Why Gates and Jobs shielded their kids from tech | Hacker News Reader

Why Gates and Jobs shielded their kids from tech

weforum.org

29 pointsdsr129 comments

I think we shouldn't (as I posit the title is doing) conflate "technology" with "attention-fueled consumer products". I'd like my (future) kids to be able to work with technology, but not waste (too much, whatever that means) time on time-filling consumer content online.

My hypothesis is that by giving them games and toys that are explicitly designed for them to modify for their own entertainment, they will learn to make technology in their image rather than the other way around.

For example, Minecraft is hugely popular with kids (or at least was the last time I looked), and can be a gentle introduction to concepts that can be applied to technology. I grew up on Lego Mindstorms, which blew my young mind when I could build and program a Lego robot to do whatever I could figure out how to program.

LEGO mindstorms is a product that you assemble and program.

Minecraft is designed to fill your time. Though there is thinking involved, it’s a time sink.

Vanilla Minecraft without guidance isn't especially educational. But my impression at least is that players often add mods, and then might want to make their own. And there are opportunities for programming inside of Minecraft. And some of the more impressive "creative mode" constructions rely on scripts to automate much of the grunt work. For instance: https://nostarch.com/automateminecraft

My inclusion of Minecraft is about the ease and support of modding/scripting/botting rather than the vanilla game. There's a certain subsection of professional developers who got their start by modding their favorite games.

I mean it's simple. Once you see how the sausage is made you obviously don't want your kids involved. Fundamentally most tech products are made with the goal of exploiting human behavior in order to increase engagement with the product.

I wonder how Torvalds approaches it.

I don't think it's that, really. I mean to some degree (there's a blurb in the article about Gates limiting screen time due to an unhealthy attachment to a game), but not completely. Both Gates and Jobs saw the transition of no Personal Computers on up to smartphones, etc. Because of that I think they still understood the importance of going analog. Being in the field they understood there's more to life than computers.

Its important to note that: A. This is utterly unproven, much like non ionizing radiation, there's a movement dedicated to scaremongering about tech, Its fine as is but always keep in mind that more often then not the research is not as thorough as one of such magnitude should be, "Veratasium" did a video about cellphones and brain tumors, a very interesting and topical watch B. Who are Steve jobs, Page, Zuckerberg, And Gates? They are mostly smart, hard working individuals who quickly adapted themselves and the tech to the public, using their invention for personal profit, "Conglomerateion", charity work and research. Their success isn't some magical virtue, they were lucky enough to be at the right position to size opportunities the rose, through their dedication they still are somewhat relevant today. They are NOT great educators, nor do they claim so I believe, advice on how to use tech they've created should not be taken from them, nor should advice on raising children, based upon those children they probably did not raise. Nearly anyone knows about Kennedy's sister today because the Kennedy's had a name to protect, much like the British royal family, and the families of those corporations heads, we don't hear about their failures, we certainly shouldn't take tips...

I think the ideas of the people who are talking about cellphones and tumors can be traced back to Johnny Mnemonic, where an illness caused by EM waves from electronics was a major plot point. Gibson in turn got the idea from Pana-Wave, a Japanese cult who lived in the mountains, wore white robes and lived an austere life avoiding electronics, whose waves they said were poisoning them.

Rich people have nannies/caretakers to keep the kids entertained. For regular folk its too tempting to 'catch a breath' by using electronics to keep the kids quite for a minute.

Especially bad in USA where you can't just tell your kids to 'go out and play' and leave you alone. Thats what we did when we were growing up, come home, finish homework and head out to play. Parents had it good back then :D.

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