My wife stays home with our kids. My daughter ends up watching a fair bit of television while my wife does chores and the like.
We're entirely curating what she's watching and I'm just not that concerned. If anything, she's learning things that I would not thought to teach her at her age. About 6 months ago she had an assessment through the school district for early education and at 2 years of age was able to identify about half the letters of the the alphabet.
My wife and I watching this happen were genuinely surprised because neither of us had even considered trying to teach the alphabet to a 2-year old. We did not teach her this, educational content taught her this.
I don't really worry. I watched TV basically my entire childhood growing up in the '80s, in the height of stranger danger where I largely was not allows to go outside. It was a lot worse than this. I watched game shows, Hogans Heroes, Night Court. She's watching Ms. Rachel, Meekah, and Sesame Street.
I think the kids will be all right as long as you're involved. We're not handing our kid a tablet and saying "Go nuts". We're watching TV in the living room as a family.
> I watched game shows, Hogans Heroes, Night Court. She's watching Ms. Rachel, Meekah, and Sesame Street.
At 2 years old?
There are babies under a year who watch youtube brainrot shat out by obscure indian animation farms multiple hours a day, I'm not sure it has the same impact as watching Stargate when you're eight. My niece is 9 months, she never watched anything on a phone yet as soon as someone in her line of sight gets a phone out she's mesmerized, it's scary to witness
> At 2
Yes, I absolutely did.
I was home with my dad, gated into the living room while he did things around the house. There is only so much to do.
I would expect everyone to be mesmerized by amazing technology they have not gotten used to yet.
Babies are designed to pay attention to what you pay attention to, and want to do the same.
It may be more 'harmful' for babies to see parents paying attention to screens than it is for them to watch the screen themselves.
(They also become very good at telling if you're really "looking" at the phone or just pretending to look at something.)
Maybe the plus side is if screens become their encoded reality from a young age, staring at a screen for work because that's the only thing you can do that pays well enough to support a family won't be nearly as depressing and just feel normal.
"Babies are designed..."
sure they are.
Yeah, I use Ms Rachel with my son when I need to cut his nails or if I am alone with him and I need to take a shower or something.
He goes to swimming classes and he learned to clap in the "If You're Happy and you know it" song even though the song is different in his classes, I was confused as to how he learned that you usually clap in the song but I presume he learned it from Ms Rachel.
It's useful English language exposure for him too as we live in a non-English speaking country and my partner doesn't speak English either so without TV I am his only exposure to English.
I wouldn't let him watch it for 8 hours, but I presume that's the typical newspaper sensationalising.
It's amusing to watch kids pick up Australian slang from Bluey.
I once in a supermarket saw a probably 2-year old sitting in a stroller, holding a smartphone watching Youtube. When the ads came up, the little fella confidently pressed the "skip ad" button. I was perplexed and stunned, how can a child that can't even walk yet have the practice to know how to skip the ads. I don't even want to know the screentime that kid has.
Maybe this is evidence that the urge to skip ads is innate.
It is the first thing most any kid learns on a tablet.
Anything to keep the dopamine flowing.
A 2-year old should be able to walk unless they are pretty severely developmentally delayed.
sitting in a stroller doesn’t mean the kid can’t walk
I agree, but OP stated:
> a child that can't even walk yet
My dude, go grocery shopping with a 2-year-old and see if you want them walking around. They'll be peeling a sticker off the floor for two minutes, then grabbing everything off the shelf. It's perfectly normal to cart the kid around so you can actually make progress through the aisles. They can reasonably follow you around between 3-4.
OP said “how can a child that can't even walk yet have the practice to know how to skip the ads.” A two year old should definitely know how to walk. Obviously you will not have it strutting around in a store, but it should know how to walk.
Also I don’t let my two year old near screens on her own, and generally do not allow screen time at all, but she absorbs things at a pace which is incredible. If I were to “skip ads” in front of her, I’d only have to do it around twice for her to be able to do it on her own…
I think the point was fine motor control at 2.
They just leave them outside in the stroller in someplace like Sweden. It's hilarious how on HN the nordic countries are idolized and leaving strollers outside while the kid stares at the street man smoking fentanyl out of a piece of aluminum foil indicates you are a glorious liberated member of intelligentsia but by god if you put a tablet on to get a moment of peace while you take a shower then you are a hideous sub-human piece of garbage.
Sweden doesn't have as big a problem with drug addicts, homeless people etc. on the streets. Although it's changed a lot in recent years.
Giving them a tablet so you can get a brief moment of respite to do something you have to do is different from watching 8 hours of a screen a day!
My dude, that is not what
>how can a child that can't even walk yet
means.
Also, my 2 year olds walked around the store all the time, as well as sat in the cart when I didn't have time to supervise. It is good exercise, and helps them practice following instructions.
> how can a child that can't even walk yet have the practice to know how to skip the ads
At 2 kids can walk and have fine enough motor skills to press a small button, if that was the direction you were thinking.
Kids are surprisingly intuitive and form connections super quickly. It probably took a few tries, and maybe the parent even showed them how to do it: button appeared in the corner > press it > see fun content. If something works they commit it to memory like you wouldn't imagine.
I have two boys. 2 and 5. We’ve never done screens, instead we do books and focused attention from each parent and we are looked at like crazy people when we tell people that. But our kids are miles ahead of their cohorts in attention span, respectfulness, behavior, socializing, etc. It’s actually alarming. I really worry about them being outcasts just by being raised like we all were.
Same with us. Our 24 month can count to 20 and knows all the letters without watching TV
we avoid it very well with our kids but sometimes I am worried it won't make a difference in the long run and we are just doing hard mode for no reason. kids are pretty adaptable. will be interesting to see in 10-15 years.
> A report finds a third of newborns use devices for more than three hours, despite government advice that under-twos have no screen time at all
Disgusting :(
That said, I can't read the article, paywalled. Anyone have a working link?
What's going to happen to those poor babies do you think?
They’ll be sold software to correct the damage.
The public doesn't even have the capacity to support all the babies that are outright abused. A lot of researchers will get more notches on their precious CV but let's be real, if anyone gave a shit about random babies then screen time is so far down the list that they're never going to get there under any rational prioritization of who needs assistance.
TBF content is generally better than it was 15 years ago even for babies. I don't blame em...
The quality of the content is not the issue here.
It's better at holding their attention, but is it actually better?
My impression was that a lot of the content was effectively "attention slop", bright colors and noises, often with very little sense to them, or just variations of the same rhymes a 90's baby would've been raised on.
A lot of it seemed to cross over from just being stimulating to being overstimulating.
My wife stays home with our kids. My daughter ends up watching a fair bit of television while my wife does chores and the like.
We're entirely curating what she's watching and I'm just not that concerned. If anything, she's learning things that I would not thought to teach her at her age. About 6 months ago she had an assessment through the school district for early education and at 2 years of age was able to identify about half the letters of the the alphabet.
My wife and I watching this happen were genuinely surprised because neither of us had even considered trying to teach the alphabet to a 2-year old. We did not teach her this, educational content taught her this.
I don't really worry. I watched TV basically my entire childhood growing up in the '80s, in the height of stranger danger where I largely was not allows to go outside. It was a lot worse than this. I watched game shows, Hogans Heroes, Night Court. She's watching Ms. Rachel, Meekah, and Sesame Street.
I think the kids will be all right as long as you're involved. We're not handing our kid a tablet and saying "Go nuts". We're watching TV in the living room as a family.
> I watched game shows, Hogans Heroes, Night Court. She's watching Ms. Rachel, Meekah, and Sesame Street.
At 2 years old?
There are babies under a year who watch youtube brainrot shat out by obscure indian animation farms multiple hours a day, I'm not sure it has the same impact as watching Stargate when you're eight. My niece is 9 months, she never watched anything on a phone yet as soon as someone in her line of sight gets a phone out she's mesmerized, it's scary to witness
> At 2
Yes, I absolutely did.
I was home with my dad, gated into the living room while he did things around the house. There is only so much to do.
I would expect everyone to be mesmerized by amazing technology they have not gotten used to yet.
Babies are designed to pay attention to what you pay attention to, and want to do the same.
It may be more 'harmful' for babies to see parents paying attention to screens than it is for them to watch the screen themselves.
(They also become very good at telling if you're really "looking" at the phone or just pretending to look at something.)
Maybe the plus side is if screens become their encoded reality from a young age, staring at a screen for work because that's the only thing you can do that pays well enough to support a family won't be nearly as depressing and just feel normal.
"Babies are designed..."
sure they are.
Yeah, I use Ms Rachel with my son when I need to cut his nails or if I am alone with him and I need to take a shower or something.
He goes to swimming classes and he learned to clap in the "If You're Happy and you know it" song even though the song is different in his classes, I was confused as to how he learned that you usually clap in the song but I presume he learned it from Ms Rachel.
It's useful English language exposure for him too as we live in a non-English speaking country and my partner doesn't speak English either so without TV I am his only exposure to English.
I wouldn't let him watch it for 8 hours, but I presume that's the typical newspaper sensationalising.
It's amusing to watch kids pick up Australian slang from Bluey.
I once in a supermarket saw a probably 2-year old sitting in a stroller, holding a smartphone watching Youtube. When the ads came up, the little fella confidently pressed the "skip ad" button. I was perplexed and stunned, how can a child that can't even walk yet have the practice to know how to skip the ads. I don't even want to know the screentime that kid has.
Maybe this is evidence that the urge to skip ads is innate.
It is the first thing most any kid learns on a tablet.
Anything to keep the dopamine flowing.
A 2-year old should be able to walk unless they are pretty severely developmentally delayed.
sitting in a stroller doesn’t mean the kid can’t walk
I agree, but OP stated:
> a child that can't even walk yet
My dude, go grocery shopping with a 2-year-old and see if you want them walking around. They'll be peeling a sticker off the floor for two minutes, then grabbing everything off the shelf. It's perfectly normal to cart the kid around so you can actually make progress through the aisles. They can reasonably follow you around between 3-4.
OP said “how can a child that can't even walk yet have the practice to know how to skip the ads.” A two year old should definitely know how to walk. Obviously you will not have it strutting around in a store, but it should know how to walk.
Also I don’t let my two year old near screens on her own, and generally do not allow screen time at all, but she absorbs things at a pace which is incredible. If I were to “skip ads” in front of her, I’d only have to do it around twice for her to be able to do it on her own…
I think the point was fine motor control at 2.
They just leave them outside in the stroller in someplace like Sweden. It's hilarious how on HN the nordic countries are idolized and leaving strollers outside while the kid stares at the street man smoking fentanyl out of a piece of aluminum foil indicates you are a glorious liberated member of intelligentsia but by god if you put a tablet on to get a moment of peace while you take a shower then you are a hideous sub-human piece of garbage.
Sweden doesn't have as big a problem with drug addicts, homeless people etc. on the streets. Although it's changed a lot in recent years.
Giving them a tablet so you can get a brief moment of respite to do something you have to do is different from watching 8 hours of a screen a day!
My dude, that is not what
>how can a child that can't even walk yet
means.
Also, my 2 year olds walked around the store all the time, as well as sat in the cart when I didn't have time to supervise. It is good exercise, and helps them practice following instructions.
> how can a child that can't even walk yet have the practice to know how to skip the ads
At 2 kids can walk and have fine enough motor skills to press a small button, if that was the direction you were thinking.
Kids are surprisingly intuitive and form connections super quickly. It probably took a few tries, and maybe the parent even showed them how to do it: button appeared in the corner > press it > see fun content. If something works they commit it to memory like you wouldn't imagine.
I have two boys. 2 and 5. We’ve never done screens, instead we do books and focused attention from each parent and we are looked at like crazy people when we tell people that. But our kids are miles ahead of their cohorts in attention span, respectfulness, behavior, socializing, etc. It’s actually alarming. I really worry about them being outcasts just by being raised like we all were.
Same with us. Our 24 month can count to 20 and knows all the letters without watching TV
we avoid it very well with our kids but sometimes I am worried it won't make a difference in the long run and we are just doing hard mode for no reason. kids are pretty adaptable. will be interesting to see in 10-15 years.
> A report finds a third of newborns use devices for more than three hours, despite government advice that under-twos have no screen time at all
Disgusting :(
That said, I can't read the article, paywalled. Anyone have a working link?
What's going to happen to those poor babies do you think?
They’ll be sold software to correct the damage.
The public doesn't even have the capacity to support all the babies that are outright abused. A lot of researchers will get more notches on their precious CV but let's be real, if anyone gave a shit about random babies then screen time is so far down the list that they're never going to get there under any rational prioritization of who needs assistance.
https://archive.ph/qHUFg
TBF content is generally better than it was 15 years ago even for babies. I don't blame em...
The quality of the content is not the issue here.
It's better at holding their attention, but is it actually better?
My impression was that a lot of the content was effectively "attention slop", bright colors and noises, often with very little sense to them, or just variations of the same rhymes a 90's baby would've been raised on.
A lot of it seemed to cross over from just being stimulating to being overstimulating.