When you’re
When
Fuckin squeakers
Good god this hits home
Months ago I was visited by a relative who brought their eight year old. She’s single and her boy is ever so slightly mentally not there. He’s smart enough but just not there with everything. Plus the mother is not capable of looking after him. So many wrong things and I hate to judge anything about it … both mother and son are having and will continue to have a hard life.
As we talked, the son spent the entire time with their device looking at YouTube videos.
At one point I wanted to try to make friends and asked him what he was watching … he mumbled and ignored me. I looked over at his video and it was just a completely nonsensical animation of characters running around like in a video game … I couldn’t understand what was happening or why, the cartoon animals were just mumbling nonsense, laughing, running and flashing lights and constant cuts to new scene after new scene. I looked at the kid and he was two steps away from just drooling.
I couldn’t believe it and it scared me. This device was melting any amount of brain power the kid had.
It made me think about myself and what the hell I was doing with my time.
It made me think that the world is all doing the same thing to one degree or another. Some are better, since are terribly worse.
It made me think that humanity is doomed.
Mechanisms of manipulation and control are getting more and more sophisticated and it’s really fucking sad.
Its like watching someone overdose. It sucks. And we don’t have language about it, even shitty language, like we do for drugs, so it’s hard to even talk to people about.
we have it. but its too technical and people seem to have developed an aversion to technical sounding things.
I have friends with kids like that, and it’s scary. I’m obviously a fan of technology, but critical thinking might go down the drain if children spend all day in front of a screen at such a young age.
I genuinely think there should be a legal limit to when children are allowed independent access to JavaScript & Internet enabled technology. I would suggest twelve years.
Having it be law would remove probably the biggest reason children are drawn to technology initially today: social pressure and anxiety.
I didn’t grow up with anything like this (and I’m pretty young… or I was at some point) and thank fucking God I didn’t. I barely read today as it is, instead wasting time with screens and YouTube and shit like that; I’m happy I had the opportunity to consume hours and hours of time with reading as a child. Not just reading: I learned basically every knot that exists (I still have my copy of Ashley’s Book of Knots), learned an absurd amount of physics (with textbooks! for fun! I wouldn’t, couldn’t, do that today), learned to program and use Minix (ok, that was highschool, so a little later), and even got into Marxism.
These are all opportunities I don’t think I could replicate today, because I don’t get bored in the same way today. Now, if I’m bored, I automatically look at my phone (…lemmy…), or open YouTube, or do something else equally stupid. I didn’t have that option when I was young. We didn’t even own a TV. I was forced to do interesting things, and I’m really happy I was, because I’d be an exceedingly illiterate boring moron if I hadn’t read those novels and learned how the universe worked and understood why capitalism sucks.
Maybe I’m yelling at clouds and people will become interesting through other means, but it really frightens me how much dumber I’ve become. I don’t want to imagine how much harder it will be for masses of gen Z and Alpha.
Ok, I feel like I got a little off topic there. Rant over…
Adults today are, at least wherever Western media and culture has taken over, mostly mentally challenged and vacuous consumerists. What hope do their kids have? I feel bad for my future children, ngl, but they might die in the water wars regardless so maybe they won’t have to tolerate nonsense for long, lol.
In my experience, it’s either anime characters and flashing lights/colors or some streamer screaming his head off. Both equally nonsensical.
That’s not developmentally normal even for a tablet kid, fyi. I would help them seek immediate evaluation…
I have a family member who was a tablet kid when they were 8. However they engage with me, their favorite thing is to play the addictive tablet game in my lap and they love when I or others play it with them, especially if you make a story out of it. They watch way too much YouTube but they were delighted when I watched with them, we did thumbs up and thumbs down and talked about what we were watching. They sat in my lap and while laser focused and addicted to the content, were also primarily engaging with me. They sadly are a bit attention starved from their neglectful parents but that’s a lot more developmentally normal imo.
Don’t judge the kid, judge the parents. Parents who should not be parents prefer to make their kids less of a burden to them by handing them over to the overstimulation square
100% My kids have tablets. The only time they get them is on road trips and plane rides. Some parents we know bring them to restaurants, family gatherings, you name it. It’s fucking annoying. Make your kid socialize or they’re going to grow up weird AF.
When I was a kid, we’d get together with family and do our thing. Then we’d all eat a meal, and usually after the meal it was all right, everyone go do whatever you want, and the kids would usually go down the basement and play toys or video games, and adults sit around digesting, having some drinks, etc.
Fast forward to now, I’ll bring my kids tablets or whatever, and when the party is entering the food coma stage, I say do whatever you want, you’ve spent the last couple hours talking to people, or just existing around people who are 30-60 years older than you.
I feel like it always comes to this, but everything in moderation. I played a lot of Nintendo as a kid, and I grew up well adjusted (enough), and I don’t doubt my kids can do the same. For me, the whole tablet thing just stretches out the amount of time I get to hang. Kids get antsy. Shit, I get antsy and I’m an adult, but if letting them do whatever for 30-60m at the end of a party let’s me unwind with my family and friends, it’s fine.
The annoying part is when the kids roll into the party iPad already blasting.
Got a earn that shit. Also gives me something to say hey, get your shit together or no games.
I was at a friends and family barbecue recently, and it just so happened none of the parents there brought tablets for their kids. It was just kids running around the backyard being kids. The parents generally let them do whatever but were attentive enough to prevent them climbing on the shed and stuff.
I can’t remember the last time there wasn’t some kid glued to a screen at that type of party. It was a joy to see.
my brother’s got six kids. whenever he visits, first thing he and his wife do is go to sleep. they wake up for meals, then go back to sleep. now, i love my nieces and nephews, but i don’t invite my brother over to be unpaid babysitters. i invite them over to see the family. so, we don’t invite them over much anymore.
That’s too many kids. Poor things can’t get the parental attention they need :(
you’re preaching to the choir dude
Yeah or they’re really introverted they’ll at least use their imagination to disassociate.
Like I used to look around and imagine little beings making their way around objects and walls. Or looking into the distance and imagining things farther away were right in front of me, but the same size — so now you’ve got a miniature waiter running around the table, trying to catch the little beings.
My ability to zone out probably masked a lot of brain problems, but it did also make me a champ at sitting in waiting rooms while having the time of my life.
My child is autistic.
The only way to get him to be calm in a restaurant was to give him earphones and play something comfortingly familiar.Now that hes a bit older, it’s a bit better. But he still frequently needs something similar in those kinds of situations.
It’s easy to judge from like 30 minutes in public, until you have an autistic kid and no support network.
Yes, before the existence of iPads, autistic children could do nothing except scream and seize on the floor. Yep. Thank God we have iPads now, there is literally no other way to handle autistic children.
I mean, you’re kinda being a dick… it’s a better than my parents generations response to being autistic. Jesus lol, trust me.
Before modern era, they used to do lobotomies and lock up kids that are neurodivergent
No, keep proudly displaying your ignorance. We’ve got time.
Jesus Christ…
Sometimes that iPad is there for you not the kids, try raising an autistic kid with unlimited energy, when you get them in a restaurant or bus, if the iPad is gonna keep him quiet and occupied, that means you don’t have to hear him complain. Kids aren’t robots, they’re people, and some have special needs and get overwhelmed in the fucked up world we made. If super kitties is gonna keep him relaxed for a bit so be it.
Most often the iPad is not for the kids but for inattentive Parents that just want to doomscroll in peace and not deal with their offspring.
I used to think exactly that and judge that heavily, but after my sister became a mother, we talked about this and she said essentially, that you don’t know them, you don’t know the day they’ve had and what they have done all day and what happened before. And that having a child is so hard that sometimes you just need to do things that are maybe not optimal, like giving them coke or letting them be on an iPad in public to avoid another hour of screaming, but that doesn’t mean they are not doing super much before. Because everybody has a breaking point and you cannot be perfect, but you don’t know the arguments or deals or time spent earlier, and sometimes it’s necessary to also keep care of yourself and relax a bit when you’re done.
And that having a child is so hard that sometimes you just need to do things that are maybe not optimal, like giving them coke or letting them be on an iPad in public to avoid another hour of screaming, but that doesn’t mean they are not doing super much before.
mhm yes, because instant gratification is always a trait to foster…
I saw it in the development of my nephew that he gets so easily frustrated and also scared to break anything, because toys like the iPad are expensive as heck (and when its broken it can’t give him any dopamine shots).
So we get highly temperamental kids that have super short attention spans. Hurrah for dumbification of your civilisation. Two hails for our corporate overlords!
I had a similar change of perspective when I became a parent. We do our best to raise our kids to be the best people they can be. But, if we want to do normal people things and that requires some screen time, so be it. I know what’s going on with my kids and idgaf what others think.
We might not know the parents, but we do know that iPads didn’t exist in the past and people still managed to raise kids.
My colleague is real nice and all, but exactly why she gives iPad/phone to her toddler is exactly for the reason you mentioned. A lot of parents are lazy. And we wonder why the younger generation is turning right, because techno-fascists know how glued we are now to digital devices.
and thats terribly sad.
Parking them in front of YouTube kids isn’t the right idea though… The content they show is just ridiculous.
yes of course its not the right idea and right thing to do, we all know it in here.
You don’t know that it’s “most often”.
That’s just how you feel about it. You’re being judgmental but don’t have any idea.
Thanks for this thoughtful and considerate response. As a parent myself, your kindness is so appreciated!
Hey, super kitties is quality content compared to YouTube. We have a YouTube ban in my house - the only exception is if it’s an actual show that can’t be found on streaming services.
The rest of this is spot on. We use iPads to keep our kids quiet in public places that are boring to them, like restaurants or planes.
We’ve all experienced an annoying kid in a restaurant, or a crying baby on the plane. It sucks, but usually that’s short lived. This post just seems like child-free snark/elitism signaling to me.
I’m not having kids, but this always feels like such a missed opportunity to let kids do something more mentally stimulating on that tablet.
Drawing apps and eBooks are right there! Hell, set up Termux and Acode up for them and let them program a bit (or like, I bet there’s a mobile version of Scratch they could use if they can’t read yet). Let them take photos and make little collages. Get them some music Synthesizer App so that they can tinker on their own little beats. Literally just show them that they have the tools to make something great instead of just shoveling in mindless content all day…If I had termux with ghc as a child I would NOT stop studying math.
Turns out it holds for adulthood.
Those are harder than the dopamine of brainrot content though. I struggle with it myself. I know programming is far more rewarding in the long-term, yet I often end up browsing lemmy instead due to the immediate dopamine hit compared to the delayed one.
These kids won’t have any sense of self-control or understand why one is better for them than the other and the kind of parent that gives a child a tablet and just turns on YouTube does so because they don’t want to actually parent. So while this is decent advice for proper parents, these kinds of parents aren’t gonna do that, because it requires more work for them.
If you block any of the unproductive apps, and allow only the productive ones, and give the kid “free” access to what they have on the iPad, they will tinker with what’s available
They might fuss around for a bit if they know there’s other stuff, but ultimately they can’t force your hand, and it should still be plenty fun to do the harder things
Somewhere right now there is a iPad kid watching skibidi toilet that will one day be president.
Somewhere right now there is a President watching skibidi toilet that will one day be dead.
you jest. fox news would never stoop so low to play that garbage.
they stoop lower by playing fucker carlson, or other fascist talking heads.
Meh, back in the days we’d watch youtubepoop videos and whatnot. Nonsense you like os funny, nonsense you don’t is brainrot.
Meh, back in the days we’d watch youtubepoop videos
Mofo how old are you, I am 33 and back in the day we didn’t have youtube, we went out and played football.
Old enough to know I’m way into the B side of my cassette,sadly.
Am about your age and was thinking the same! I was an adult when YouTube was widely known.
We used to watch garbage pail kids and treated ninja turtles like it was art. I won’t judge kids for what they’re into now
No. I mean, there’s a plave for low art, but we’re much better at artlessslop these days.
Decoupling art from content the same way we decoupled content from physical media.
You watch skibidi toilet on a corporate-controlled spyware machine known as the “iPad”
I read the anarchist cookbook on my RISC-V PineTab
We are not the same.
But you also watched new grounds and shit like goatse
And do you trust the people that fabricated your RISC-V cpu?
read … on my RISC-V PineTab
Because it’s not powerful enough to play a video. /s (sorry, just teasing)
People when kids screech at a restaurant: ‘Must be shitty parents.’
People when kids run around at a restaurant: ‘Must be shitty parents.’
People when kids use an ipad at a restaurant: ‘Must be shitty parents.’
There’s no winning here. Children just aren’t allowed to exist.
We are the exception because we most definitely weren’t like that at all as a kid. /s
#2 is shitty parenting. Kids running around a restaurant puts them and staff in dangerous situations with hot food and steak knives etc
I’m guessing it’s because the perception of people who don’t have kids have the thought “every time I’m in a restaurant I see kids on their parents phone/ipad so that must be what they do 24/7”, and I’m totally guilty of that too. Once I had a kid, I think me and my partner had a pretty good no screen time rule but when we wanted to go out to eat at a restaurant that rule was relaxed not just for us but for everyone else as well.
App suggestions make it so hard to keep kids away from slop. I started out only letting my toddler watch PBS Kids programs and a few other educational programs, but then your kids start seeing suggestions for all sorts of shlock, and they want to see the show with the superhero kitties is (it’s called Super Kitties and it is garbage). God help you if you try to watch something on YouTube; every suggested video is either low-quality home movies of people playing with toys (which is like crack to toddlers or weird shit like this that absolutely shouldn’t be on YouTube Kids but often is anyway.
Set YouTube kid to only show selected channels. My kid is actually bored of youtube now.
Holy shit, I did not know you could do that. That is going to be life changing.
So them put some effort into acquiring good health media for your kid to watch and put that into the tablet and remove all other apps so they can only engage with content that has been pre veted by you, parenting takes effort
Yeah, thanks, I’m not looking for notes.
deleted by creator
Sees someone articulating the problem of streaming platforms elevating low quality or toxic media in children’s feeds.
You (a genius): “This is bad parenting.”
So don’t give a tablet then. Or if you do, don’t have Apps like that. Get an wifi only android tablet, install VLC and specific shows and games. Real games and real shows. Not short form shit or bs mobile “games”.
I don’t give him a tablet, he only watches at home on TV (or a phone on very long car trips). I don’t know a toddler parent that has the time to download a curated media library for their kids, and even if you do have the time, things like that fall apart eventually. My wife and I managed to avoid most crap TV until we wound up in a hotel room with two dead phones and a fussy toddler, and that’s when we finally caved and put on Nick Jr. For a while, we managed to convince him that Paw Patrol was only available in hotels, but eventually he saw the thumbnail for it when we were trying to show him Dora the Explorer, and that beautiful lie finally died.
Paw Patrol is a regular length cartoon with a real, albeit basic, plot. I’m talking Cocomelon or Five Finger Family or other short form shit.
I don’t know a toddler parent that has the time to download a curated media library for their kids
No. Curating what your child consumes, both dietary and cultural, is the basic requirement raising a child. It takes very little tech skills to download files and load them on a device. Even just an old school portable dvd player and a disc wallet is preferable. The point isn’t to cut all media, but to cut the short form shit the drains attention. Even a show with a plot that takes ~22 minute to get to the end teaches some degree of patience.
Paw Patrol is empty calories. It doesn’t teach emotional regulation like Daniel Tiger, or shapes and colors like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, or numbers, letters, and problem solving like Sesame Street. It’s not harmful like Cocomelon, and I’ve accepted that my son loves it, but that doesn’t mean it’s good.
Curating what your child consumes, both dietary and cultural, is the basic requirement raising a child.
Yeah, I curate what my child consumes, thanks, I just don’t have the time or energy to create a bespoke tablet of torrented kids shows to present him, or track down a circa-2002 portable DVD player and start a new physical media collection. If you’ve got that kind of free time, great, but I’ve just got to use the apps I’ve got, accept that he’s going to want to watch some shows that I find worthless, and make sure he doesn’t consume anything actively harmful.
Saying downloaded media or physical media collections are hard and fall apart is illogical considering that’s how everyone on the planet used to engage with media before internet streaming became such a huge thing
Except they didn’t. They mostly watched live TV.
Maybe that was the case where you grew up, the world is a large place and people live different lives, I grew up on bottleg and official CD’s and DVD’s, physical comics and novels, mp3 songs downloaded from limewire and torrented movies, friends and family would exchange flash drives and other media regularly for new content, all my content was both curated and organically found and diverse, and I consumed content from all over the world and my life was better for it. And I still rely on some of these methods to get my media, tech companies benefit from taking away ownership of things from people and packaging it as convenience, I’m not falling for that, I’m building my own home server now to host my own open source apps and services, it’s not even that difficult anymore.
Yeah, I was a teen in the early 2000s too. Most people still consumed most of their media through live TV. Anyway, you’re right, I should build a home server and start burning my own torrented DVDs. That’s the only reasonable solution to, “apps suggest crappy shows to my kid,” and it’s definitely the thing a parent of a toddler has the time to do.
Ted Ed, Vsauce, CGP Grey.
You’re on lemmy. Such hypocrisy.
Me when a friend of mine who’s an engineer who sometimes works for the CERN unironically watches Mr. Beast and listens to Papa-a-pate (?, this nonsense k-pop song, it was popular some months ago…).
Like, yeah, you have the hardware, why fill your brain with malware! ;-;
Malware for the brain. Best description of brainrot I’ve heard yet.
E: any social media “challenges” pretty much fall under this umbrella as well.
Are you sure they don’t work at SERN?
10/10 reference!
Is he on the spectrum perhaps?
Lol, no, he’s just a classic “work hard party hard” engineer lad! If any ladies here live in Barcelona and want a (truly) kind hearted, hardworking man to mould a bit, shoot me a DM. 😅
Learn to shitpost kid.
Why are you approaching other people’s kids and take away their ipads?
