Althouse: "We thought we could control it. And this is beyond our power to control. This is going straight to the pleasure centers of the developing brain. This is beyond our capacity as regular parents to understand."

October 29, 2018

"We thought we could control it. And this is beyond our power to control. This is going straight to the pleasure centers of the developing brain. This is beyond our capacity as regular parents to understand."

"This is scar tissue talking. We’ve made every mistake in the book, and I think we got it wrong with some of my kids. We glimpsed into the chasm of addiction, and there were some lost years, which we feel bad about."

Said Chris Anderson (chief executive of a robotics and drone company and a former editor of Wired), quoted in "A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley/'I am convinced the devil lives in our phones'" (NYT).

I grew up with television, which was the screen-devil back then. I'm not sure how horribly it ruined me for this world, but I cannot remember one word from my parents about how much TV it was okay to watch. How about you? Did your parents get on your case about "screen time" (or whatever it would have been called back then)? I experienced the extreme of libertarian parents: We had freedom and we were supposed to figure out how to make our own choices about what seemed like everything. If there was a point where they would have stepped in and said "Not that" or "Too much," I never hit it.

69 comments:

Henry said...: I think we got it wrong with some of my kids

I ... we ... my

How many kids does Chris have and who else is he blaming?; 10/29/18, 10:46 AM
Michael K said...: My father was in the juke box business and hated TV for what it did to his business. We did not have a TV until I was in 8th grade and a friend gave us one.

I never really got into watching TV and still don't.

Friends of mine raised two very successful boys and had no TV while they were growing up. They were allowed to play video games.

The two older boys are engineers, both Navy pilots. The youngest is still in college.; 10/29/18, 10:47 AM
n.n said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/29/18, 10:49 AM
n.n said...: Television was in a basket of activities, with priorities set for education, socialization, and chores.; 10/29/18, 10:50 AM
Henry said...: I think you could say the same thing about books.

No TV in my house growing up. We rebelled by pretending to go to bed on time, then reading books with flashlights.; 10/29/18, 10:51 AM
Rob said...: According to the New York Times, the new digital divide is that the children of rich parents are being given limited or no screen time and the children of poor parents have access to all manner of screens and tablets – the horror!; 10/29/18, 10:52 AM
Shouting Thomas said...: I grew up in a rural culture where hard outdoor labor and athleticism were traditions. So, although we watched TV, my sisters and I spent 8 to 10 hours outdoors every day working and playing sports.

I think the problem here is that the screens can serve as babysitters. If you use the screens to babysit your kids, you're in trouble. It's up to parents and grandparents to create disciipline in kids, and it's hard work.

Marshall McLuhan was writing about media as the devil way back in the 60s and 70s in books like "The Medium is the Message." Most people chose to regard McLuhan's message as a metaphor, but he was in fact a devout Catholic and he was speaking literally of Satan.; 10/29/18, 10:52 AM
chuck said...: My Dad didn't even buy a TV until 1960 because he thought there was nothing of value being broadcast. And when we did get one the excuse was that we could watch the election debates. So while my schoolmates were talking about "77 Sunset Strip" I had no idea what they were talking about and didn't even watch it later when I could have. I'm not really a boomer, I was just born at that time.; 10/29/18, 10:58 AM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: TV isn't designed to trigger dopamine cycles like smartphones are. There's no scroll-reward-scroll with TV.; 10/29/18, 11:02 AM
rightguy said...: When I was growing up in the 1960's, my parents only allowed one evening TV show during the week. My choice was Combat. After this viewing, I was coerced into going upstairs and doing my homework. I thank them every day of my life as I havn't watched an entertainment show on television for decades. Read a good book and listen to classical music.; 10/29/18, 11:04 AM
stever said...: The cell phone situation, I believe, is more problematic than the TV (or book reading ) of my youth. The phones are computers and go everywhere. When you factor in that texting is a really bad way to communicate for any serious matter and that addiction to porn is a real problem among young people, (among other things) I have no doubt that this will be a issue that will demand attention. The ship has sailed for my children but it didn't leave the harbor in good shape.; 10/29/18, 11:04 AM
Ann Althouse said...: I should flesh out my story by saying that I lived in a suburban neighborhood that was full of kids with lots of outdoor free play. We ranged over a whole neighborhood and it included a woods and a field and a creek. We were out and about all day long and there were no rules I remember about where we could go and what we could do. I don't remember any terribly bad things happening. Once my sister stepped on a bees nest and got some stings. Once I got a lot of splinters. There was the ever-lurking scourge of poison ivy.

We had a lot of indoor free play too. We had an elaborate doll house set up with endless stories and projects, we staged plays, we played what we called "school," we build forts, we had tickle fights, etc. etc. I don't remember parents showing us how to do any of that or telling us when we weren't doing it right. They didn't even break up fights, so there wasn't that sniveling "I'm telling mommy" bullshit either.; 10/29/18, 11:05 AM
Lyssa said...: I grew up in the 80s, and my parents definitely expressed concern about TV time. Of course, we had cable, VHS, and early video games, so a lot more then was available in Althouse’s time (and I suppose the whole “fretful mother” thing was a bit bigger by then, though still a libertarian paradise by modern standards). We didn’t ever have strict limits; my parents were generally pretty hands off, but it was something they complained about or tried to discourage a lot.

We’re basically doing the same with our kids now - just a random “ok, that’s enough, go find something to play with” when it seems right.

(We had a lot of content restrictions, though. To keep on blog-theme, The Simpson’s was outlawed when I was a teenager, as was Friends.).; 10/29/18, 11:08 AM
mockturtle said...: I grew up with television, which was the screen-devil back then. I'm not sure how horribly it ruined me for this world, but I cannot remember one word from my parents about how much TV it was okay to watch.

My parents didn't buy a TV until I was ten or eleven and they did control what and how much we watched. Mostly Saturday morning cartoons but IIRC, What's My Line, Gunsmoke, The Ed Sullivan Show and Omnibus were acceptable fare. Oh, and the Mickey Mouse Club, an after school favorite. We much preferred playing outside in our woodsy suburban neighborhood with lots of room for adventures.; 10/29/18, 11:10 AM
Nonapod said...: While I tend to agree with the general sentiment of greatly limiting "screen time" for young children, I think it might be a bit severe to curtail it altogether. I certainly wouldn't want kids under the age of 10 anywhere near the internet except in very strictly controlled capacities in very specific circumstances. But I think certain video games could be good for general problem solving development, as long as it's limited. I think there's definitely value in certain puzzle solving games and more creative games (stuff like Mine Craft or Sim City). And more generally, I think video games can help in the understanding of more abstract concepts like rule systems (game worlds have specific rules or laws that need to be understood in order to be successful in them).; 10/29/18, 11:10 AM
Eleanor said...: My mom hogged the TV. We were welcome to watch what she watched, but most of the time we weren't interested so we did other things.; 10/29/18, 11:11 AM
Jupiter said...: I Have Misplaced My Pants said...
"TV isn't designed to trigger dopamine cycles like smartphones are. There's no scroll-reward-scroll with TV."

This. TV is not interactive. In fact, TV suppresses your reactions, by talking aver any response you may make.; 10/29/18, 11:11 AM
Jupiter said...: "We ranged over a whole neighborhood and it included a woods and a field and a creek. We were out and about all day long and there were no rules I remember about where we could go and what we could do."

My situation was similar. I would leave the house in the morning and my parents had no idea where I was until I got hungry. Nor any apparent concern.; 10/29/18, 11:14 AM
James K said...: We were allowed one hour per day, not counting news or "educational" stuff. I think we got an exemption for an occasional sporting event. For most of my childhood we had a little 13" black and white TV, but that was fine.; 10/29/18, 11:14 AM
readering said...: My parents had to control TV time. Especially Saturday mornings. Until we moved to England, where TV sucked.; 10/29/18, 11:16 AM
stevew said...: I was also a child in the 60's. Like you, we were allowed to play outside on a more or less unlimited basis. Television watching was limited to a single show at night, after homework and before bed. We were allowed a lot of time on Saturday mornings for cartoons and such. Probably to give my parents a break (there were six of us). As a teenager I was able to watch television after school without any rules or supervision.

We didn't restrict television so much - at least I don't recall having to set rules - but did have time limits for gaming on Nintendo. My grandkids are restricted from having more than an hour of screen time a day. The device they use has a timer and locks after 60 minutes. The eldest of two siblings (6 yrs old) has figured out how to sign in as her younger sister once her own time limit has been reached. My son discovered this and ended up imposing a ban on her use for a few days.; 10/29/18, 11:16 AM
gahrie said...: The difference is, we couldn't carry our TVs around with us.; 10/29/18, 11:18 AM
Karen said...: Professor Althouse, phones are so much more addictive than tv. He got it right when he said it goes straight to the pleasure center. They have designed the apps to trigger repeated dopamine responses which ultimately shuts down the dopamine center so that unrelenting depression sets in, plus anxiety disorder from the constant moving stimulation. Not the same as when we passively watched the “tube”.; 10/29/18, 11:19 AM
Michael K said...: My situation was similar. I would leave the house in the morning and my parents had no idea where I was until I got hungry. Nor any apparent concern.

Me, too. We were all over. Hitch hiking in Chicago to the Museum of Science and Industry where we terrorized the guards around the coal mine and Main Street.

My kids walked to school in South Pasadena. Even in Mission Viejo, they walked at first.

My grandkids could walk but now they are in a charter school and are driven.; 10/29/18, 11:28 AM
Kay said...: Definitely watched a lot of TV and also got warned about the dangers of watching too much. Social media feels like slightly more of a time-suck, but maybe I’ve forgotten the extent of my TV watching habits.

If there is a danger to social media it probably has more to do with the fact that you can’t communicate with anyone online without being surveilled by a third party.; 10/29/18, 11:34 AM
Otto said...: "We had freedom and we were supposed to figure out how to make our own choices about what seemed like everything"- Where did you get your value system, who taught you right from wrong, moral from immoral. Oh i get it you are the center of the universe.; 10/29/18, 11:42 AM
Fernandinande said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/29/18, 11:48 AM
Fernandinande said...: This is scar tissue talking.

This is Melodrama!

television ... was the screen-devil back then.

Before that, the devil was comic books, Negro music, Rock 'n' Roll, the automobile, and now 2nd-hand smoke, stranger danger, intersectional microagressions and their ilk.; 10/29/18, 11:50 AM
William said...: Television was so bad when I was growing up that it actually encouraged reading. Reading was more fun than Kukla, Fran, and Ollie. The downside was that reading all those books ruined my eyes. Also, I played a lot of baseball. I've had one occurrence of skin cancer which is probably attributable to all that time in the sun. Fresh air and reading. I was lucky to survive childhood........,I'm not tempted to play any video games, but I must say television is better than ever. High def and no commercials. I watch a lot more television now than I ever did before. There were a lot of years where I never bothered to own a tv.; 10/29/18, 11:54 AM
reader said...: My dad built our first TV. It was color and had a remote. There weren't any limits on how much we watched...but we had no control over what was on it. My sister and I ran outside with a pack of neighborhood kids. We had to be home by the time the street lights came on. I remember when we got our first subscription TV service (On).

In my house the TV is always on. It is rare that we ever sit and watch it. The TV is just background noise while I cook, read, or do chores. When he was young my son would listen to his shows as he played Legos. My husband sits on the couch working on his laptop with sports running.

I realized a few years ago that there are movies that we own that I have listened to over and over again but with scenes that I have never viewed.

As for the new evils. My son wasn't allowed to have a gaming system until he was in middle school. He couldn't use it until homework was done during the week. He was in control of the weekends but that was prime golfing time so he limited it to evenings.; 10/29/18, 11:55 AM
Yancey Ward said...: I am one of the few people who still doesn't have a tablet or a smart phone to carry everywhere, so I notice the change more than others. It really does look like a drug epidemic to me.; 10/29/18, 11:59 AM
Yancey Ward said...: As for television, when I was growing up we had three channels, and because we lived in the boondocks and hills of Eastern Kentucky, those channels were frequently out, or so fuzzy as to be unwatchable. I didn't really watch a whole lot of television until my father bought a satellite dish in the Summer of 1983 just before I started my last year in high school. When I was in college/grad school I didn't have the money for cable, and really didn't have the time for television anyway. I watched a bit more once I started working, but probably not more than an hour a day on average. Since I have retired, I do watch a great deal more, especially with the streaming services.; 10/29/18, 12:05 PM
gahrie said...: I am one of the few people who still doesn't have a tablet or a smart phone to carry everywhere

I don't own a phone either. The most surprising thing to me is how angry some people get at me when they find out.; 10/29/18, 12:12 PM
rehajm said...: Consider the possibility that It's because you're all assholes.; 10/29/18, 12:18 PM
Fernandinande said...: Said Chris Anderson (chief executive of a robotics and drone company

Sigh. More fake news.

3dr.com is the company, and two of the things they don't make are robots and drones. Cars, too!

"Welcome to 3DR"

"We are a software team with a customer-first approach to problem solving"

"Supported drones" are made by other companies.; 10/29/18, 12:24 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: When I was about ten, my dad said that he would get me my own computer if I didn't watch TV for a year, so I didn't. Subsequently spent quite a bit of time on that computer though.; 10/29/18, 12:30 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: We allow computer use as a tool. You can write stories, look up how-to videos (if you're actually going to do whatever it is,) program, play certain music, etc. Computer use for passive entertainment or videogames isn't allowed. No phones. No tablets (except for using the stop motion video making program.); 10/29/18, 12:35 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Our kids spend time outside like Althouse described. It's great. I'm told that the neighborhood kids used to spend a lot of time on videogames. Not anymore.; 10/29/18, 12:37 PM
Dave in Tucson said...: My mother imposed pretty severe restrictions on my TV watching when I was a preteen. An hour a day max, as I recall.; 10/29/18, 12:38 PM
David-2 said...: @Henry said: "We rebelled by pretending to go to bed on time, then reading books with flashlights."

I'm happy, finally, to make the acquaintance of someone else who did that! And when my parents confiscated the flashlight I stood on my bed so I could reach the window above it and slipped behind the curtain and read books by the light of the streetlight.

I've always blamed my subsequent nearsightedness on those many nights of reading by flashlight then streetlight (very unscientific and without a shred of evidence, I know).; 10/29/18, 12:45 PM
Terry di Tufo said...: As long as our grades were good my parents didn't care how much television their kids watched, BUT the big rule was No Daytime Television. So as much as we wanted from 7pm on, but not before. Also, I was puzzled as a kid why my mother told me not to watch Girl From Uncle (not that that was a problem for very long); I figured out after the fact that her clothing was deemed too sexy (lucky for me they never knew what I thought about Elizabeth Montgomery).; 10/29/18, 12:50 PM
Michael K said...: Blogger Freeman Hunt said...
Our kids spend time outside like Althouse described. It's great. I'm told that the neighborhood kids used to spend a lot of time on videogames. Not anymore.

I've been interested for a while in why myopia is so common in military applicants. I would love to see some data on WWII recruits and myopia.

In China, myopia is a huge problem. In Singapore 75% of 17 year old have sever myopia.

In Australia, in Chinese ethnic kids, the incidence of myopia in 17 year olds is about 25%. Why the difference?

One theory, that I subscribe to, is that in Australia, the Chinese kids play outdoors more. That includes focusing on distant objects. In China, the Tiger Moms have the kids studying books and they rarely focus on anything beyond the walls of the room.

We may be seeing something like that here.; 10/29/18, 12:51 PM
gilbar said...: Yancey Ward said...
As for television, when I was growing up we had three channels, and because we lived in the boondocks and hills of Eastern Kentucky,

but, at least you had free state supplied cigarettes :); 10/29/18, 12:54 PM
caplight45 said...: I remember being told that if we sat too close to the TV it would ruin our eyes. I wore glasses from second grade on.

I just went to a seminar on adolescence and neuroscience. I talked to a psychologist who said when parents bring in a depressed teen for counseling the first thing he does is tell them to take away their kid's cell phones, pads and computers. The kids go through withdrawal.; 10/29/18, 1:20 PM
rcocean said...: I was constantly told to get outside and play.

"But Mom, its raining outside"

"Well, here's your umbrella".; 10/29/18, 1:22 PM
rcocean said...: Plus don't sit too close to the Color TV because it gave off Radiation.

Is that true?; 10/29/18, 1:22 PM
rcocean said...: We spent a lot of time on board games. Risk, Chess, Sorry, etc.

Good thing there were no video games. What a time waster that would've been.; 10/29/18, 1:24 PM
rcocean said...: My sibling and I fought, but we never tattled to "Mom". And like others we were allowed to play outside without supervision. Parents expected the kids to entertain themselves and organize their own informal baseball, basketball, football games.; 10/29/18, 1:29 PM
rcocean said...: There's a big divide between people who had a happy childhood and those who don't.; 10/29/18, 1:30 PM
tcrosse said...: We got TV in 1949, and people would watch whatever was on, which wasn't much.
By the late 1950's I had blotted my copybook at school, so I was forbidden to watch TV. While the parents were watching the tube, I was up in my room listening to the radio. The evening line-up on WCBS New York included Merv Griffin, Bob and Ray, and Amos and Andy, so it was no great hardship.; 10/29/18, 1:34 PM
reader said...: As children my sister and I learned quickly never to complain about being bored to avoid the dreaded, “You can find something to do or I can do it for you.” This was never a problem with my son and his Legos.; 10/29/18, 2:06 PM
chuck said...: > I've been interested for a while in why myopia is so common in military applicants.

I've wondered that myself. Given that up to 50% of men in tribal societies could die in combat, and given the importance of vision in fighting, it seems poor vision would be strongly selected against. But times and diet have changed, so that may be the explanation. Too bad we don't have statistics for, say, the 14-th century mongols. My own vision went to heck when I started reading heavily, continuing after lights out with a flashlight under the covers. Coincidence? Maybe, but neither of my parents nor, IIRC, my grand parents, had vision problems.; 10/29/18, 2:21 PM
Bad Lieutenant said...: David-2 said...
@Henry said: "We rebelled by pretending to go to bed on time, then reading books with flashlights."

I'm happy, finally, to make the acquaintance of someone else who did that!

Welcome, brothers!; 10/29/18, 2:40 PM
n.n said...: This was never a problem with my son and his Legos.

Legos are great and sex-neutral. You can build cars, computers, and dolls, too. You're only limited by your imagination.; 10/29/18, 2:40 PM
Colin said...: Well, this is a topic that hits close to home. I currently have a 3 year old son and the subject of 'tablet time' became a subject of some debate, as we had both seen a few friends children become quite attached to them.

Then came the reality of parenting and having the ability to quickly pull up an activity during, say, long car rides became too useful to ignore.

But then something happened I didn't expect - my child gets sick of the tablet (no matter what it's playing) after a certain period of time and moves on to something else - physical play, puzzles, stickers, books ect. Doesn't matter what as long as the tablet isn't involved.

Perhaps I just got lucky.; 10/29/18, 2:45 PM
madAsHell said...: If there was a point where they would have stepped in and said "Not that" or "Too much," I never hit it.

Nerd!!...and I mean that in the nicest possible way!!; 10/29/18, 2:49 PM
Fritz said...: I remember watching Amos and Andy on a black and white TV back before school when I was in elementary school, so it was sometime in the 50s.

Around early teenagehood my father went to war against the TV. At one point he got a coin operated power cord (scavenged from a motel) installed on ours. It played 20 minutes for a dime or an hour for a quarter. My brothers and I found his stash of Mercury dimes, and ran them all through the machine, picked the lock, and continued to recycle them. Eventually, they all got lost back into circulation. Hundreds of dollars worth at today's prices.; 10/29/18, 2:50 PM
FWBuff said...: I watched some TV as a kid in the 60s and 70s, but we had to help on the farm, so we were outdoors for the lion's share of the day. We also read lots of books.

When our daughters were growing up in the 90s and 00s, computers and then cell phones were becoming ever-present, and we put limits on the amount of screen time they had. They all played sports, played outside, and read books, too. It also made a difference having only daughters, so we didn't have the same challenge with video games that our friends with boys had. (I know that some girls like video games too. Don't @ me.)

Now that our daughters are married, I see the bigger challenge for them someday is not so much limiting the screen time of their children, but limiting their own screen time as parents. I can't tell you how many young parents we see out and about who are constantly looking at their phones instead of interacting with their young children. That to me is a much bigger concern.; 10/29/18, 2:54 PM
Leland said...: I think there is too much TV, particularly in nursing homes. Alas, I'm not into regulating others lives. I understand the problem with excessive use of mobile phones, but I'm more concerned about abuse of these devices by politicians like Robert O'Rourke. Is there no place we can escape politics?; 10/29/18, 3:08 PM
Known Unknown said...: Handheld Infinite Jest?; 10/29/18, 3:13 PM
Wince said...: I remember always being told "TV is bad for your eyes."; 10/29/18, 3:15 PM
Maillard Reactionary said...: I grew up in the Philadelphia area in the 1950s. We had a big Dumont TV in a birdseye walnut cabinet (a relic of an earlier, more prosperous time, not to be repeated in that household). The Dumont had, as I recall, about 38 vacuum tubes, so it's MTBF was about two or three months. On the average it was nonworking about half the time, often for six months or more. We missed the Kennedy assassination, Oswald being shot and probably much else. (It was replaced in time for the moon landing in 1969.) We watched it a lot as kids when it was working. I loved the Three Stooges, the "gadget shows" (e.g., Sea Hunt, Whirlybirds, Rescue 8) but it was not a source of contention because I was also a voracious reader.

Even then I remember that many of the shows targeted towards adults (sitcoms like The Honeymooners, The Life of Riley, etc) seemed stupid and completely predictable. Perhaps as a consequence of all that, I never had the TV habit as a grown-up and have never seen a single episode of many popular shows. I would be terrible in the TV Shows category on Jeopardy.

OTOH my daughter was always more of a TV watcher than a reader. I used to tell her that "Television is entertainment for stupid people." That annoyed her, but that's my prerogative as a father. The set is never off in her house, even when there's company (something I consider extremely rude).

Some people think it's funny that I spent 25 years a TV engineer designing digital receivers, but that I never watch TV. Well the technical problems were interesting, it's clean work and there's no heavy lifting required, so there's that.; 10/29/18, 3:20 PM
Bill Peschel said...: I watched a lot of TV when I was a kid. We all did. We only had one TV, and it was on from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.

I'd watch the half-hour sitcoms in the afternoon as well. I got to know Gilligan Island pretty well.

But I also was in the Boy Scouts and on the neighborhood swim team. I also read a lot and wandered the neighborhood.

On The Chive website recently, they did a series of posts about what felons serving long stretches in prison said threw them when they got out. One was smartphones. Another was no longer seeing kids playing in the streets.

The two who mentioned that specifically said the 1990s were the last times they saw kids outside playing.

I've noticed that walking through my neighborhood. There's an apartment complex nearby with a lot of kids. I see their parents waiting for the school buses. When they're off the bus, they're inside. Even on the weekends. Empty lawns. Quiet spaces.; 10/29/18, 4:11 PM
Anonymous said...: Yeah it's so terrible that their over the top, Draconian restrictions are no smart phone before 13, no computer in a bedroom, and dad sets a bed home and off time for devices. Yup, they've taken some really dramatic steps there because it's "evil"..

It may be. But these moderate restriction are evidence of who knows what.; 10/29/18, 4:14 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: I'm a kid of the 60s: it was always about how close I sat to the TV - not how long I was in front of it.; 10/29/18, 4:21 PM
Sydney said...: I watched too much TV growing up in the 60's and 70's. I started watching it when I got home from school and finished when my bedtime came around at 9PM. Did my homework in front of it. I think it was bad for me. I still have to have some sort of noise in the background when doing paperwork. When my children came along, we had a very small television that was kept in the basement. We didn't have cable, and by that time, in the 1990's and early 2000's you really couldn't watch television without cable. They didn't get smart phones and laptops until they went to college. I can't say if it made any difference, since they all have tech-related jobs and are now always on their devices working when they come home to visit. I have to admit, I don't see them just sitting around browsing their cell phones, though.; 10/29/18, 4:28 PM
GRW3 said...: Maybe if kids had to walk across the room to change the app or website... That could be programmed with the GPS function. (Remembering when, as a kid, I was the remote control for the TV.); 10/29/18, 5:01 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Most people allow excessive screen usage because it keeps their houses clean and their children out of their hair.; 10/29/18, 5:35 PM
Sam L. said...: Nope. Of course, there were only 4 channels to watch then.; 10/30/18, 11:18 AM