My daughter was a creative genius, and then we bought her an iPhone

> My daughter doesn’t return home from school until 6:30 pm and still has to eat, bathe, and get ready for bed.

Perhaps it is not just the iPhone, but school taking up 100% of her time, energy, and attention that is preventing her from pursuing creative interests? As a homeschooling parent whose kids have been in school at times, I see this first hand. School is exhausting. Between rising unnaturally early (which leaves kids tired), rushing and bustling kids on their daily commute, most of the daylight hours blocked for school then homework when you get home not to mention whatever homework the teachers decide to assign to parents, and did I mention the kids are exhausted by the end of the day due to early wake-up?

Compulsory daily full-time school for children may be good for some things but it would take a lot to convince me that it increases their creativity. When my kids home school they will spend a lot of time playing roblox or whatever, but then they'll spend hours playing outdoors, decide to do a cooking project that takes all morning–currently one of mine is getting into "bushcraft" and he'll watch hours of videos about making fires, carving etc. before putting the tips it into practice (safely) during times outdoors, where he spends hours and hours. Then he'll come back, play roblox for an hour, then help clean up and put the younger kids to bed.

I am concerned about over-use/addictive nature of computers & phones, but I think it's myopic to see your otherwise creative child tired and craving mental distraction and say "aha the phone is the problem." Step back and look at the whole picture.

Edit: I must admit I commented after reading only half the article (shame on me). It does in fact seem like her daughter has a phone-use problem. What I say above remains true, however.

> My daughter doesn’t make collages or jewelry or sew anymore. A child who used to read in the bath won’t pick up a book unless threatened with the loss of her phone.

> Getting her to make a card for a family member — something she once did for fun — is like getting her to clean her room

> Yet still, each day is a battle over only one thing.

> And little by little, our daughter has chipped away at our rules and resolve.

Congratulations, your child is now in puberty.

I used to agree with (1), but lately I'm inclined to think that this time, it really is different. Very different. And the primary reason is that unlike TV and books, this is an interactive device explicitly designed to manipulate our psychology into using it more, on a scale we've never seen before. Books never had thousands of engineers observing realtime metrics to make small tweaks to make you use something just a little bit longer. TV isn't a bi-directional communication platform that has thrown teenagers into an arena where they're communicating with thousands of people at a time when they're still figuring out how to communicate in small groups.

Regarding (2), I think people are being far too critical. The author acknowledges many of their own missteps, and they're also going through a time where, iPhone or not, their daughter is growing apart from them, and I imagine that's very difficult emotionally. I also feel like they really humanized how budging a little bit on rules here and there can spiral out of control, and how that feels. I really appreciated that perspective.

"playing games" was using assembly language and pascal with s3m libraries to program a game.

With my kids I've felt the rise of anger when they want to be autonomous and pursue their own interests. I mean, I was taught that parenthood is subjugation.

But just like my dad couldn't realise that there was a rising future in gaming as an industry or the internet, because it was so far removed from his traditional roots, who am I to say that Minecraft, Youtube, or some variant of it won't be the future operating system of society.

The parent says "my daughter was a creative genius, and then..." as if to imply that she isn't any more. But it sure sounds like she has creative pursuits to me:

* "She wants Roblox. All the kids have it, and it seems harmless enough. She’s building her dream house" This sounds like a creative pursuit to me.

* "She wants to talk with her friends. I don’t see any harm in FaceTime." She's talking with her friends.

* "She says she wants to do a TikTok while we’re in the “aesthetic” woods" She's creating TikToks! How cool is that, and how creative! Again we see she's not a passive consumer, she's still a creator - it's just that the medium has changed.

The real problem here is that the daughter used to pursue creative activities that the parent approved of (sewing, drawing). Now she does creative activities that the parent does not approve of or understand.

The parent should bridge the gap by trying to understand the things their daughter spends time on. Instead they lambast them from a distance! It's such a shame to me that the article ends with a note about how the parent will try to convince themselves that creating tiktok videos is creative. What?!? Creating videos isn't creative?? Of course it is! You should be encouraging and reveling in this sort of behavior!

I guess it particularly rankles because my parents did the exact same thing when I was young - they constantly tried to get me to stop using the computer. They never took the time to understand that I was using it creatively - I was coding games, writing books and poetry, learning python, modding warcraft 3. But of course they never saw the creativity in modding warcraft. "Oh, he's playing video games again..."

P.S. and as I suggested, I do agree with the premise - phones definitely can destroy creativity, they definitely are addictive, they definitely shouldn't be given to kids... These are critical problems, well worth addressing and being worried about. But if I had to choose a single thing that was even more important, it would be fostering understanding relationships between parent and child.

Or, perhaps, accept that during a pandemic, when your child's entire social sphere has collapsed, the internet, Roblox, Minecraft, TikTok, et. al. are the closest they can get to interacting with and making friends.

>When friends visit, she occasionally asks them to watch her latest TikTok videos. Some are even funny and creative. Or so I tell myself. It helps with the guilt.

I can't be the only person who finds this comment to be really sad.

This isn't the iPhone's fault. This is someone failing to support their child's hobbies because they're not the perfect idyllic vision they had. End of story.

Being cautious with assuming causations is usually a good idea - but it falls flat when we know the causal chains that are at work.

In the case of climate change, we know for a fact that humanity is releasing ever-growing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere and we also know the physical chain reactions this CO2 will trigger. Predicting climate change in broad strokes is not statistical guesswork, it's just applying physics.

Likewise, we know apps are addictive because they are actively being designed that way. Maximizing user retention and engagement is what app developers do. It's how they make money and it's one of the core metrics that investors use to estimate the value of an app.

So you have someone showing signs of addiction after using a device that was specifically designed to be addictive. Occam's razor really doesn't give a lot of room for alternative hypotheses here.

Whether it’s desirable for their child to be making digital content and publishing it is another question entirely, but the title premise never seems to be addressed directly. The article is a long-winded way to say ~“we keep making up arbitrary rules for the phone, and then we realize they’re arbitrary so we change them, but we never actually sit down and pick some sane and long-lived rules”.

There are a few aspects which are worrying:

- Social pressure to be connected constantly increases for children below 14 years.

- Sites like TikTok, Reddit, Twitter, etc. are designed to be addictive. Children at such a young age do not have the same level of self control like you.

- The longer kids spend time on these platforms, the smaller their bubble gets where they live in.

I understand that as a good parent you can try to explain such things and guide them. But many won't.

Recently I was invited to a school meeting about screen time. I was shocked at some recommendations, for example, age = hours of screen time per week. Also many parents trust tablets and phones way more than desktops. This also worries me, because arguably there are more ways to be creative on desktops.

I also spent endless hours playing video games when I was young and chatting about them on forums and irc. But social media is on a whole other level and I think most people do not even realize it.

Spends less time dreaming, and more time hanging out with her friends in virtual environments?

Congratulations, your creative child is now a budding creative teenager. She'll be fine.

You're cruising to do damage to your relationship with her with all this pearl-clutching, though. Might keep an eye on that.

My theory is that like everything this requires a balance and gradual introduction. Start early, let kids make mistakes, punish them for said mistakes, let them learn lessons.

Enforcing super strict rules has never helped anyone I think. 1h a day is quite strict in my opinion especially if consumed in multiple sessions. If I had just started doing something and it took me 15min to get fully absorbed and in 15min I had to call it quits I'd be pretty angry myself to be honest.

I can make an analogy with access to sweets here. Our boy aged 6 now has had unrestricted access to a cupboard full of variety of sweets since he was 3. And believe me he loves sweets! Technically he can go and take as many sweets as many times as he wants to and no one would probably understand. But we've said it is 2 sweets a day, reasonable quantities. This was strictly enforced early on and now we can 100% trust him to pick whatever he wants when he wants. Because he knows when is a good time and what is a good amount. He'll even come home from school some days and say he'll only eat one sweet today as they've had chocolate cake for pudding at school.

So cut your kids some slack and let them learn themselves rather than locking everything behind locks - physical or digital.

The way I see it, pre-phone their daughter was probably much more engaged with her parents and was doing more manual creative stuff. After the phone appeared, she distanced herself and got absorbed by it.

I don't get why so many people here are trying to defend smartphones/social media?

Isn't it pretty obvious they are addictive? And to a young kid, that doesn't know any better, it can get really bad.

When school started online, my 8 year old was initially really engaged, but then started getting a bit bored once she got into it, and would watch Youtube videos. I was fine with an hour after she finished her school work, but the time she spent watching slowly increased until she wasn't even doing her homework. She'd erase the history on her browser so I couldn't tell how long she was watching for (but fortunately I know the tricks, and was able to figure it out). This led me to blocking Youtube (and all other video sites) on the router. I looked into Youtube kids, but I can't limit it in the ways I want (certain times of day, certain videos), and so I just outright ban it. I also found Youtube too addictive with its short videos, and so now only allow Netflix Kids at certain times.

The best solution IMO would be that I could say something like "these apps/sites need my permission", and then every time she tried watching a video or opening that app, etc, I'd get a notification on my phone asking if I should allow it. That would really put the control in the parent's hands. Could apply to tik tok too - I may be OK with it if my kid has to get permission to post a video, and get permission after every 20 mins of use/watching 20 videos.

Until such controls are available, I just saying a blanket 'no' to some of these apps/sites. She can use them how she sees fit once she's emancipated.

Initially I was amazed at the exploration and learning. So I let it happen. Of course, its easier to just have no phone time with a 2 year old. So I sympathize with parents of older kids where the dynamic becomes one of peer pressure.

Not really condoning phone use with teenagers and I'll play the devil's advocate here: If "everyone is doing it" - is that OK? Why have your kid be the outlier in these situations?

I actually had to look up James Charles, referenced in the article. James is 21. The iPhone came out in 2007 - so presumably James has had access or been around a smartphone well before his teenage years. Yet, the videos are creative and immensely popular. The point is, creativity is less in physical space and more in cyber space now...

1) They are bad parents 2) They are good parents 3) Smartphones are a qualitatively different addiction problem than TV, comic books, or other demonized technology of yore 4) It is correlation not causation 5) Her problems were partly caused by the iPhone

They are cheaper than phones and the plans are well priced too. Around $15/mo for service.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/09/apple-extends-the-app...

The author is completely wrong about this, so I can only assume that their kid is indeed being creative and has manipulated them into believing it.

Overall... this does seem like an "onset of adolescence" thing. 20 years ago this author would have been bemoaning that their teenage daughter spent all day on the land-line with her friends.

Iphones and social media are a vice on my generation. I used social media a lot a few years ago, but I had to quit it because I learned about nosurf[1] and how horrible for the mind these new technologies can be. However, many people I know are stuck in this addiction - scrolling on Instagram 4+ hours a day, sending streaks[2] to 10 people at once on Snapchat, who screw up their sleep schedule just to get another anime episode in. They obsess over the number of likes they get on each post and send empty platitudes to each other on their birthdays. Of course these things I just listed are not the fault of each and every person, but a product of what happens when you bring together a billion dollar company who wants people to spend as much time on their app as possible, and an impressionable generation whose brains haven't even finished developing yet.

From reading this, you may come to the conclusion that I'm some jaded teenager who hates technology and social media. But I understand the magnitude of technology and the potential it brings. I'd say I'm much more not only intelligent but wiser because of the countless podcasts, debates, lectures, articles, and music I've consumed in my 'internet life'. But that is beside the point - This parent's experience sent a chill down my spine because it is almost exactly how my parents must have felt when I got my first phone. We originally had a contract (not using it after 10, not using it in bed, etc.) but little by little my addictive brain pushed those boundaries, and when I didn't get what I wanted I had tantrums. And though I've curbed on my screen time (at least on my phone), There's always that pull, always that invisible string that attaches me to my phone. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that this experience that this parent had with her child almost exactly mirrors my parent's experience with me, and most likely many, many other parents.

Got a teenage girl an iPhone.

She became a horrible person. She lost it for a month. Became the Sweetest happiest person ever. Gave it back. Exact same mood shift.

Repeat for years. It caused her such horrific depression. Mostly from social media drama. As an adult she’s finally realizing how her mood shifts because of it.

Younger kids can get iPhones when they move out.

They are quite happy in life, although Dad is very unfair about phones.

I'm sure this sucks to experience, and I'll experience it in my due time, but - your kid has friends now, and is no longer wholly dependent on you. It's life. Before cellphones, this person would be lamenting that her kid was spending all her time at the mall with her friends, or off in the woods running around with the neighborhood children.

You gotta let Rapunzel out of the tower.

> ...

> The worst part is that our child has changed. She used to rush to our bed as soon as she woke, demanding cuddles and to “Talk Friends.” We played with puppets and stuffed animals in the morning, getting the “friends” to sing and act out scenes from plays like Robin Hood and Beauty and the Beast. We all got involved. Those days are gone. I understand she’s probably too big for “Talk Friends,” but it’s heartbreaking watching her race into our room each morning to grab her phone.

The problem is not the phone. The problem is making the child choose between attachment and authenticity. She doesn't run to you anymore because you're constantly fixated & raging about the phone. Not because she prefers her phone to her parents. You've told her it's not safe to be herself around you.

The current generation is basically digitally connected from the day they are born and yet the 'general purpose computing devices' they have access to are walled gardens like phones and tablets. And with the way Apple is going about it, even Macbooks will soon join the ranks.

Well, that right there is your mistake. Instead of James Charles introduce her to VSauce or Primitive Technology or any number of youtube channels that are truly related to creativity /mind inquiry.

I used to watch a lot of Discovery Channels on TV when I grew up in the 90's. Some stuff I've learned back then it became gateway drug to tinker with electronics, which led to my current profession as programmer.

1) How much of this behavior is just a young child growing up and clashing with their parents? The author seems to blame the iPhone for their personality change, but it just seems to me that it coincides with a common period of rapid emotional and physical growth.

2) As others have pointed out - why not try and find a better medium between technology and creativity? Seems to me this is just the classic battle between tradition and technology.

So where is the data that quantifies the intellectual value of each single concept taught to children, on a concept by concept basis? And where is the data that the techniques used to teach any individual concept is worth the loss of that amount of childhood?

Seems like a lot of effort for any given lesson topic, but when you multiply any waste of time by the number of children and value of their childhood, it’s not so big.

Maybe give a teacher a child time budget...the amount of off-campus time you can take from a child’s life. Exceed that...and you can “buy” more time, but your contracted time would be extended without compensation as well. A slow kid may need more time, and additional support from another resource would be made available at no budget expense to the teacher.

But do your homework, kids...

I read books on my phone. I've probably read hundreds of thousands of pages, I've got a library that is a very respectable size on my phone. Is reading them a sign of addiction to my phone? Or is it the same as reading paper? Am I just using my phone as a tool?

I don't take pictures except to document things. I don't have any of those social media accounts people use to share photos or videos of themselves or whatever. I see women (and men) on the beach (or elsewhere) who's goal is to get a cute photo. I feel like they're wasting such a wonderful experience on a narcissistic persuit.

But I spend hours on sites like this one talking to other people. Talking to people I don't know, people I do know, people I only know online. Sometimes about stupid stuff, sometimes about interesting stuff. It's not something I use for passive entertainment really very often. If I'm pondering life, making bonds, questioning my own beliefs, is that as simple as a social media addiction? Is it constructive?

I know I am addicted to my phone and the internet in general. And it has detrimental effects on my life. But it has been very intellectually constructive for me. I have expanded my vocabulary quite a lot, I have learned to articulate my thoughts very well. I have learned to write code and about quantum particles and I've read research papers. I've talked to some very interesting people, even some very important people. So is it all bad?

I think the trick is to not make it your life. Go outside, dig your hands in the soil, grow something. Immerse yourself in the moment where what is going into your senses is not curated by you or someone else. I do a decent job of not touching my phone when I'm out there. But I'd say I haven't struck that balance quite yet, because I don't go out there enough. I used to go out there every day and get dirty. I need to do that again.

1. A child that is growing up.

2. A parent that gives in too much.

This lady needs to set rules for use, and then be firm with them. If you don't want your child to use a device for more than an hour a day, don't let them use it for nine.

All this child is doing is learning that their parent is a push over. You gotta be firm and push back.

She spends at least 3 hours a day writing on her laptop (she's on her 7th 150-page+ fantasy book), drawing and making comics on her ipad (taking full advantage of layers and other techniques), and animating on her phone ("Gacha" characters).

Even if this doesn't work in the short run, it's possible that after kids grow up, they would adopt healthier habits based on what they saw their parents doing when they were kids. I have seen similar things happen with eating habits, where kids initially rejected parental rules but as adults they adopted healthy habits that their parents modeled for them when they were growing up.

The problem is not the technology, the problem is as she mentions in passing bad parenting. If it wasn't an iPhone it would be "talking through the landline" (remember ALF's starting scene? it was an issue for us kids in the 80s/90s) Cable TV, or marijuana or any other addictive passtime.

You can't expect too much from kids creatively when they're subjected to such lifestyle. Some kids will either manage to be on top of things enough to have some extra energy in them, but not all.

I'm not dismissing the fact that smartphones and social media are extremely addictive, of course. That's a major problem. But the symptoms you are describing go beyond that.

- use screentime to understand the issues and set guidances or restrictions: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208982

- have open discussions about behavioural patterns in your kids to make them understand better what is good for them

To find the right balance between convenience, social pressures and the things that are actually good for oneself even if inconvenient is an everlasting struggle. This is best to be addressed early in life with good guidance.

The problem has nothing to do with an iPhone. It has 100% to do with bad parenting.

The author even acknowledges this, but I guess blaming the iPhone gets more clicks than "Poor parenting harms child".

Author seems to be struggling with the connected-kid culture around apps like Instagram and TikTok - which are transforming the school-based culture to something where to be popular, you have to be connected and posting. This is what needs to be controlled IMHO.

As many mention, there are MANY positive uses where the phone is a 100% better medium to teach or learn than old school books or otherwise.

With my kids, I focus on installing and limiting the games and videos to ones that I find productive and educational.

Our precocious angels have been transforming into sullen monsters at the onset of adolescence since the beginning of time. Do we really think they would have stayed precocious angels forever, if only they had never discovered comic books or rock'n'roll or TV or video games or whatever the current teenage vice happens to be?

Sure, there is good evidence that smartphones are more addictive than a lot of other pastimes and devices, but the fact that your daughter turned into a teenager isn't that.

Meanwhile, she self-admittedly said she broke all her rules regarding the phone. Also her child grew up into a teenager. Kids don’t stay the same forever.

Spoiler alert, the phone didn't break your daughter. You and society did.

The major issue this brings to light is the complete ignorance around addiction. It is not caused by the substance or the activity, but rather other underlying issues (trauma, unmet needs). This mom sounds overbearing. This poor kid has probably been on the Ivy League track since preschool. School until 6:30PM, I can't imagine what is wrong.

Addiction problem? Find the needs that aren't being met. We have such a lack of knowledge about mental health, as a society, that most people don't even know where to start.

The end of the article brings no reprieve. The mom basically throws her hands in the air and we can only assume that she will double-down on her overbearing, unhelpful approach.

You can ban phones and vaping, but it won't do anything to address the underlying issues. Until we learn to proactively address mental health, it will only get worse. This article gives me zero hope.

Although it may not sound like it, I have a ton of compassion for the mom and the daughter. I used to have severe addiction issues, I was a real mess. I had to figure this stuff out by evaluating available information and (dis)proving it to my satisfaction through trial and error. With a lot of support, I managed to unfuck myself. I think I'm just frustrated with society in general. So many issues, so many simple ways to make headway on them, so little action or even understanding of the problem space. I can tell you one thing for sure, this lone autist is not going to save the world.

The parent in this article is struggling with too many things at the same time: kid becoming a teenager, tech, and lack of connection with your kid. Having kids and growing them to healthy human beings is super hard. I wouldn't blame the daughter's behavior to any single thing, it looks more like a combination of multiple issues. Hopefully they both can find a good path moving forward.

Our kids are very creative as a result and are constantly doing things and playing and have good social skills.

I got my daughter to sit with me and watch "The Social Dilemma" on Netflix, and she still wouldn't leave her iphone alone. I could not believe it. Her exact behaviour is being acted out in front of us, and she's busy maintaining her streaks. I pause the show and "Really? Are you seriously using your phone right now?"

She's totally addicted to snap. so much so that she will even make little snap poses during a normal face-to-face conversation, which prompted me - the first time I saw it - to say "Did you just pose for a snap photo?" to which she embarrassingly agreed that she had.

Just as the author of the article related, my daughter cannot be without her phone and exhibits many of the same behaviours described in the article. Sounds like we've had the same arguments.

I don't think it's the phone itself that was the problem here, I think its allowing your teenager unfettered access to social media. TikTok, Facebook, IG, are not particularly healthy IMO. There is something to look at here with the loss of interest in reading and being creative. iPhones are in fact very good outlets for creativity, its just that children need limits within them just like anything else.

Parents should be engaged with what kids are actually doing on their devices and be able to set boundaries for their digital lives. I'm all for being creative, and I think digital tools can be a real boon to it. Making games, videos, digital art, programming etc. are all awesome, character building experiences. Scrolling through feeds for 9 hours a day watching celebrities do hand-jives and gossip, not as much..

Another toddler in my extended family just had his eyesight treated because of addiction to mobile phone.

There is a reason why tech billionaires are sending their kids to schools devoid of screens. The general horde who are making these billionaires even richer by buying their phones and seeing virtue in being able to afford it should introspect the damage they are doing to their kids.

"The modern devil is cheap dopamine." - @naval

When my parents had a say in my technology usage (amount of time spent in front of a screen, turning off the router at midnight, etc), I would want to find ways around it, such as jumping onto a neighbors hotspot, or saving up and secretly buying myself a second phone so they couldn't take it away. Sometimes I could get away with pulling an all-nighter on my phone.

Before I got into technology, it was books. I read for hours every day, and my parents complained that while reading was good, I was doing it in excess.

Once these limits relaxed, so did my desire to exceed them. Now I've moved out and live on my own, I find myself wanting to spend far less time on the computer.

Here's another perspective: are there socially well-adjusted adults who get sucked into it and ruin their lives? We're inclined to care about the kids most, but kids are resilient and continue to grow and adjust and change over the years. What about their parents? Are there adults who get sucked into social media addiction and it ruins their lives? If yes, how common would you say it is?

(I'm not trying to lead an answer here. I thought about it for a couple minutes and I haven't decided for myself.)

You'd hope people were more educated or exposed to cool ideas but given the debate on the election and the most popular videos on youtube it doesn't seem to be that way.

Maybe its just a new normal and I'm old. I feel lucky the internet didn't exist when I was young.

I had a habit opening LinkedIn every now and then to glance at the content. Sometimes I would quickly close, sometimes I read a bit and close, sometimes longer.. anyway that's a distraction from whatever I am doing.

I did a small experiment recently on LinkedIn. I unfollowed everyone. My LinkedIn feed is empty. I don't open LinkedIn as much now, think about it.. it faded away.

I really like having no feed.

Then I wondered what Facebook would be like without a Feed.

Uhm... There was a period in my life where I had to work part time and go back to school and even that only took 11 hours per day including a 30 min commute both directions. This girl is doing this in her teenage years...

> Some days I get sad thinking about what happened to the little kid who used to corner visitors and make them go page-by-page through her art books.

It sounds to me like the daughter is doing the same thing she's always done, except now she has a new creative outlet -- TikTok.

So far that seems to work pretty well. But they are only single digit ages.

Is there any hard evidence that "those people" exist? Or is this just something people say?

Wat?

Perfection also harms creativity.

In fact there was a economic theorist who claimed that by introducing limitations in a system you also introduce entrepreneurship and innovation.

You gotta set those limits and stick to what you say. No matter how awkward or unpleasant it may seem. They'll eventually understand, and on some level, respect you more for being a disciplinarian. Sometimes kids act out though they secretly crave rules and boundaries.

That's worse

My kids will consume unbounded screen time if given the chance. They will forget to sleep. They will ignore requests to hang out with friends. I don't know if they have ever willingly got off their tablets of their own volition, except sometimes to eat.

Now that the kids are schooling virtually, they spend their day staring at a laptop. When they get a break or schools over, what do they want? To stare at their tablets.

I try to regulate it. I'll tell them to get off and do something else. Twenty minutes later, they're back on. "Didn't I tell you to get off?" "Mom, said we could." "Did you tell her I told you to get off screen?" "No..." They are like junkies, pitting us against each other.

But it's not like I can just kick them off. Because some fraction of the time, they're playing Minecraft which I think is pretty creative, and they're playing with their friends. Given how little social interaction they can get right now, I'm loathe to minimize that. But as soon as their friends sign off, they switch to YouTube without saying anything. "Weren't you playing Minecraft with Alice?" "Oh, that was hours ago.".

Sure, if my wife and I were better more disciplined parents maybe this would be less of a problem. But it really sucks having to essentially live in a house that has a big bag of candy-coated heroin right next to the breakfast cereal and have to constantly be vigilant about not letting them have it. And then when someone points out "Hey, maybe we businesses shouldn't be able to leave bags of heroin candy in our houses," all you get is comments like the ones here judging people for letting their kids have it.

And, no, this isn't the same as when we played with our computers as kids any more than caffeine is the same as heroin. A difference in degree is still a difference, especially at this magnitude.

Parenting is hard enough as it is without having to fight a personal uphill battle against the trillion-dollar capitalist attention acquisition industry.

Everything I did had to be approved. They were always on my back, watching and controlling everything.

If I wanted to do something they did not approve, they were angry or mocked me. They forced me on activities I hated because THEY liked it. Never aknowledging my wishes or needs.

Never had privacy because they always had to check everything I was doing. Even closing my door made them angry. God save me if I dared to actually lock it, hell would loose on me.

When I asked for help, they never really bothered, they even laughed at me and made me feel like I should be ashamed to ask a question.

I lived under ridiculously strict, completely non-logical and arbitrary rules in everything in my life. Even daring to ask an explanation made them angry because I was defying their authority.

Want to get this nice book you like? Too bad, you don't have money. But mom does not think this book is interesting, so we'll get this other one instead. What, you already want to buy something else? We already bough you a book last week, you should be grateful.

They moved in the countryside because they are completely antisocial.

What, you want to visit a friend? I'll have to drive you, you are so annoying. We'll do this another time.

What, you want to go to disneyland? And a shopping center? Do you even know how much it costs and how many people are there?

What, you don't want to spend every sunday with us visiting completely uninteresting places with us? What's wrong with you, why don't you never get out of the house?!

You got punished again at school? [hell looses on me] I was sure your friends were not very frequentable, stop stop meeting them. Seriously, why didn't the teachers see that? Parents and teachers are so incompetent nowadays. Fortunately you have parents giving you a good education.

Computers were the only place where I could escape from this hell. I could have my own virtual world and they could not control it. I could subscribe to a PhpBB forum and talk with actual human beings about things I actually liked. I could choose any video game, movie and music and get it on Emule without asking permission.

This had and still have devastating consequences on my well-being.

You should be listening to what your child wants and teach her how to make her own smart choices. You should give her freedom, love and care, not arbitrary limits without even un explanation.

If I did not have my computer that my parents did not understood, if they had the power and knowledge to control and choose what I am allowed to do with it, I probably would have ended-up killing myself or something.

I have 3 daughters from my first marriage (ranging from 26 y/o to 2). When they were growing up I was a single father, and their phones went from brick-like nokias to Androids in the time it takes you to snap your fingers.

At the time I didn't give it much thought, and when I realized what was going on the harm was done. I really wish I'd knew better; I should had.

My youngest daughter is 7 now, from my 2nd marriage. And phones in particular and technology in general is something I give a lot of thought, and have discussed at length with my partner (Thankfully, we're on the same wavelength here).

She is also really creative; she was learning violin before lockdown, and while in lockdown besides her violin classes, she took singing and piano lessons (Obviously, at the level a 7 y/o can take then over Zoom / Meet).

We only let her watch around 1 hour of TV per day. Being strict here is a constant struggle, but we keep it more around that amount of time.

She also plays with the computer (Or phone, or tablet) "only" 1 hour a day, with the tablet or phone restricted to only weekends, and a particular game - Star Wars Battlefront - only 2 days a week.

Besides that, something that we haven't been able to manage - namely because it can go from 15 minutes a day to several hours - is phone usage for video calls. But I have to admit that I struggle here because I don't have a decided opinion regarding what to do here. She does sometimes hour + video calls with her grandmother on the mother side; they are very close, and due to COVID she haven't seen her since February - she lives 1500 Km away, with travel almost impossible in this country (Argentina) - when usually she would travel frequently, say every two months. Same happens with her friends that she hardly sees nowadays. and I gotta reckon that the video calls are usually on the creative side, for instance with a friend that lives in the same town as my MIL they would play using local toys similar to legos.

Both my wife and I dread the time when we'll eventually have to give her a phone,because just like TV and tablets and computers, it's going to be a constant struggle, made worst by the "but my friends do it / have it" line of reasoning.

As we do want to be prepared for this, what we decided is that, would the moment arrive, we are not going to give her "her phone". We are going to lend her a phone, that is not going to be hers, and she will be allowed to use under certain circumstances. And we would have the right to inspect that phone whenever we fell like it.

The reasoning here is that from our point of view, having a phone is not very different from having a car. If you would not give a 10 y/o a car, why would you give her a phone in an uncontrolled way?

Wish us luck.

You can stop it, but you won’t. The messages we give to girls now are awful. They are taught by the crowd to freely wield their sexual and social power instead of being taught to use it thoughtfully. This power is intoxicating and can only be tamed by strong values. They will be indoctrinated against your “outdated” parental authority. Their “heroes” will be criminals and bad women like Cardi B. If you really want to stop that, pull her out of the school she’s going to, find a ‘conservative’ school to send her to, and spend time teaching your values at home. You probably won’t do any of this. It’s not the phone, it’s the values and who is teaching them. And right now, that’s not you.

And I already don't like what I see, even though they are still only 5-10 years old: zero attention span, inability to be still and contemplative, useless hyperactivity, zero respect to parents yet enormous fear of police and other powers that be, lack of personal responsibility, whole life documented and filed in the cloud, total dependency on internet and electricity, so much that they are at the fringe of going insane or commiting a suicide when there's an outage...

And oh if it were only their parents who'll reap what they sow.

If this parent is frustrated at all they should, instead of being conceited about vicarious passions, be mournful their child has fallen prey to consumerist joys and will likely never develop a true adult passion for enriching experiences and pastimes. If my child asked me for something everyone has i would get her the things everyone DOESNT because when she is older she will appreciate the novelty of her personal childhood more than she will remember being just like everyone else. I would get my child a basic feature phone like a light phone or a flipphone, and i would get them an e-ink tablet and, yes, a customized device for watching television and youtube, possibly an android tablet heavily locked down. I would prohibit the use of apps like tiktok, snapchat, and instagram, all of which any in-touch millennial knows are the key platforms driving this soulless era of contact appreciation and gameified approval from others that really makes generation z teenagers look like a bunch of zombies, far more than we or our parents did at the same age.

To add salt to injury, the dance team at school she is part of encourages them to post on Facebook and Instagram. They have study groups on Facebook, Discord, Slack and even Instagram.

When I demand they use simple old style text messaging, she has friends with fancy phones but no SIM card and depend on Instagram messaging for everything.

I have given up after going through frustrating, helpless and endless hours of convincing.

Lack of ability to focus will be the serious limiting factor for innovation and creativity. I see it at work where you get engineers cannot persevere to solve hard problems. Agile has become them excuse to do some quick hack and throw it across the wall.