From "The White House is worried about kids’ screen time. Here are five things parents can do. A new MAHA-led report on childhood health has harsh words about screen time, but the reality is more nuanced" (WaPo)(free-access link).
Did you ever think it would come to this, that the situation with children would get so bad that watching more TV would come to be regarded as therapeutic?!
That's a free access link, so you can see multiple other issues, such as the painful dissonance for parents who want to get their kids off the devices but hate to be on the same page with Trump and Bobby.
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18 comments:
Dopamine highs are the worst to come down from. Our tech companies are designing products worse than cigarettes that produce a drug already in our bodies. And they're making us junkies.
You cannot legislate this away.
It's really annoying when a publication feels the need to stick their editorializing right into the headlines. "...but the reality is more nuanced..." Oh, really? No kidding? The policy speech didn't give you all of the nuance ?? And then, they follow up with helpful things, like 'don't burn yourself out', 'don't try to change everything at once', 'be flexible', so on.
As for their MAHA 'guidelines', yes a lot of them make sense. Take your kid's devices away from them, physically sequestered, at night. Do it during the day, too, to force them to use their brains for something more than simple reception !
Are they trying to avoid the "cold turkey" approach? Spending some time outdoors walking, fishing, or having a picnic isn't asking too much.
I'm very fortunate to live in a neighborhood where kids are outside playing fairly regularly. Nothing warms my heart more than seeing a couple of kids on bikes, fishing poles in hand.
Even a broken clock… is useless now that we have devices. Never mind.
Conversations that never happen: Johnny, put your phone away. But, mom, I’m not finished reading the Washington Post.
These are children of a greater god we’re talking about. They are special because they lack needs.
When people lament having their prayers answered.
HERE is a CRAZY idea..
touch grass
The comments over there are LIT!
Mario Kart is a blast. The only down side is when you race against your kids, their young reflexes are always better than yours and they constantly beat you.
Free access link did not work for me.
Did you ever think it would come to this, that the situation with children would get so bad that watching more TV would come to be regarded as therapeutic?!
No
It's not the devices themselves. It's their misuse in edge situations.
Physical world: Going out and playing with your friends good; sneaking out at 2 AM to do drugs and get pregnant with your friends bad.
Digital world: Using the internet to learn new things and make new friends good; staying on the internet at 2 AM to get bullied or groomed by your new 'friends' bad.
The parents who can manage to hit the sweet spot in the physical world can also do it in the digital world.
The parents who can do neither will probably not be helped by any government program.
Also, we just got out of a narrow escape from government online censorship. RFKJr himself was one of the victims. One would think he'd be very suspicious of anything that looks remotely like bringing it back.
JSM
You can't tell the kids to "Go out and play" because they'll just look at their cell phone.
I'm always amused at how different we treated our daughter from the way I grew up. I was a free-range kid, we were kicked out of the house to go play and as long as we came back at dinner time it was OK. My mother never even asked what we did. OTOH, we had a stream of structured activities for our daughter.
playing computer games together is one thing to do.
I was at an end of the year assembly yesterday for one of my older children but I had my toddler with me. I packed snacks and some toys for him to keep him from causing a scene. There was another mom there with a toddler too. That toddler screamed until given a video on a phone. My kid doesn't even know my phone can play videos. My kid wasn't perfect, but he did allow me to watch the assembly. Screens cause bad behavior, this isn't news. Even my older kids can't watch TV until afternoon. Otherwise they'd fight all day.
Experts say...
Do writers ever consider that a growing percentage of Americans interpret that phrase to mean here comes a load of horsesh!t
Wednesdays are screen free at our house. We only have one tv. Only high school aged kids have phones and those sleep in our room at night. No iPads. SNES comes out for special occasions. My kids have been to our neighborhood pool every day this week. They read books and practice the piano and still watch enough TV that I ask them to turn it off and do something else.
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