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Comment by maxaf | Hacker News Reader

I spend no time managing expectations because my child isn’t exposed to advertising. There is no TV or social media in our household, and no ads thanks to multiple overlapping ad blocking solutions. There’s advertising outside, but it’s easy to ignore, and usually contains messages relating to things my daughter has no baseline for. For example, she doesn’t care about some billboard advertising a TV show because... you guessed it: there is no TV!

Popular culture in 2019 is worth opting out of. It brings no value, erodes humanity, and pollutes our minds. “And nothing of value was lost.”

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I tried to think of a counterargument to this and drew an almost total blank. There have been some great works of art over say the last 20 years or so—"Breaking Bad," "The Sopranos," and the like—but it's almost completely trash. I can't name more than a half-dozen things I'd have missed if I had thrown out my television and deleted Facebook etc.

I've spent most of my self aware life so far online. I don't want to be one of those "phones are bad" people who are scared by technology they don't understand. But I'm starting to change my mind.

Recently while waiting to board a plane, I saw a kid browsing instagram. The speed at which they were consuming content actually shocked me. They were rapidfire scrolling through pages and pages of the same kind of junk that's been in tabloids for decades. ~5 pictures a second. For half an hour, almost non-stop. I'm not sure why, but it really stuck out as deeply unsettling to me. I can't imagine that being healthy.

Instead of letting the mind wander, it is trapped in a tight loop of looking at one picture after another. Like a book you can't put down, only you never finish it, and it's not at all compelling - just addictive.

This brings up an interesting topic for discussion. I think there are several modes of parenting: hands off, protective, preparatory, etc. I think most parents try to balance these. I've taken the view that for most situations I want to prepare my children for the world they will face given what I know today, be hands off to see how they react, and only protect them as a last resort. While, some kids simply aren't ready to handle the problems they face on a daily basis, mine seem to understand more than you'd think they would. I could see how removing these stimuli from the beginning might be a good idea when you know it is going to be a problem or you want to create a peaceful environment, but I'd really prefer them to make that choice, not I.

Most adults are not prepared to make that choice ;-)

There is a balance to strike. Bringing up kids too far outside the norms that society sets can have all kinds of ramifications. Rather than shelter them, I'd prefer them to have things in common with their friends and teach them to make good choices for themselves given their own dispositions and circumstance.

Compared to when, the '90s to '00s?

At least rap's woke now. Back then, it encouraged criminal behavior and discrimination[0]. D:

That said, I think I turned out okay.

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIeSGUK-Lyo&feature=youtu.be...

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