The Wait Until 8th pledge

https://www.waituntil8th.org

by thunderbong • 3 years ago

221 228 3 years ago

rektide• 3 years ago

'Wait until 8th.. grade, before giving phones to kids.'

I do wish there were more controls. Phones that only have like 4 used a day, rather than just being screen time counters, maybe?

parasubvert5• 3 years ago

Yeah, how about no. Parent your kids to balance their screen time, and please keep them off social media as long as possible (or very supervised).

But pledges like this are ridiculous, and remind me of how parents in the 80s thought the C64 or NES was going to rot kids brains, just like TV in the 70s.

nerdchum• 3 years ago

no to before 8th? or no to after?

zamadatix• 3 years ago

"No to waiting" seems the most likely.

voidhorse12• 3 years ago

Balancing screen time seems doable and makes sense but the social media bit seems basically impossible.

I have yet to encounter a kid with a smart phone that wasn't using it to view stuff on tiktok or youtube.

colecut• 3 years ago

Yes there is some social activity on YouTube but I have trouble thinking of it as "social media" in the Facebook/Instagram sense..

elzbardico11• 3 years ago

it's pretty easy to use parental controls to block such apps.

bushwald• 3 years ago

There was an insurrection a couple of years ago because people raised on too much TV got riled up by the Internet on their phones. TV and phones are a destructive force (regardless of political affiliation).

wpietri8• 3 years ago

Is this something you are currently doing? Or more a theory?

I know one parent, a software developer, whose kid goes to a school that strongly encouraged this and so they signed up for it. It seems to work fine for them. In contrast, I know other parents who have given their kids phones and it is quite hard to completely monitor their usage of it. Around the house, parents develop a background sense for where their kids are and what they're doing. If you hear a kid go into the kitchen, your ears perk up to make sure they're, say, getting cereal rather than playing with knives and fire. But a kid doing perfectly safe things on a phone looks about like a kid doing dangerous things on their phone. And a phone is portable enough that you can't really directly supervise them all the time.

leonidasv2• 3 years ago

it is quite hard to completely monitor their usage of it

I disagree.

Google Parent Link[0] and YouTube parental controls[1] are very advanced. But most parents just don't care setting it up and them complains they don't know what their kids are watching online.

[0] https://families.google/familylink/

[1] https://support.google.com/youtubekids/answer/6172308?hl=en#...

parasubvert5• 3 years ago

It's something I'm currently doing with my 14 year old.

the phone requires approval for app installs, so no social media. I have the phone unlock code and track browser history both at the phone and the router. He can and does use incognito mode, and the router mostly catches the porn URLs if any (thankfully not a lot - more gross out sites which we have chats about).

I track Youtube history as he uses my premium account to avoid ads + usually can see that stuff at the router.

Next step i've been meaning to do is setup a forwarding proxy so that even cell data use is tracked.

Generally if he does things I get concerned about, we have a conversation about what worries me, and how i want him to adjust his habits. this sometimes works, sometimes reverts back and requires a reminder.

all of this can blow up into full on blocking and acrimony eventually, I guess. i am working on his coping and judgement so that when he does branch out he has tools to handle what he runs into. I grew up in the late 80s "very online" with BBS's and internet in the early 90s... and got into a lot of dangerous things without my parents really knowing. I have a sense of how to protect against that but yes there are limits.

We are also recently fostering a 16 year old girl with terrible social media dependency and a history of self harm, and that is a much different set of strategies. taking the phone away there also doesn't IMO solve problems , it just creates new ones, especially given she is almost an adult. so this one is about cognitive behavior therapy, psychiatric therapy, building coping skills and executive functions, and building stable in person activities and relationships that are preferable to the online relationships. and trying to lower the social media usage to close friends + humour only rather than flirting with boys in remote countries.

vxNsr5• 3 years ago

Phones are incredibly addictive to both adults and kids. They are very damaging to relationships and social development. It’s fascinating that you think the answer is “do better”. This is literally that. Why are you so in favor of giving children something they have no need for and something that causes enormous stress anxiety and harm?

Kids who are online have been shown to be much more anxious, more depressed and less socially adjusted vs kids who are in peer groups that are kept offline for as long as possible.

parasubvert5• 3 years ago

Because I fundamentally disagree with your statements, that have no basis in fact. The studies on this topic are completely inconsistent and show conflicting information, with no clear correlation of harm.

This is isn't exactly news: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/26/technology/kids-screen-ti...

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/27/parents-of-successful-kids-d...

ultimately it depends on the child's psychology and the content that they consume. some kids should be parented to be steered away from social media. others have no problems.

Lots of things are addicting. I'm addicted to coffee. So what? Life is about managing your emotions towards moderation. Offline pledges are about as effective as abstinence pledges.

voidhorse12• 3 years ago

The fact that parents even consider giving kids phones before 8th grade is baffling to me. Growing up, I got a dumb cellphone around that age and it feels like an appropriate time. The internet is just too wild to let anyone younger than at least 13 go near it imo. What's especially unfortunate about it is that I get the sense most parents that hand out phones earlier could have just gotten their kid some handheld gaming system (there's even new ones on the market and retro recreations these days!) instead and managed to solve the exact same "problem" with basically none of the psychological and developmental risks.

Comes with the huge typical disclaimer that I am not a parent in this environment so obviously I don't know how real the pressure feels.

wpietri8• 3 years ago

The problem parents often solve with a phone is not fun, but contact. When they are away from their kid, they want to know where the kid is, to be able to talk to them, and to have the kid able to call them. This is often especially important to divorced parents, who want to be able to contact the kid directly when at the other parent's house.

The problem a kid often solves with the phone is also not fun, but social connection to friends.

voidhorse12• 3 years ago

That makes sense. In that case it seems like the best thing would be a dumb phone, not a smart phone. Or, if a smartphone, one that's pretty limited in range of functionality, at least.

PlunderBunny• 3 years ago

For the rest of the world, could anyone share what age a child would typically be when they enter the 8th grade?

wpietri8• 3 years ago

For US grades, add 5 to the grade to get a reasonable age. 1st grade is ~6; 12th grade is ~17.

cat_plus_plus2• 3 years ago

Bah, it's just a tool, and important one for safety and avoiding unnecessary distress. It's up to parents to take care of technological limits and discipline, but it's not not an all or nothing deal. Especially during pandemic, how else were kids supposed to have any connection to peers? And without pandemic, what's wrong with cousins playing Minecraft while many hundreds of miles away from each other.

rcme• 3 years ago

This is the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument.

cat_plus_plus2• 3 years ago

Absolutely, it would be stupid to live without a gun in rural Alaska. What if a bear or criminal attacks my family I just stand and throw sticks at them? There are also absolutely environments where either a gun or a smartphone are not worth it, for example a school where everyone is properly supervised, protected by local police and engaged in meaningful learning which does not require a phone.

rottencupcakes• 3 years ago

This isn't about not giving them computers is it? This is about not giving them smart phones.

Spivak• 3 years ago

And smart phones are the tools for that. That kind of chatting happens in group texts, iMessage, Snap, and IG.

Someone who is using their phone to talk to their IRL friends is doing better than sitting on their laptop, playing video games, or watching tv.

Phones are evil is how millennials become "back in my day" people apparently. Fascinating to watch it in real time.

elzbardico11• 3 years ago

smart phones are computers. It is just a different form factor.

ivanstegic• 3 years ago

My general rule is to under parent.

larusso4• 3 years ago

The headline caught my eye because my birthday is on the 8th ;)

But to the topic. I have 3 kids and only my daughter (over ten) has a phone. We gave her an old iPhone and I disabled everything from internet to blocking foreign numbers. She has books and music access and can write to her friends. I‘m really against opening the internet at her age because I see one not the point why she would need it at that age and because we have some nice negative examples of „zombie“ kids walking around only having conversations in little chunks between smartphone breaks.

I grew up without a phone. And when I got my first phone (around 15) it was a dumb brick. To be fair it where the late 90th, early 2000 ;) Internet wasn‘t even big for me.

My other two kids don‘t have a phone. But also: I wouldn’t simply put an age to that decision. I mean either the person is right or not. I hear no complains from my kids and feel rarely the effects of social pressure. Also helps that my wife is resolute as a stone when it comes to that topic :)

flangola77• 3 years ago

zombie“ kids walking around only having conversations in little chunks between smartphone breaks

As an adult this is me and my friends, I don't see a problem with it. It's not like we're ignoring each other. I'm not sure why everyone is so hostile to kids having internet. I grew up watching YouTube and browsing Reddit on my phone too, that hasn't hurt me any.

gls2ro• 3 years ago

Kids brain and adult brain are different. The same goes for body - this is why some medicine cannot be taken by kids.

As an example (I am not a doctor) the neocortex is not fully developed until maybe 20s.

Thus what works for you as an adult is not 100% sure to be working for children.

nunuvit4• 3 years ago

Parents usually don't want others, especially companies, spending all their time trying to get their kids addicted to stuff, influencing their minds, and changing their behavior. There's a lot that can go wrong with letting random assholes parent your kids more than you.

larusso4• 3 years ago

My daughter had a friend over and we played a boardgame together. It was impossible to hold the attention of her friend. Every round she needed a nudge that it is again her turn. In between constant tick tock scrolling. Sorry but I‘m wondering what happens to these kids in the future. And how conversations and interactions they‘ll have etc.

drdaeman• 3 years ago

To be fair it where the late 90th, early 2000 ;) Internet wasn‘t even big for me.

Disclaimer: thank goodness I don't have any kids, so this is not a parenting advice. Just my own story.

I grew up around the same era and computing was a huge thing for me. I've had my first computer (ZX Spectrum 48k) when I was 6, first IBM PC-compatible when I was around 9, first dial-up Internet access around 14. I don't really remember the ages TBH (except the 6, because I left some evidence by hardcoding my age in a BASIC program), so they're plus-minus couple years.

But then Internet was different back in the day. Pay-per-minute dial-up, 14kbps on a good day, so the best available time killer was reading jokes and anecdotes from FidoNet or Usenet, offline. Endless meaningless feeds the whole day wasn't a thing. And when tech got better my interests were already ingrained in me.

Looking back, it changed the trajectory of my whole life, and in a good way. I've had all the latest tech news, talked to smart people, and was able to learn lots of things - all when I've still had that virtually infinite energy and my brain was much more agile than today. So with some luck, I was able to seize some opportunities. The history has no "if"s, but I can't imagine things would've went half as good, would I not be into computers back then.

But also, wouldn't I have that curiosity, limited attention span (any game got boring pretty fast) and innate desire to entertain myself by tinkering with whatever random thing was available, I guess it could've went nowhere.

Now, the subject at hand is drastically different - phones now and personal computers back then are hard to compare fairly. Except that my parents back then weren't always exactly fond of me setting all day and night in front some screen rather than playing with other kids (or whatever). But they tolerated it and appraised my successes.

Morale is, I think, it all depends on the kid - not on the tech - how they're gonna spend their time and where they'll head in their life. Some will create new things, some will just drown themselves in Modern Internet's firehose of shit (maybe there was something similar back in the day and I'm just blissfully unaware, hah). I'm glad my parents have provided me with things I've had, letting my energy flow into something not just non-harmful but actually somewhat useful, and that their only real interference was in indirect moral guidance by me see some good and bad examples.

larusso4• 3 years ago

Morale is, I think, it all depends on the kid - not on the tech - how they're gonna spend their time and where they'll head in their life.

This is what I tried to convey with not putting it on an age barrier.

Zetice• 3 years ago

and can write to her friends.

Good lord...

jamesdepp• 3 years ago

I could get behind this, but only if my kids had open access to the internet via some other device. Phones are addicting and can be harmful (esp to younger teens), but it is crucial that young people have access to the resources the web can offer. It opens up opportunities and allows teens to find support resources when their family/school isn’t enough (LGBTQ+ kids in states like Florida come to mind).

The biggest reason I have found success in my career field is because I had such a head start on those I went to college with. I got into software development in middle school, and was in frequent communication with other people building software (who were significantly older than me). Most parents probably would have shut this down. My parents let this activity continue, and it turned into my career. The relationships I built then and the lessons I learned have been invaluable. This experience was only possible because I had unrestricted access to the web. My kids, once they are mature enough to handle that responsibility, will enjoy those same freedoms.

briga2• 3 years ago

My 5-year old nephew has access to a smart phone along with social media accounts on the major platforms. Is it healthy? Probably not. Neither was my generation binging on TV and video games. But it also gives them access to an absurd wealth of information richer than any library I had growing up. How can a kid's mind not be absolutely entranced by that sort of thing? Telling a kid that they can't have a phone when they see their parents addicted to their phones reeks of "do as I say, not as I do"--I dunno about you but I didn't like being told that as a kid.

Maybe early exposure will act as a sort of mental inoculation to addictive algorithms. Maybe it will screw up a generation of kids. Maybe it'll better prepare them for wild changes technology is going to have in their lifetimes. Only time will tell. The experiment has already started

andai• 3 years ago

The people who built this stuff don't let their own kids touch it. Doesn't that tell you everything you need to know?

voidhorse12• 3 years ago

This view seems a bit rosy and willfully ignorant of the actual current state of the internet. I think it will spoil most of the batch but the lucky few will come out better for it.

Those kids that do have a desire for encyclopedic knowledge may be well served by a smart phone.

However, most kids do not have that desire to begin with, and even those that do face problems. Unlike a traditional library, the internet is an ocean full of some information of so-so quality and much of abysmally low quality. A local library will not typically house the latest unedited, unhinged screed of the resident neo-nazi, and if it did, a well-educated librarian could help put it in appropriate context and help reaffirm the community's values. Learning from the internet outside of maybe learning about tech itself (and even the info quality there is in rapid decline imo) is mostly like learning from an encyclopedia authored by conspiracy theorists and village idiots.

briga2• 3 years ago

I’m not putting forth any particular prediction. I don’t know how this will turn out (and neither does anyone else). I’m more just resigned to the fact that kids can and will have access to this technology. If their parents don’t let them their friends will

sillysaurusx• 3 years ago

I was watching gore videos when I was 13. I bet lots of others were too. I turned out ok.

Survivorship bias isn’t a great way to make an argument, but I’m skeptical of the view that the internet is so much worse now. There isn’t even a liveleak anymore.

A family friend was groomed at 9yo. She was pressured into sending nude pics of herself to a 15yo. That kind of thing seems like the real danger for unsuspecting kids, and teaching them from a young age to guard themselves is the strategy I’ll be trying.

JADev62096• 3 years ago

It's not a given that the parents are addicted to phones. It's also not clear that access to large amounts of information driven by selection pressure of algorithms is automatically a good thing: some of these informational memes drive children to do harmful things (for example, the tide pod challenge).

elzbardico11• 3 years ago

My 10-year kid watches the usual amount of silly stuff on youtube. But from time to time I catch him watching some popular science content. One of these days he gave a very good explanation of what a black hole is during dinner.

Then paying attention to him, I found out he is a subscriber to a very entertaining young astronomer's channel and that's where he was learning all that stuff. I sit along with him and engaged with him in the content.

On the other hand that are some content producers that are absolute trash, in those cases, I gently persuade my son this is not the best content for him, well, sometimes not so gently, in the worst cases I just lay down the law that he is not to watch that channel anymore. I do it rarely enough that it still works.

It is not magic, you just need to parent, the same way you have to do in every other situation in your kid's life that doesn't necessarily involve a screen.

krzyk• 3 years ago

Does your 5-year old nephew reads?

autoexec9• 3 years ago

My 5-year old nephew has access to a smart phone along with social media accounts on the major platforms. Is it healthy? Probably not. Neither was my generation binging on TV and video games. But it also gives them access to an absurd wealth of information richer than any library I had growing up.

The things that made TV and video games "unhealthy" for you are not the same or even comparable to the threats that make social media unhealthy for kids today.

Also, children don't need access to social media to have "an absurd wealth of information richer than any library". That can be obtained elsewhere online. I don't think many people are suggesting that children should be cut off from the internet entirely, but rather that they shouldn't be given constant unsupervised access, or access to platforms run by companies who are devoted to exploiting those children.

When I was young, I didn't have the internet, but I was active on a number BBSs. I suppose that could have been considered the "social media" of the day, and I was not supervised while online, it was also an entirely different beast. It was not run by companies who were looking to exploit me, manipulate me, and collect every scrap of my personal data that could be extracted. They were mostly being run by other nerds. It was about community and not profit and exploitation.

Early exposure to the internet, to online communities, and to technology in general is important, but no child needs a device in their pocket which is designed primarily to collect/leak personal information and for media consumption to do those things. A cell phone and a facebook account are probably the worst way to achieve those ends anyway. We can do better for our children than to throw them to the wolves.

turtlebits• 3 years ago

100% agree.

No kid needs their own dedicated device. This doesn't mean don't use social media/communication/chat, it just means setting limits on device use and not having it available to them any time of the day for as long as they want.

IME, setting limits helps them make smarter choices on what they want do on the device (instead of mindless infinity scrolling).

djaouen• 3 years ago

I don’t think this is useful. Just put restrictions on certain websites (perhaps at the router level) and let them explore. Imagine if your parents told you not to touch books until 8th grade? Why do that to a curious child?

tivert• 3 years ago

I don’t think this is useful. Just put restrictions on certain websites (perhaps at the router level) and let them explore. Imagine if your parents told you not to touch books until 8th grade? Why do that to a curious child?

You misunderstand. This is about smartphones, not the web or internet in general.

azinman2• 3 years ago

And it’s about your own personal device

voidhorse12• 3 years ago

Sure, but the problem with the internet contra books, is its content and lack of gatekeeping.

The traditional publishing industry has a massive set of gatekeeping mechanisms around publication. People love to complain about this, but it significantly helps in ensuring the quality of information in a published book, especially from established publication houses, remains high. The internet basically has no such mechanism, and even worse, couples that with the ability to discover new bits of this low quality information at extreme rates — further, platform algorithms optimize for engagement, not information quality and the next thing you know your loved ones are running around telling you earth is flat.

You'll never be able to block every website. This is the crux of the issue, outside of the fact that constantly bombarding yourself with short fragments of totally unconnected, decontextualized experiences (a la instagram and tiktok feeds) probably directly aids in becoming something like a lite-schizophrenic.

teeray• 3 years ago

These devices are quickly changing childhood for children. Playing outdoors, spending time with friends, reading books and hanging out with family is happening a lot less to make room for hours of snap chatting, instagramming, and catching up on You Tube.

I feel like this rhetoric also existed when I was in middle school, well before smartphones. The villain then was TV and violent video games, and there were similar campaigns to “cut the cord” (I remember my school having a giant fake plug a bunch of kids pulled of of a socket symbolically). The idea then, as now, was that kids are spending less time outdoors, reading books, etc.

I think this is a perennial reaction of parents to a changing world and the disparity between their childhood and their children’s childhoods.

voidhorse12• 3 years ago

While I do think extreme doomerism about new technology is misguided, I also feel this hand wavy "they said it about us an we're fine!" dismissal is also misguided.

Just because TV and video games did not lead to total societal collapse does not mean they are free of negative side-effects, nor does it make these technologies necessarily comparable to any other generational-shift technology adoption. TV definitely had and has negative societal side effects. Prolonged and uninhibited video game usage definitely van have negate side effects. Same thing will likely be the case for smartphones.

I also think smartphones are a special breed since they can expose children much more easily to fringe ideology than either video games or mass media ever could thanks to gatekeeping mechanisms.

We'll never get a handle on appropriate, healthy societal relations with media technologies until we stop summarily treating them as purely negative, purely positive, or purely neutral and start doing the work of analyzing each technology and its use and potentialities in their particulars.

bruce511• 3 years ago

Waaay before that it was, um, books. Kids who read books instead of playing outside were weird. The age of the 10c pulp magazine, science fiction, westerns, crime stories, they were everywhere.

And parents lamented the time spent reading them instead of doing something outside.

Just wait until our kids grow up, and their kids have a VR headset strapped to their face 24x7. They'll bemoan the time lost that was watching youtube.

As an aside, in my day it was TV, and today my kids aren't interested in TV. Not sure my parents see the irony ;)

jeffrallen2• 3 years ago

But also: our generation saw a dramatic increase in obesity.

Correlation is not causation. But some correlations are just too obvious to ignore.

soraminazuki• 3 years ago

Children across the globe has been watching TV and playing video games. Still, many countries hasn't seen US level obesity problems. The more likely and obvious contributor to obesity is food.

npunt3• 3 years ago

It also may not have been wrong then. Being outdoors and playing with others is great for kids, watching TV is... mixed. Same w video games. Definitely dosage dependent. And it's pretty clear social media is not good for kids.

Thorrez• 3 years ago

There was a study posted here recently showing that the earlier a person is given access to a cell phone, the worse the person's mental health is as an adult: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35948332

carabiner• 3 years ago

"This time is different"

I do think modern apps, adtech, and addiction engineering are devastatingly effective and different from predecessors. We need to treat these with specific care. Similar to nukes vs. conventional bombs. Adtech and recommendation algos are the WMD of the marketing world.

I was recently interviewed for a job by a guy doing infra at an adtech company. He had a PhD in physics from UCLA. These are the big guns your 7 year old is up against. TV and video games did not have this intellectual firepower behind them. May the odds be in your child's favor.

jhanschoo3• 3 years ago

TV itself was and is devastatingly effective (at spreading ideology and culture), but the primary targets of influence are not children but adults.

vultour• 3 years ago

Violent video games have always been the boogeyman, but there never was any real evidence of its effect on children. These days there's constant news of widespread mental health issues in teenagers; I think the current iteration of social media has much worse effects than video games ever had.

jxidjhdhdhdhfhf4• 3 years ago

Was TV really any better though? You seem to be saying "we survived so they will too" but just because you survived an environment with TV, doesn't mean that TV was harmless.

cranium• 3 years ago

For non-Americans like myself: 8th graders are 13-14 years old.

debok2• 3 years ago

Thank you.

12 - 13 is the age my wife and I have in mind for giving our kids their own smart phone.

tripdout• 3 years ago

Hard disagree. My first phone was an iPod Touch in Grade 4, and by Grade 5 I had already jailbroken it with one of my friends. By Grade 6, I built my own computer, got a phone with data, and by Grade 7 was running Linux on my desktop computer, which I used in Grade 8 to compile an Android ROM from source. I'm now an intern for an Android app development company. If I didn't get a phone until Grade 8, not only would I have had way less exposure to technology as a hobby, but I wouldn't have been able to enjoy playing mobile games with friends.

melony• 3 years ago

CyanogenMod?

tempestn3• 3 years ago

My kids don't yet have phones, but they do have PCs and access to tablets. I don't think a phone is necessary to get involved with technology.

wwilim• 3 years ago

Aren't you a bit of an outlier though?

scrollaway5• 3 years ago

Let’s make more outliers instead of ignoring them and turning them into casualties.

hammyhavoc3• 3 years ago

Not to discredit anything you said, but people get internships with zero prior experience because they're frequently incentivized to offer them. Your comment isn't making much of a compelling argument other than an n+1 anecdote.

__turbobrew__• 3 years ago

Lots of geeks were into technology before phones. If you were born 20 years earlier it would have been PCs, 40 years earlier it would have been commodore, 60 years earlier it would have been radio.

What got you a job is not your exposure to phones, but your curiosity of how things work.

The difference between the aforementioned and phones is the constant connectivity and parasitic engineering designed to make technology as addicting as possible. Will people who grow up with phones as young kids be doomed? No. Will those same people be more likely to have mental health issues? The science say “probably”.

elzbardico11• 3 years ago

Things change. Once we were nomads, then we became farmers, then we moved into cities and outsourced child rearing to schools because we were at factories or offices 10 hours a day. You can't roll back change. You can try to find ways to adapt to it, to mitigate their bad effects.

bthrn• 3 years ago

…such as deferring how old people are when they are first given cell phones?

senectus1• 3 years ago

this site feels like an "abstinence" promise site.

sorry but pretending it doesn't exist is not going to teach your children how to deal with it.

I fundamentally disagree with the premise.

debok2• 3 years ago

Your comment feels like you inherently misunderstand both the abstinence pledge, and this pledge.

Neither is about ignoring the thing, but about waiting for the appropriate circumstances. Abstinence is about waiting until marriage. This cellphone thing is about waiting until your brain is developed enough.

parasubvert5• 3 years ago

We understand them, we just think the pledges are ridiculous and not rooted in anything factual.

https://www.wired.com/story/screens-might-be-as-bad-for-ment...

But it's a free country.

jeffrallen2• 3 years ago

We always told our kid, "you'll get a phone when you need a phone", which was a message that was supposed to communicate that the phone was connected to increased freedom and increased responsibility. Then we found at 12 that the actual need was social integration, because he was being excluded from some social life without a phone at 12. So he got a phone.

The curse of Metcalf's law...

gnicholas7• 3 years ago

That's the point of attempts to coordinate group behavior, like this site. The goal is to avoid having your kid be the only one without a smartphone, by tacitly communicating with enough other parents who have a similar goal in mind.

MattGaiser3• 3 years ago

I have to ask, how many of you fellow techies came from households where they restricted your computer and smartphone use? Would you be you or better if you had been cut off from the digital world? How often did you lie awake under the covers until 3AM on a school night figuring out how to do something cool? How often did you get to take a conversation with a friend and run with it until someone fell asleep?

I don't deny access to the digital world has risks, but I would have lost so much had my parents done a quarter of what some of you are suggesting.

stuckkeys3• 3 years ago

Strange. I did not have a cellphone until I was 19. I grew up to be just fine. My kid now almost 8. Does not ask for a cellphone. Kids need to be kids and have fun in other way. One thing that worked for me is I give them broken devices (electronics) and see if they can fix it. Nothing fancy. We usually go to goodwill or some after hand market. If they fix it they sell it. We do occasionally play Minecraft on a local server. That we only invite family/close friends.

tempestn3• 3 years ago

Note that the campaign is wait until "8th" (grade), not until 8 years old. I didn't have a cellphone in school either, because no one did, but that's not the situation anymore.

stuckkeys3• 3 years ago

Even better. Hah.

MattGaiser3• 3 years ago

I did not have a cellphone until I was 19. I grew up to be just fine.

Did you grow up in a world where most other kids had them and fluency with smartphone use was expected?

stuckkeys3• 3 years ago

I migrated to the state from a poor country. But I get it kids are way more exposed now vs what I was back a decade ago.

lynx234• 3 years ago

Ah, so you need to "bind together" to be able to make decisions these days? How is this going to go down with your kids? At first, you say no? If they ask enough, you explain "you know, there is this church of parents which has decided that no kid is supposed to get a smartphone that early. Sorry kids, we can not do anything about it, it is the curch of parents decision"

OK, so you can only hope your kid is rather dull. Because if they are bright, they will realize that you are pretty dull. And they will remember. I still remember when I realized that living with my mother alone is going to be hell, because I would have to deal with all her neuroticism without anyone stepping up to help. Then the plan forms: "I am going to leave as early as possible, these guys suck"

tempestn3• 3 years ago

The point is that it would suck to be the one kid in grade 6 or 7 that doesn't have a phone. If parents collaborate on waiting until a healthy age - ideally if it becomes a societal norm - then kids don't need to feel left out.

lynx234• 3 years ago

I understand the urge to create pseudo-laws, and outlaw the thing you dont like just a little bit, on your own, as a group. I am just not a fan of Prohibition Culture. It never really did anything good except feeding the underground.

elzbardico11• 3 years ago

Pretty soon, we, responsible parents who actually set up parental controls correctly, pay attention to what our kids are doing and have actual, consistent, and transparent limits will be shamed for giving our kids access to tech by a bunch of neo-hippie Luddite Karens.

MattGaiser3• 3 years ago

The choices which make the most sense depend on the choices of those around you. For example, I always get the laptop all my colleagues use at work because then troubleshooting development problems is easier.

If you are the sole kid without a smartphone or without social media in a class, it is very easy to get excluded, as plenty of things will be organized on social media. I don't know how one could have functioned at university without Facebook when I attended, as it was how everything from sharing study materials to clubs to finding rentals to even conference applications was organized.

A school with a large proportion of kids without smartphones is going to organize social communication differently. Event notifications will be organized differently. Teachers won't expect that the kids will download particular learning apps to access results.

lynx234• 3 years ago

Ah, sure, and teachers will accept this and happily go back to the "stoneage" just because some parents-sekt has decided no smart phones anymore?

You can not outlaw technology on a social level. Many control freaks would love to, but that doesnt change reality at slightest.

ESQBOJaguar• 3 years ago

I’m on board. I have perused the online internet’s infinite wisdom and its deepest smut. I don’t think most kids will even remotely spend their time on the informative side of things. Not to mention I can see that people struggle to hold their attention even as adults after significant exposure. Provided I make my home environment an enriching environment, they’ll be fine without a smartphone.

elzbardico11• 3 years ago

This is the easy way out of the problem, but I am afraid, not the correct one.

My kid has had his own tablet since 6, his own PC since 8, and his own cellular since 9.

So far he hasn't turned into a domestic terrorist, and neither is he selling heroin for crypto on the dark web. Also, he has specific times when he can use his devices аnd limits on how much time.

All modern OSes have some sort of parental controls built-in, and when the native controls are not enough to your liking there are plenty of third-party software in the market.

Technology is what allows my kid to connect and play with his friend from the former place where we lived, is also the source where he learned about black holes and watched the Space-X and China's Shenzou launches. Yeah, there's quite a big amount of trash on the web, just like we had on TV.

But the solution is not pretending it is not there and hoping they won't become absolutely fascinated at the magic age of 14.

We are supposed to parent. Part of the parenting stuff means supervising and guiding in all environments your kid has contact with, including screens.

If your kid is addicted to screens, it is on you. Just delaying their first contact to the age of 13/14 won't magically guarantee they will be able to navigate it responsibly. This is just magical thinking born out of laziness.

voidhorse12• 3 years ago

But the parents are too addicted to screens to parent.

Jokes aside, it doesn't help that many parents are not great with technology (not everyone out there posts on HN) so that even relatively straightforward settings changes like placing usage constraints on your OS may not be clear to parents. I bet many parents don't even know the extent to which they can do that, let alone how.

The general point is, our overall management of consumer technology in society is a complete mess thanks to the fact that its solely driven by profit seeking.

gnicholas7• 3 years ago

But the parents are too addicted to screens to parent.

I think this is actually the key to getting kids on board with waiting on a smartphone. If the schools told the kids that smartphone addiction isn't good, and that their parents may be addicted, that would empower the kids to chastise their parents when they're using their phones too much or ignoring people right in front of them.

Then a couple years later, when the kids are thinking about wanting a smartphone of their own, it's already become ingrained in them (by having chastised their parents many times) that smartphones can be addictive, even for adults. They would then be more understanding that perhaps it's not in their best interest to get a smartphone so young.

I would welcome having my kid chide me for being on my phone too much if it meant I could hold off on giving her a smartphone for an extra year or two.

elzbardico11• 3 years ago

A fair point, but in that case, I think that an activist campaign focused on educating parents would be far more adequate.

The problem with those kinds of pledges is that, like the prohibition, what starts with voluntary pledges ends up becoming a social taboo, then administrative rule, and finally, law.

gnicholas7• 3 years ago

So far he hasn't turned into a domestic terrorist, and neither is he selling heroin for crypto on the dark web. Also, he has specific times when he can use his devices аnd limits on how much time.

I think this sort of hyperbole is unhelpful. What people are worried about is more mundane: whether the hyperconnectedness will make their kids less happy in the short or long run. There is some evidence that the age of first smartphone negatively correlates with these outcomes. [1] For my daughters, I worry about social media use, body image issues, and the like.

Just delaying their first contact to the age of 13/14 won't magically guarantee they will be able to navigate it responsibly. This is just magical thinking born out of laziness.

I don't think most parents think this would be a magic bullet. They just think that it is one (important) tool in the toolkit. We understand that parents (noun) are supposed to parent (verb). It's not lazy to say that we think our children would be better served if their brains were a bit more developed before they are confronted with the world of addictive apps and always-on social media.

I'm glad to hear that things have worked out well for your kid. There are of course a variety of outcomes for different kinds of kids. No one knows whether their kid would have been happier (or would have grown into a happier adult) had they done something differently. We are all just trying to figure out how to do our best, and for some people that means slowing down the rate of change from one generation to the next.

1: https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/sapien-smartphone-repor...

jhanschoo3• 3 years ago

To add a data point regarding early access to internet, I know of a <14yo kid who was learning digital art from yt, using iPad apps to draw, and sharing them on fora, and finding community online when they felt unable to connect with their peers in school. There were negatives to that experience too, and it could have turned out much worse. But completely prohibiting mobile usage is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

THENATHE• 3 years ago

The idea of waiting till a certain threshold is a lot like how Europe doesn’t have the “18-22 binge drinking” problem because they are conditioned to understand alcohol isn’t just a “I’m at a party, gotta get my monthly intake in one night” because they’re around it all the time rather than just once a month at a party.

Early exposure and proper regulation is key, and the hyperboles he used,IMO are very relevant and astute

xeyownt• 3 years ago

100% agree. Whatever you decide, supervision and guidance is the best you can do to your kids. I guess it's easier to remove the plug and pretend kids are safe when disconnected.

autoexec9• 3 years ago

You can give your child access to technology, allow them to play with their friends, watch space launches etc. without handing them over to corporations who are only interested in exploiting and manipulating them.

It's great that your kid isn't a terrorist. It's a shame, that at age 6 there's already a collection of dossiers being stuffed with data about your child which will follow them for their entire life. It's a shame that they've been being manipulated by lies at an age when they literally can't always tell what's real or not. It's amazing how we failed to learn our lessons there when it was just TV, but advertising now is so much worse than anything we were exposed to on television.

Kids should have computers and they should have access to the internet, but that doesn't mean they need a cell phone and their interactions should be carefully monitored and supervised.

Pretending technology and social media doesn't exist isn't any worse than pretending that children have the capacity to handle social media and the companies who are only looking to take advantage of them. Denying your kids 24/7 access to a cell phone and a facebook account seems a lot more grounded in reality.

elzbardico11• 3 years ago

Smart Phones are computers, in a different form factor. Giving you kid an smartphone doesn't mean you need to give him access to facebook, twitter, instagram or tiktok.

npunt3• 3 years ago

That's cool you, a tech-savvy HN poster, has managed to wield technology to find a high-reward/low-risk way to parent using devices, but perhaps your 'correct' solution may not work in all contexts for all people.

Perhaps you just have a kid who has the right temperament to handle devices when young.

Perhaps you work few enough hours or have the resources necessary to parent in a way to make this work.

Perhaps the kids around your kid are generally a good influence.

If there's any truism to parenting (and education) its that there's no one size fits all solution. We're in a moment in time where devices are not exactly great for children given the tools and understanding available. Socializing less device use in a society saturated with addictive devices and experiences doesn't seem that bad an idea, right?

elzbardico11• 3 years ago

well, I am not telling everyone should do the same as me. I just don't want someone telling me that I should not do it.

Because that's the final goal of such movements: start with "voluntary pledges", move into social stigmatization of dissidents, capture organizational rule, and then, finally, the law. The same script as the prohibition. It is an inexorable and fairly predictable movement, probably a cultural heritage from Calvinism.

throwaway20372• 3 years ago

This is the perfect reply. You said it better than I could. This parent has the three "perhaps" and hardly knows it. This is another good example of HN exceptionalism.

It is ironic that the Silicon Valley millionaires made rich by the attention addicting apps also work very hard to limit their own children's access and screen time.

akira2501• 3 years ago

Perhaps you work few enough hours or have the resources necessary to parent in a way to make this work.

This is a rational statement. That we live in a world where this /can/ be a rational statement is troubling.

myrryr2• 3 years ago

If there's any truism to parenting (and education) its that there's no one size fits all solution

So a pledge to try to enforce a one size fits all solution is dumb as hell yes?

SanderNL2• 3 years ago

Smartphone <> social media

It's disingenuous to pretend watching some documentary on planets is the same as scrolling on tiktok. These devices have two faces: one is excellent and you can learn a lot from it, the other is pure crystal meth and messed you up.

I think delaying the crystal meth part is fine, but delaying access to education feels rather shortsighted.

prepend6• 3 years ago

It's disingenuous to pretend watching some documentary on planets is the same as scrolling on tiktok.

It’s disingenuous to pretend kids are only watching documentaries on planets. Especially when YouTube recommends “boobfest2023” ad a follow up. I removed YouTube from everything but the main tv because everyone my kids were watching something “normal” it went into crazy town of violence, conspiracies, and just giant assholes within a few videos or watching the next recommendations.

And there’s no way in YouTube to fix this. Even “YouTube Kids” ended up in garbage after a few bits.

So now I watch with my kids and work to teach them what’s worth watching. But it’s hard because YouTube is working to draw more attention and crazy stuff gets attention.

Also, it’s infuriating to keep having ads on education. I have school assignments that keep get interrupted with ads that aren’t applicable at all. I feel sorry for the company that pays to show an ad in Spanish for progressive auto insurance to my 8 year old. Is it terrible ad targeting tech or just fraud? Beats me, but no one in my house speaks Spanish or drives.

411111111111111• 3 years ago

We are supposed to parent. Part of the parenting stuff means supervising and guiding in all environments your kid has contact with, including screens.

That's your interpretation of the parenting role. It might be agreeable for a lot of people on this forum, but that's mostly because we're all a self selected group.

Historically speaking, children were free to learn unguided and parents only interfered if the kids didn't do their jobs, which was literal work on a farm or similar.

I'm not advocating for child labor, but your opinion that it's your job to literally supervise your child learning is also a quiet extreme position from my point of view.

watwut3• 3 years ago

Historically speaking, children were free to learn unguided and parents only interfered if the kids didn't do their jobs, which was literal work on a farm or similar.

First of all, we have lower levels of child criminality, violence, alcoholism, you name it then they had back in periods you are trying to reference.

Second of all, this is not even historical. Historical parents cared about values they children grow in. They cared about what kind of people they will be. And the classes who could afford education and supervision, did paid those money. It could actually get quite controlling.

tgv• 3 years ago

If your kid is addicted to screens, it is on you. Just delaying their first contact to the age of 13/14 won't magically guarantee they will be able to navigate it responsibly.

I completely agree with the latter, but to achieve the former, it will have to be delayed to at least 18. 12-14 is the age at which they start getting interested in social media, fitting in a group, sexual attraction, etc., which is what makes social media nefast. Prior to that age, many will simply only be interested in cartoons and dinosaurs. It isn't magic, it's just how development works for many (in our environment, at this moment). Hopefully, by delaying it to 18, they will be conditioned less by the instantaneous attention call of whatsapp, tiktok, etc., although many (younger) adults seem quite addicted as well.

prepend6• 3 years ago

So far he hasn't turned into a domestic terrorist, and neither is he selling heroin for crypto on the dark web.

So you think. I for one have greatly enjoyed subscribing to your kids’ onlyfans where he relentlessly mocks about how clueless they are to his terrorism and heroin business.

Joking aside, it’s hard to know what our kids are doing and reminds me of a friend who swears that their kids don’t need controls because they don’t do anything bad. And the kid literally has a YouTube channel with them vaping, getting arrested, tagging buildings. They literally said something like “I talk with my kids and know them and they would tell me if they were doing this stuff.” And there’s a weird cognitive dissonance when they watched the video where they said that it wasn’t them, but their friends. “They were holding that vape for their friend, they don’t use it.” People love their kids.

I struggle with having useful controls and use a mix of Apple, Microsoft, google and third party tools like bark. None of them work well. Some do a good job blocking, but not unblocking for things like school.

A simple example of Apple’s, that I think is best, you can set a screen time limit like “one hour a day” and then set some apps like those used for school as unlimited. But the unlimited time apps consume the one hour limit and block the “fun apps.” So my kids would wake up early to use their one hour before school and have no time after school. You can approve extended time, buts by clock time, not actual usage. So if you approve an hour at 709, then it’s allowed until 809, even if they only use the app for 30 seconds.

It’s a usability pain in the rear end and I can’t expect anyone actually uses it.

Not to mention how buggy it is. At least a few times a day it takes 60-120 seconds to open the screen time app because it syncs usage before letting you approve requests.

So really, it’s easier to just block devices altogether. If I could do it again, I would wait until 8th grade.

fifticon3• 3 years ago

I dont recognise that it is so easy to apply these limits, even though I work in tech. When trying to block through Windows, I get lost in a dark patterns maze of microsoft online family accounts, where I ended up with corrupt windows user accounts - I could no longer log into my own admin account with my written down paasword, and had to reinstall windows. When I try google/android instead, I end up with account/app limits that my child can easily circumvent just by watching videos through the browser instead. What I currently have resorted to doing, is dns blacklisting youtube through the router, and then using alternate DNS where youtube should work.

and this is not even to block my kid from youtube, it is just to keep her usage under/at 1 hour per day. meanwhile I have to fight with her misguided mother, who considers giving her a smartphone (she is 8, sigh). I am strongly against giving them to kids, given that not even adults can handle them responsibly.

fifticon3• 3 years ago

the bit about windows is that the feature is exploited by ms to get you onto online accounts, but not really to help YOU.

recently, we couldnt launch mineceaft, because windows was missing a windows update.. wtf.. like when pokemongo wont run jntil you apply an android update, sigh

throw0101b• 3 years ago

Just delaying their first contact to the age of 13/14 won't magically guarantee they will be able to navigate it responsibly.

There are no guarantees in life (except death (and taxes?)).

It's about playing the odds/probabilities to achieved the desired outcomes (presumably happiness, or perhaps Aristotle's eudaimonia).

microtherion• 3 years ago

But the solution is not pretending it is not there and hoping they won't become absolutely fascinated at the magic age of 14.

In fact, 14, sort of the peak of puberty, strikes me as one of the WORST possible ages to first expose one's children to the Internet. Either let them practice earlier at the shallow end of the Internet pool, or lock them up until they are at Rumspringa age.

"14" also sounds suspiciously like something cooked up in an Anthroposophic thought bubble. Rudolf Steiner was a big believer in 7 year developmental cycles, so "14" is self evidently the correct age to make a deal with Ahriman, if one must. The team running the pledge does not mention any connection to Anthroposophy, but Waldorf schools seem to be endorsing the pledge.

jjav2• 3 years ago

If your kid is addicted to screens, it is on you.

This is wishful thinking. You can be truly the best parent in the world with unlimited time, wisdom and attention span but in the end you are competing with corporations who are dedicating billions of dollars and thousands of people to make very sure their apps as maximizing addiction. You can't compete with that.

Sure you can limit screen time but that doesn't do much. It's like saying the old days that I only let a child smoke from 10am to noon, so it's ok they won't get addicted.

r2vcap• 3 years ago

Giving a smartphone to a child is creating a lot of problems. In Korea, many parents play YouTube videos to their whining children, and many wonder if this is contributing to the rise in ADHD in children. Parents and the government must make a decision before a bigger social problem arises.

scrollaway5• 3 years ago

If everyone has ADHD, is it really a disorder anymore?

I say this because I have ADHD. Diagnosed very late, because it never bothered me… I just used it to my advantage all my life and I never understood how people can spend years in the same place with the same job. That, to me, sounds like the real sickness.

I learned more about it since and of course there’s a spectrum to it, but still.

ADHD is no doubt the #1 factor why I’m able to have the career I have, the life I have. And I’m very happy there.

hammyhavoc3• 3 years ago

ADHD isn't a "sickness". It's a neurodevelopmental condition. And not "everyone" has it.

I was the youngest person in the UK to be diagnosed in the '90s. Was medicated with Ritalin until I was 10, at which point I abruptly stopped taking it as my dosage was wrong as my weight and height pre-puberty were all over the place and was incapable of conveying this.

20 years on after stopping the Ritalin, realizing that the drugs worked and that normal people don't struggle with socializing or organizing their personal life, it fucking sucks. The waiting list for titration is very long in the UK, and going private doesn't speed anything along as the NHS now just refer to private providers for it.

Been trying to get help since last August.

I used to say the same thing about ADHD being why I have the life I do, but with age comes the realization that my life isn't my work, that's such a small part of it, and my personal life is fucked in terms of social aspects.

bruh22• 3 years ago

Are we talking about the same disorder? The inability to concentrate on thing that don't immediately pique my interest has costed me quite a lot. Had I gotten diagnosed and medicated earlier, I feel like I could have finished my Bachelor's, or keep my last job, or get a driver's license.

I was shocked to find out that the concentration capabilities I have while high on Adderall are considered just normal for most people.

I still think the root of the problem lies in the insane amount of work hours we're expected to put out, and I'm sure that I would have an easier time if tech companies (that I can score a job in) actually made something real rather than adtech bullshit jobs. But until then...

devjab3• 3 years ago

In Denmark we are on the brink of banning smartphones in schools. Not because we want to but because all the science point toward them being dangerous. I’m personally not on the hardliner side, but I’ve yet to see a single argument as to why children need to have access to a smartphone during class except for cases of accessibility. All of the pro phones in school voices in the debate here are from the tech industry or are media science professors who haven’t done any research on the health impacts.

I think it’s wild to find HN debating whether this is similar to banning books, or how the smartphone is just the comic or the video. Especially because I assume that you weren’t allowed to read comic books during class.

I don’t think you should keep access to the devices from your children, but do they need to own their own internet connected smartphones that they can use without supervision? I don’t personally think so. This is anecdotal, but I’m in my early forties so I grew up with the internet being supervised until I had enough money to buy a PC of my own which coincidentally was around the time I was in the 8th or 9th (not sure if the age ranges are the same across US and DK grades, but I was 14ish) grade. Before that I had a Commodore 64 in my room, and I had a game boy, but if I wanted to use the internet I had to do it on the family PC. I don’t think this was intentional by my parents, I think it was because a PC was just really expensive in the early 90ies. But it worked out well. Sure my friends and I spent time at the local library, downloading images of Pamala Anderson in a swimsuit, scared the librarian would get there before it had completed loading. (If you’re young, you won’t know this fear, but images would load line by line and a big swimsuit image would take several minutes to load, often failing in the process.)

I plan on doing something similar with my children, and I really hope our legislators will help out by banning smartphones in schools. My children had access to supervised usage from 3-4ish, but we’re a bit picky about what they get to use. This is because playing things like digital puzzles don’t give children the same development as actually touchy the pieces, and because we both have an healthy hate for mindless F2P games. Not because they are inherently evil (they probably are) but because we want to play games with our children when they get older, and if they are too indoctrinated then all they’ll want to play is stuff we won’t. Which will likely happen anyway, but hey.

jenadine• 3 years ago

I plan on doing something similar with my children

You plan to go to a public library to show them a video in which a picture of Pamela Anderson in a swimsuit is appearing line by line?

devjab3• 3 years ago

Well, my parents didn’t go with me. So no. I’m under no illusions that my children won’t do something similar though, and I’m not certain our plans will even be possible to implement without bans. It’s the old dilemma of sort of having to follow the herd. This pledge is nice and all, but like I said, I’m not on the hardliner side, and I’m not convinced being the only parents sending your child to school without a smartphone is a good idea either.

Somewhat unrelated, we have a technology museum in town where you can try an 1995 internet simulator. Not sure if pictures of Pamala Anderson in swimsuits is part of it though. Probably not.

myrryr2• 3 years ago

Especially because I assume that you weren’t allowed to read comic books during class.

But we were able to bring them to school.

jhanschoo3• 3 years ago

I'm personally for banning phones in school, and schools should have e.g. tablets with internet access when the classes call for it, and for supervised access outside.

I'm not for what this proposal sets out to do which is to completely eliminate phone access.

That is, I'm in agreement with you.

jxidjhdhdhdhfhf4• 3 years ago

What learning would require a tablet? If you want them to read something online, print it out. If you are teaching them a skill that requires a computer, that would be best done on a desktop machine in a dedicated computer room.

annie_muss• 3 years ago

I sincerely hope this works.

I am a full blown screen addict. Screens and devices have basically been my life since I was very young. It's too late for me but I hope interventions and support while people are young will give them the skills and abilities to manage computer and device usage effectively when they grow older.

xlii2• 3 years ago

It’s too late for me

I don’t want to push anything on you, but it’s far from “too late”. Neuroplasticity is a thing in the worst cass but there are also other things to consider.

Some physical conditions can be addiction inducing. Also - some form of anxieties induce escapism that can manifest through usage. There’s ADHD that (in some instances) seeks constant stimulation and, for example, create tendency of having everywhere phone companion and many autism related conditions that are attracted by hypnotic effect of screens in general.

If you want your behavior to change, I’m very confident you can, but you need to contact the specialist.

Neither ADHD nor autism-spectrum disorders, for example, aren’t treatable by psychotherapy. Many try, fail to change and then get into the false belief they’re lost cause.

If you want to change anything in your life we have today a lot of knowledge and specialists that can aid you in process.

But if you don’t and it’s not disruptive to your lifestyle - why worry?

DoreenMichele4• 3 years ago

Playing outdoors, spending time with friends, reading books and hanging out with family is happening a lot less to make room for hours of snap chatting, instagramming, and catching up on You Tube.

I'm pretty sure cause and effect run the other way. The world has changed in a lot of ways and the internet gives people a constructive outlet to fill the void.

Average number of children per household has dropped steadily over several generations. This means not only fewer siblings but fewer aunts, uncles and cousins. There are knock on effects from there that help make it less safe to play outdoors in a lot of places, family less available, etc.

autoexec9• 3 years ago

I don't even buy that it's less safe to play outside, but parents refuse to let their kids do it and those that do have occasionally faced problems with police and child services for doing what parents have allowed their kids to do for generations. It's no surprise kids are turning to screens when they aren't allowed to walk to school let alone ride a bike with friends or go to a park on their own. I also agree that our society has made parents less available. Just to get by every adult in a household is forced to work long hours away from home. We need to find a balance between latchkey kids and helicopter parenting, and making it once again feasible to support a family on a single income would go a long way. Right now, people can work 40 hours a week without even being able to support just themselves!

DoreenMichele4• 3 years ago

It can be less safe in part because there are fewer eyes on the street. If everyone has a lot of kids and a lot of those kids are outside together playing stick ball or whatever, it's much less likely one of them will be molested, kidnapped, etc.

watwut3• 3 years ago

There are knock on effects from there that help make it less safe to play outdoors in a lot of places, family less available, etc.

It is perfectly safe to play outdoors, except for cars. Siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins has literally zero to do with safety outside.

jxidjhdhdhdhfhf4• 3 years ago

It's not more dangerous to play outside (actually it's safer), it just seems that way because of media sensationalism.

DoreenMichele4• 3 years ago

You claim it's safer. I'm curious if you can support that.

Not to be argumentative, but what you're saying doesn't fit my firsthand experience as someone who wandered the neighborhood pretty freely as a child and whose own kids didn't. My kids lives occurred in a different context from mine and I never criticized them, just sought to understand the forces at play driving a different set of choices and outcomes.

NoZebra120vClip• 3 years ago

Mom read books and always had her nose in a book and volunteered in libraries. She also did a good deal of physical housework, which was mostly hidden from my view and distasteful to me. As kids, she absolutely relied on the TV to electronically babysit me and my sister and keep us distracted so Mom is not bothered by annoying offspring seeking love and attention.

Dad was a radio fan and an office dweller. I never saw him at work, but he worked at a desk when he wasn't on site, and he was a brainy scientist. He had a den where he worked at a desk, or he would hide behind the newspaper in the living room and try to pretend he was ignoring us, because God forbid he give his approval or attention to anything his son should do to please him.

And so from an early age, I had a vague sense of vocation and purpose. I would grow up to work on computers in an office. I would not need any sort of physical education and I would not need to go outdoors, play a sport, or have an active hobby. So this shaped my attitude at school, where I always had my nose in a book, then in computer screens. I absolutely protested against physical education; I found it increasingly distasteful, difficult, and it was downright traumatic before I entered high school.

So I was always destined for screen addiction. Blame my parents, blame the media companies, blame my schoolteachers, but the forces at work were just too powerful for anyone to counteract.

If you try to address "screen time" as an isolated thing, or blame "social media" for social/mental ills, you will be tilting at windmills. Be holistic about mental health. Seek environments and philosophies which promote virtuous living across the board. Temperance, Justice, Prudence, Fortitude, and all the rest. Love your children, care for them, value them, and they will thank you later.

gnicholas7• 3 years ago

If your child’s pledge does become active (10 or more pledges for your child’s grade), Wait Until 8th will notify you. You will receive via email a list of families who are waiting from your child’s grade along with each other’s names and emails to connect you with each other. This helps you to support one another.

So do they send follow-up emails as more people from your kid's school sign up? I assume they aren't spamming you every time one more parent signs up. Maybe it would be best to just email a link to a gdoc that is subsequently updated as more parents sign up?

kleiba• 3 years ago

Where I live, schools employ smart devices as part of the class teaching from grade 1. So that's that.

xlii2• 3 years ago

I think many commenters can’t see forest for the trees.

As with most of domains there’s a curve of speciality. Most of the “don’t ever do that” is aimed for general population.

I believe it’s as with the cotton swabs. While there’s a lot of evidence cleaning ears is not dangerous, doctors don’t want Joe Average - armed with any form of a stick - anywhere near an eardrum.

I agree with a general sentiment about restricting screen time but I myself won’t be following it. I think the problem is the social media and not the screen time per se (which seems to be equalized and for good cause, because Average Jane probably don’t know the difference) and I’m holding out as much as I can threading a line between my kids being ostracized by their peers and endangering their mental health.

There are also other things in consideration. There’s ADHD, there’s ASD, there’s full blown autism. Those together aren’t that uncommon and creates a fair share of kids with different needs - that might have vastly different use of the device with completely different outcome (Many of IT specialists were, after all, hyper focusing on coding or systems or other kind of geeky stuff when they were young).

skilled• 3 years ago

And yet another HN thread where no one can find common ground but can certainly find plenty of arguments why it's good or healthy to get kids hooked on mobile devices from the age of 5.

cmeacham98• 3 years ago

Literally none of the evidence on the website's own "Why" page supports their suggestion: https://www.waituntil8th.org/why-wait

All of the studies (bonus points for linking to news articles instead of directly to the studies) have something to do with "time spent using screens/a phone/social media", but nothing to do with age of first use.

How can anyone trust this website has any basis in reality when they wrote a whole page explaining why and none of it was applicable?

Of course parents should regulate how much time their kids spend on electronics (similar to how parents of previous generations would prevent kids from watching TV 5 hours a day) - but there seems to be little to no evidence to suggest that giving a kid a smartphone in 8th grade rather than 5th grade would make a meaningful difference.

DoubleGlazing2• 3 years ago

I was wondering the same, because everything about this organization seems a bit iffy to me.

Part of me wonders is there an ulterior motive to the campaign.

watwut3• 3 years ago

People on HN remind me the hot dog guy "we are all trying to find out the guy who did it" with regards to social media.

lifeisstillgood• 3 years ago

So quick question - is there any "parental control" software that allows restricting youtube by channel name / id? That and a crowd source list of channels would be a default help.

I completely agree with the top post (basically this is about parenting not about hoping they will play in the woods till age 12) - but the tools currently around are ... better than nothing - but I want better tools

mlindner• 3 years ago

I'd say wait until 12th, or "wait until you're driving a car".

shp0ngle• 3 years ago

Hm. I have used computer since 3rd grade or so. I don't think it hurt me that much.

I mean sure I spent too much time on the internet, and all the porn made me a worse person. I wish there was not so much easily accessible porn for teen males. Even back in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Other than that though, it was fine.

travisporter• 3 years ago

I feel that all the analogies to our generations (x or z presumably) watching tv and video games growing up is actually not a good parallel. I hated that I watched so much TV and video games. I wish I had read more as a kid.

mduggles• 3 years ago

I support this movement. I don't think I need to sign a pledge as a parent to do it, but if this makes you feel like you aren't alone making this decision go for it. Reading through these comments, a lot of them miss the forest for the trees. "Kids should have access to all the earths information except for the stuff I don't like which then I have parental controls on (which we all know don't actually work but we'll pretend they work for this sake of this argument)"

Boredom is a powerful force in your life. It forces you to go out and find things to do, people to interact with and activities to enrich yourself. If you can craft a perfect entertainment box with a constant feeling of socialization that exists only for you, you are never bored. You are never going to go out and do those things that I think are critical for children. Being bored and learning what do you like to do to fill that boredom are a big part of being a kid. You invent games, find hobbies, discover how to live with being bored.

We hosted a foreign exchange student from Europe and it was a waste of time. He didn't make friends because he didn't have to make friends, his friends were on his phone. He didn't go out because why bother, he can sit online with his original friends. The entire concept of immersion was lost on him. He got to choose exactly what elements of place A he interacted with and exactly what elements of place B and didn't really grow or change as a result.

Forcing children to adapt to their situation and not giving them an endless dopamine drip of "things they like" is a net positive for the kind of person who you are helping to raise.

constantcrying• 3 years ago

The important thing isn't whether the child has a phone or not, but whether he/she has a circle of real friends, is engaged in social activities and manages their own responsibilities (school mainly).

Monitoring and enabling this is what good parents do and restricting access to technology can absolutely be a useful tool to fo that. Parent's who can't/won't do this will face problems in any case, phones are just one way for children to live out their problems.

But to be honest I think that schools probably should not allow phones or phone usage. Real social interaction is much too important and playing hide (the phone) and seek (the phone) with your teachers is an important life skill.

DoubleGlazing2• 3 years ago

I find it interesting in these comments that there is a lot of discussion as to the pros and cons of the pledge that this website proposes, but very little discussion as to the motivations behind the people who operate the campaign.

Looking at the people behind the campaign I am noticing a pattern, people who live in the similar geographic region and who are linked to other campaigns that talk about letting children be children. Plus the use of the term pledge just seems a bit puritanical amd a bit religious to me. Is it nefarious or do they have a hidden agenda? I don't know, maybe, but something about the whole operation seems a bit off to me.

I do accept that smartphones can be bad for children, but at the same time I think it is up to parents to make the decision that they feel is right for their own children. A campaign that informed parents of the pros and cons of giving their children a smartphone would seem more appropriate to me.

The Wait Until 8th pledge

Related Stories