There was a period of time from about 2011-2013 where it felt like many parents would complain about everyone being on their phone. Then they started using them too and stopped complaining.
As a parent, I’m seeing a very clear division in parenting style among my peers.
Some parents allow screen time with moderation and caution because they know what excessive use leads to.
The other group sees nothing wrong and screens are everywhere all the time.
My friend circles are exclusively in the first group, from daycare to schools to friends. So much so that at first I thought everyone was like this.
Then I stepped outside of my bubble and watched some parents hand their kids phones and tablets like they were automatic babysitters. They saw it as normal. One person explained to me that it was a “tool” to help build his relationship with his child by making them “not upset” because they were happier with the phone. It blew my mind that he didn’t realize that he was cultivating an addiction.
Who are the trained professionals prescribing and dosing out smartphones and social media? Like, I get your analogy, but they are so dissimilar in practice that it just ends up reading naive.
Some people seek out their own drugs to harmlessly fill a void of boredom, or to be a social tool, or for entertainment after a hard days work. Some of those people who innocently tried to use a tool to alter their brain chemistry for the better eventually abused drugs to their detriment.
Some people seek out their social media experiances to harmlessly fill a void of boredom, or to be a social tool, or for entertainment after a hard days work. Some of those people who innocently tried to use a tool to alter their brain chemistry for the better eventually abused social media to their detriment.
But you can also go to the Apple Store and a trained professional will sell you an iPhone if you want to get on TikTok to make new friends because you are lonely.
By that analogy, most drugs are not suitable for children, and for the ones that are it's never good to allow a child to self-medicate. It's always an adult giving ibuprofen to a child when he has a fever, not giving the child a 100 pill bottle and telling him to go play.
As a blanket rule, I wouldn't let children use drugs or social media on a regular basis. Certainly not at will.
But I also think total abstinence doesn't always work for everyone. There can be some exceptions. A child with cancer should have access to medicinal cannabis if it's appropriate for their condition for example. Some children may benefit from LSD/MDMA/mushroom assisted therapy. But active kids shouldn't be labeled as ADHD and medicated. And the occasional sip of wine at dinner with parents might help kids learn to respect alcohol and not go overboard when they go to college.
Went to a high school graduation this weekend. Because we were running behind, we were in the top of the seats, right in the middle. It was nice because we could see absolutely everything, and I did notice a trend -
In the crowd, the 50+ year olds were the ones getting their phones out to dick around during the ceremony.
Youth would get the phone out to take pictures, post quickly on socials, then put the phone away.
Older folks would take a picture, post on socials, scroll through socials, check the news or whatever, then take another picture and repeat.
My children are around that age, which means I recall going to young children's birthday parties at the age (5 to 8) where about half the parents would stick around for the whole party, but they would all be scrolling through their smartphones. This was probably around 2010.
I've always found most peoples' fascination with their screens a bit uncanny, but I have to say that I do understand anything that could pass the time at a graduation ceremony. I skipped my own college ceremony, and my only regret to this day is that I didn't apply for tickets because people were re-selling them for decent money.
This to the power of ten. Saddest realization of my life was seeing my mother who always scolded me about screen usage becoming more addicted to her phone than me.
my mom is 62 and has started taking her ipad to bed every night, it's definitely affecting her sleep and health and she resists any suggestion that it is bad for her. When I was growing up, she didn't even want a TV in the house.
