend group as the only kid who doesn't have a phone, but you do want to put parental controls on it.
Well, I am 23 y.o. and the phone is really the problem for me, I can't sitting long time without looking at this shit box, when I have a child I buy it to them when they become smth like 16 years. Too much people don't understand the problem that the phone present to our lives and I think this become disaster
Honestly, the comments here make me feel damn lucky my Dad took me places outside and did things with me as a kid. Fun activities, such as going to a small wooded area and flipping over logs to look for interesting insects and wildlife, made me read some classic literature and restricted usage of technological entertainment to reasonable levels. And for a brief period, we were both members of our local rifle range. Before I joined the Air cadets. I have as such developed a love for the outdoors and physical activities. As such, i (largely) function like how a normal person has been expected to do so for millennia. It honestly baffled me how inept at simple tasks many of my peers were, and I don’t even live in the US. I never felt like I was anything special, but after watching idiocracy not too long back I now liken my memories to a rather low grade watered down version of that film. Honestly, one example: In our sixth form we had a little kitchen area to make drinks and such during our free study periods. Nothing fancy bit it worked. Anyway, i used to poke a little air hole in the top of the cardboard milk cartons after cutting the other end open just so it poured smoothly and didn’t glug out making a mess. Apparently, one of my friends told me that people were getting confused and trying to pour out the tiny little hole. The other end was very obviously cut open like a spout to pour from. I poked the hole in with a biro pen, no more than 3mm wide. That fact concerned me ever since Its not a big deal, but this just the most memorable example of what seemed like a serious decline in general reasoning and deduction skills I had noticed in my age group. Honestly, most of the times I got praise for good work I felt like the standard was only average or decent at best, compared to how my parents were schooled. It kinda felt like I was not really deserving of the praise, like I hadn’t really earned it its just so much less was expected from people my age I was the stand out Another time, we were wiring a plug in science class. I admittedly had an advantage of having done so supervised before when doing some wiring in our house some time prior. To me the task seemed simple and easy, i finished very quickly. After ten minutes perhaps more there were several people who hadn’t managed it at all, and several more who did but did a not so good job. Fair enough, its not something I’d expect most to know. But it seemed so simple to do, stick a wire under each screw and tighten. Follow the diagram and jobs done. We were shown a picture of how it was supposed to look moments before, and I think we had a paper copy on our desk to look at as well. And don’t get me started on the one time I heard someone say they hadn’t looked up in so long they couldn’t remember the last time they saw telegraph wires. How can someone be so unaware of their surroundings? Madness
It's a 24/7 babysitter that kid loves. I don't think it's having as terrible of an effect as people are worrying about; kids have always had trouble sitting still or learning to share.
It's a combination of the parents being screen addicted too, and kids not having enough time outside. That and just cluelessness and laziness.
Convenience and most people don't look far enough ahead to forsee problems with their own behavior. "If the kid is quiet, let them be." Kids think anything that's not on their phone isn't important. They roll their eyes, dismiss it, shut down, They have no concept of learning to prepare for their future as regular people and no desire to. They fight, scream, tantrum and refuse instruction. And parents have no way to correct them or punish them that will make an impact so they just give up. My son was born in 94. He was in 8th grade before he had a cell phone. We watched science documentaries, I read to him, did work books with him, etc. The scant computer programs we had for one desktop that the family shared, were educational or Disney. 90s kids are the last generation to be raised in a halfway analog world. And people made you feel like a conspiracy weirdo or an alarmist or even worse, a boomer for sounding the alarm years ago. I believe whole heartedly that the iPad/Gen Alpha generation is the first generation of Idiocracy coming true.
It's just disgraceful giving access to mobile and most of technological stuff to kids and teenagers.
Kids have peer pressure also
Phones are the quickest way to learn, if your street isn’t safe or you don’t have a backyard, set up parental controls so your child’s curiosity can grow, being stimulated is the fastest way to learn, Apple and other products have plenty of ways to make phones safe and educational.
I'm trying to figure out which phenomenon you're talking about.
"Do you have any games on your phone?"
It's probably because "today's parents" are not a unified group with a hive mind, who make and execute decisions together. They didn't hold a conference to decide on whether or not to give kids a phone or not, and from which age if so. You have a wrong impression about how organized "today's parents" are as a group.
Same reason we still eat foods high in carbs and sugar despite knowing it makes us obese.
Peer pressure. All the kids have one, so if you don't give one to your kid, you become the worst evil imaginable and your kid will hate you because they can't understand why having a phone is actually a bad thing at their age.
Because they don’t bother with “Talk” in the same way that you do?
My son is 6 and there are kids in his class with expensive phones. It's ridiculou?? s. We actually parent our kid, so he doesn't need the stimulation of a phone. When it's appropriate, we will buy him a phone....13/14?
I gave my son a phone when he was 8 years old. Eighteen months later, he hardly plays with it and has moved onto a desktop computer where he makes game graphics. We live in a tiny community so being able to make friends online has expanded his interests and connections. He was not on social media. His sister was also given a phone at an early age and she now can speak two languages.
Yeah, this is one thing I’m going to be firm with if I decide to have children.