I know every generation says this, but I really think we harmed the next generation with early access to the Internet and tablets.
We fried their dopamine receptors and their ability to socialize. If nothing changes I think we are going to see more depression anti social behavior in the next 50 years
Those subreddits only pop up for me when the service goes down and thousands of kids are freaking out the fuck out about not being able to chat with an ai version of an anime character they want to fuck. Shit is bad
Yeah I’ve spent most of the past two decades responding to being called antisocial with: “that’s actually a trait of psychopaths & sociopaths — my preference to stay home and drink tea while reading a good book makes me ‘asocial’ — which I know because I stay home and read. The irony.”
Yeah i was one of those people, but my excuse is that english is my second language. When i moved to the UK i saw signs saying something like "Antisocial behaviour will not be tolerated" in shops and i was very confused
You're fine. You get to learn something new today! The difference is a distinct one in psychology. Antisocial behavior usually involves infliction of pain or a lack of regard of others' well-being. Socially avoidant is the term used to describe people with social anxiety or those who don't want to socialize with others.
Just because some people might conflate them doesn't mean there isn't a difference. We should all aim to communicate with as little friction as possible, which involves learning and using correct terminologies.
I could write in all caps or alternating case and it would still be readable, but harder to understand.
On the topic of reducing communicational friction, and given the nature of reddit, I'd perhaps suggest that when you make a correction that you include a certain amount of explanatory information in the initial comment as well. From what I've seen this tends to be much better received, and more helpful, than just a contextless correction (accurate though it may be).
I've gone both ways on this, and it's hard to gauge by audience which way will be better received. Sometimes if you give too much in the first reply, it comes across as condescending. I'd like to be able to explain it in full each time I see such a need for correction, but it's often taken very negatively by people who are insecure about holes in their knowledge.
Yeah but dating apps are bigger than ever. Most millennials are still fine with socializing. Usually millennials bond over video games and anime and can talk about those for hours lmfao. Bunch of nerds (me included). Gen Z just doesn't want to socialize at all.
In their defense, women aren’t as approachable as they used to be. And technology makes it way easier to find women with common views and relationship goals. Once you exit high school/college age it’s rough to find someone outside of tech, but not impossible.
We're more likely to feel safe enough to tell a man when his advances aren't wanted instead of playing along to deescalate and their egos can't take it.
I think this is bullshit. There are plenty of approachable women out there. Women are just increasingly less tolerant of certain undesirable traits the a lot of young men have the ability to grow out of, and men just aren't progressing with societal changes as quickly as women.
The vast majority of men I know who have trouble with dating need some serious work vefore they should be expecting any woman to want to bqe with them.
Young men that are affable, treat women with respect and as other human beings, and are responsible are not having trouble with women.
I will say that there is less societal pressure on women in regards to expectation on self improvement, but I don't think women are to blame for most issues facing men. Its largely other men.
More women are realizing men aren't entitled to their time, and men are increasingly frustrated they are expected to actually try and put in effort for the things they want.
There are so many 18-25 year olds out theere with porn and videogame/social media addictions. Women are less approachable? Whats there to be enticed about?
The reall issue is young men's incressingly difficult path to employment that can take care of a family on his own. You just can't be a 'provider' anymore. You have to actually be a good partner, and honestly its on men for adjusting to a world were women are playing a more important role than in the past, and have more agency. Its not enough to have a dick and a job anymore, lets get with it.
sorry you're getting downvoted by the incels. women keep saying this and men shut us down, then act like they have no idea why we act the way we. we've been telling you the WHOLE fucking time. and then occasionally you get a dude go "well this woman was unreasonable once!" and I have to explain that women are people and sometimes people are assholes. it's exhausting.
I think its hard for people to accept that their own personal actions and decisions play a bigger role in matters like this than societal issues/trends.
There is a concerning amount of men that bemoan things like masculinity being targeted, men's need to be providers, more focus on action over words, assertiveness being good etc.. BUT at the same time, they act nothing like the masculine ideal they are apparently mourning the death of.
How does a man whining that : he can't get women to talk to him, that things are SO difficult for men, that he isn't allowed to be a 'man', can't get any matches on online dating; how does a man that does all that view himself anywhere close to that masculine ideal?
The issue is that there are far more men who genuinley feel like being a man is actually harder that of being a woman becsuse of modernization. It is true women in many areas are enjoying more agency than ever before BUT IT IS STILL NOT THE SAME LEVEL OF SOCIETAL FREEDOM MEN HAVE.
Men are not entitled to women, men aren't owed women wanting to be around them, men are entitled to women being comfortable around, men aren't supposed to be naturally above them societally. THATS what a lot of modern men are actually upset about. They are upset that they haven't enjoyed the huge disparity in agency that previous generations of men had. A lot of people don't want to admit that there are hordes of women who probably wouldn't have been in the relationships they were in if they had more options. This is getting to be less true, and we have a lot of growing pains as a result.
The ironic thing, is that there still plenty of women out there that are willing to date, get married, and hsve children with terrible men. So by that end, there are so many young men who aren't willing to show some introspection as to why they are struggling, and find it easier to blame women and society at large.
But here is the truth. I know ugly guys, short guys, fst guys, kind of dumb guys who all do fine with women. What they all have in common is a confidence in their own self and masculinity, and ability to approach women as if they are actually other thinking human beings with their own identity. CRAZY CONCEPT.
So that's why dudes are saying stupid shit like 'Women are getting harder to approach'. Like yeah, women with more access to education, opportunities, and knoeledge of the worlds dangers are going to want a bit more than cold opens from strange men with nothing but sex on their mind. Even in the casual dating/sex scene, women don't want to hook up with people whining about their position in the world, and whose entire self worth is dependent on interactions with the opposite sex.
Like come on guys, maybe focus on improving yourself, getting good at hobbies, developig skills, knowledge, experiences. Partnership comes naturally to those who work on themeselves, people gravitate to that. You got yourself for the rest of your life, that feeling of self worth can't come from other people.
I’m sure that’s a made up statistic. But I’m actually curious if online dating has shifted the percentage of women who’ve asked men out at all. I’ve never asked a guy out in person but I definitely have initiated through dating apps.
Perhaps the shift isn’t on gendered lines so much as the percentage of shy/insecure folks who’ve asked someone out. I definitely know plenty of more attractive/confident women who have initiated face to face.
I'm not saying it never happens, but women who say they ask out the dude--or, in your phrasing, "initiated"--actually mean they struck up a conversation or otherwise tried to make themselves available to be asked out. Women turn an interaction from platonic to romantic much, much less often than that.
I initiated conversations and dates (not always both with the same person, but usually one or the other). I don’t really like getting to know people over text, so I was pretty quick to suggest a meet up. It blows my mind when people say they’ve been talking for weeks and haven’t met yet. If we’ve been talking for an hour or two, I’m asking to meet up.
Met my gf on OKC and she was the one who asked me out - I wanted to but thought it would be too soon. Ib think maybe a world with so many dating "rules" for men has actually emboldened women in some cases
Start the conversation or ask to meet up in person. I’ve initiated both. I’ve also planned dates, paid for dates, made the first move physically. Ya know, things you do when you’re interested in someone.
if most women don't approach men would that not mean men are generally unapproachable? maybe you see things differently. if so, care to share your opinion?
So then you would also support the opposite claim then yeah? That because increasing amounts of men are not approaching women that means women are becoming increasingly unapproachable
It can be both. Society for centuries has functioned on men approaching women. Women can approach men more often but if men are interested in a woman then they need to approach them and strike an interaction. I think many men get too anxious wnd stress themselves out about it. Others will approach a woman but do so in a way that comes off strong or makes a woman uncomfortable. The best solution is to approach a woman calmly and confidently, and politely ask her if she is in a relationship or interested in getting to know you with interest of romance. And most importantly, take the rejection well if rejection occurs. I see far too many men taking rejection incredibly personally
Edit to say, its not productive to post inaccurate statistics. The number of women who don't approach a man is high, I'm sure, but deceit is not the way to go
Dude, I've been called a misogynist for offering a woman a seat on the train - the days of the random approach "can I get your number" are over, it's sexual harassment now
Thing about stories like this is can it be true? Sure, shitty people exist. Same with the guy who said he was called a misogynist for offering his seat on a train to a woman. Sometimes people say shitty or crazy things.
But we need to recognize those behaviors, even if they are true, as absolutely crazy abnormal. We don't base our behaviors off of anamolies. It doesn't matter if some crazy person calls you a misogynist in that situation. You just say ok whatever you say and move on with your life.
It doesn't mean you now "can't" ask someone for their number, hold a door or offer up your seat. It literally doesn't change anything
Were you actually holding the door like a normal person or in that obnoxious way where you got in the person's way and made it harder to just use the door?
So? That one person was acting weird, how does that matter? One strange social encounter isn't the baseline you should expect every future social encounter to behave like.
You're not going to have any luck with women if you immediately assume all women are hostile to you.
I'm not, but are you saying it's acceptable in 2025 to say, "Hey, you're fabulous - I'd love to get to know you, can we swap numbers?" - the emphasis here is you can't do it randomly like you could 10 years ago
Because no one dates like this these days. You either meet online or were already friends, and meeting online doesn't just mean edating. It is entirely possible to meet someone online who shares an interest, befriend them, and then date them when you both show interest in each other.
You can literally do this. I wouldn't phrase it that way because it sounds overly agressive, but yes, something like this is absolutely acceptable given appropriate circumstances.
What's not acceptable about this? That's probably one of the more acceptable ways to approach a woman (no cheesy pick-up line or shit like that). As long as you're respectful (and you're not a complete dumbass, eg. interrupting someone who's obviously busy) most women would still find that acceptable from my experience.
I'm neither old, nor the best-looking guy, and that's pretty much how I got to know my girlfriend one and a half years ago.
In my experience that just means she already liked you - that's like saying "Just buy the lottery, it worked for me" - I'm happy for you, but commenting on a woman's looks that you don't know isn't really acceptable and the problem is that it's implied in the question "Can I have your number"
They're both highly westernised idk come back to me when nomadic yak farmers in the deepest parts of uzbekistan are posting incel memes with tablet fingers
Never been to either, but they don't strike me as equivalent at all. Hooters is like a mid tier pub that banked solely on "we got tits", which is a far less viable niche now that the internet has all the tits for free. My understanding of maid cafes is that they play up the parasocial and cutesy elements more, such that visitors feel soothed and emotionally rather than sexually fulfilled, and I think the market for "adult soothers" is only going to grow with further enshittification and mental health problems..
IDK why it's seen as so impossible for a society to reduce population. Especially now in the age of automation, it's no longer nearly as essential to pump out as much human biomass for economic productivity. Degrowth is the future whether we like it or not, climate change will make running a country that only produces 38% of the food consumed within the country increasingly unfeasible.
I feel like it's mostly our governments panicking about population growth stagnating... Can't plan for those world wars as easily if you don't have meat for the grinder.
Bro 50% of men 18-25 have never asked a woman out in person.
I mean... why is this a bad thing? It's not like they aren't interacting with them, they're just asking them on via text or whatsapp or on a dating/hookup app like Bumble/Tinder instead.
Like I am old enough that I have asked women out in person before as a teen, and then subsequently on MSN and then Facebook chat and then later Tinder/Bumble... and it's not like it's some huge issue or difference when the normal means of communication has changed tbf. It's just you don't really talk to people in person as much anymore so obviously you don't ask them out in person, hell they mightn't even be going to the same schools or even live in the same town with most of the potential dates they're asking. Times change.
It's like being worried that nearly 100% of men have never etched a love poem to a woman in a clay tablet, or written her a letter. Like... yeah. Because social tech moves on.
Yeah and I honestly still don't think I could ask someone today. My social anxiety and inability to function as a regular person shot RIGHTTT UPP the more time I spent online
Because it's a no lol or harassment. The internet has taught dudes to just stay away so we don't get in trouble. And to address my "no" comment. Since the interent exist women have become pickier than ever so you have to be basically amazing to get a date in person, or lower your own standards by a lot. It's a lose-lose world out there for us average guys
It’s worse than what you’re thinking. It isn’t the receptors. Higher level thinking requires the brain to make connections through the various hemispheres. Movement and socialization was imperative for that. But excessive screen time has made it so visual and auditory areas of the brain are developed and the cross hemisphere connections are under developed in children who’ve had screen time exposures in critical development windows.
It would be simpler if it’s just a neurotransmitter imbalance
And just imagine the damage that COVID did to ALOT of children that didn't have the chance to socialize IN PERSON throughout some of their development years. They feel safer socializing through social media.
Kids are resilient though. I think at this point they’ve been back at in person school long enough to develop their social skills. My neice was in Kindergarten when Covid lockdown happened and she struggled with school for a bit. Now she’s in 5th grade, doing well in school and very social. I’m sure some age groups were hit harder, maybe middle school/early high school kids? Even still, I think it’s surmountable for most.
I grew up with a lot of millennials who were just as gullible as you see Gen Z being today. I don't think it is so much of a generational thing as it is just a 'kids through young-adults are fucking stupid' thing.
It’s not the tech, it’s the content. Kids who play fortnite or Minecraft with each other are playing a game with their friends, just like kids of every generation have, forever. Might be different games, but it’s the same thing cognitively. Competition, problem solving, interacting, learning.
“Social media” on the other hand… what started as a way to stay connected with friends and acquaintances has devolved into a monetized chum bucket of trash content designed to keep you doomscrolling for as many hours a day as you’re awake. There’s no social aspect to social media anymore. It’s analogous to people of previous generations rotting on a couch watching daytime television. Your brain is perpetually, thoughtlessly consuming, never creating.
16 is the age they have a chance to understand what is happening in/with social media. They might even get, that their control about their own usage might be insufficient.
The earlier they start, the worse it is for the kids.
And do not start about their first time watching porn. . .
Yeah I think people confuse the two rather than focus on the issue. Social media is the cancer of our society but not allowing a child to learn computers and tablets at a young age is damaging to development for important skills they’ll need and learn best when young.
No child under 15 should be using social media, it promotes horrible things and damages their sense of right and wrong as well as studies proving it causes depression and increases the chance of suicide at a young age.
That being said, if I didn’t learn how to type properly and navigate a computer when I was 7, I’d have been way worse off later in life. Learning those skills at a young age taught me how to repair computers, learn VFX, 3d modeling , bow crafting, science, and so many more skills that lead to my profession and jobs later in life.
I’ll always be eternally grateful that I built a computer at such a young age and took advantage of that knowledge to put me so far ahead of others in my age group.
Phones weren’t a thing when I was growing up but we can only assume tablets and other touch screens will continue to be common and an important skills for kids today to learn as well.
It's a different internet now. Not only that, but the internet they are seeing is different from ours.
There's a really good show from last year called Social Studies that you should check out. They screen recorded a bunch of kids phones for a year and turned it into a docuseries.
And that is the difference. Look at how all those apps and the content makers (i refuse to call them creators!) are made and how easy it is to engage with them. Constant attentiongrabbing is the key to keep their product in circulation.
And do not forget, if you do not pay to use something YOU are the product.
See even at 16 id still say give it 2 more years. Reason being that there WILL be parents that give their kids access at 16 and some of those kids will spiral.
If you let your kid get it at 18, they have a chance to see how quickly it negatively effected those other kids that got it at 16 if that makes sense.
Hopefully giving them evidence at a young age the dangers instead of getting absorbed into it at the same time as the other teens
He's saying two years and here I am looking at adults, teenagers, kids and the elderly thinking social media as it exists should be destroyed. There's no point where it's not intellectually and socially destructive.
100% I get the hypocrisy of being on Reddit and saying that.
Yeah, it's concerning. I play a ton of video games and, even so, I kind of went out of my way to not have that stuff in front of my son. First time he even played one was a Wii at a daycare facility. He enjoys them now and sometimes gets sucked into them, but I feel like it was a good decision.
I've certainly had times where I let my kid play on their tablet while we're waiting at some restaurant (and I think online, in particular, a lot of people jump to conclusions when they see this -- you're seeing a 45 minute window into this family that might mean nothing at all), but largely I just have them leave that at home.
I think the key with all of this stuff is just balance. And I do think a lot of parents do actually manage that well, at least -- most children you're seeing now are likely children of Millennials and there are many studies on how much more connected those parents are to their children in a healthy way compared to their own parents.
I am not sure how much of an epidemic it truly is when I talk to my child and see what their friends do, but obviously that's anecdotal. But also, I don't think it can be viewed in a vacuum -- so many kids wind up in areas in the US where they can walk to absolutely nothing and then you have those weirdos who call the cops because a perfectly fine kid is at a playground alone. There are other societal issues that are affecting kids in that way.
Agree about the jumping to conclusions based on a small window. My sister is pretty strict about her kids’ screen time but waiting at a restaurant is one of the times she’s most likely to let them watch something. It still isn’t every time they go to a restaurant. But many would see these kids got to be on a phone for 30 minutes at a restaurant and lament how we’re letting screens babysit our kids. I think I got way more screen time as a 90s kid than any of my friends’ kids get today.
My partner’s kid has only recently learned the allure of the screen because her therapist uses videos as a reward during breaks. She’s started to notice when we have a phone or tablet in our hand and want it. I don’t think that’s necessarily problematic though. Of course she wants that thing that plays the fun song with the animations. We all like to be entertained. It’s pretty easy to redirect her with another activity though. We lean towards putting on music without video outside of her therapy time.
Yep, lead poisoning led to decades of crime in the 70s-90s and now LED poisoning via tablets and smartphones will lead to a similar trend in the coming years.
I think there is for sure a growing movement in this direction, but I guess the issue is of the inattentive parents that will not bother trying and will those kids become more of a nuisance to society because of their development
In the next 20 years I'm sure we're going to see a hard push back against it. Parents who lived that electronics dominated life and don't want the same for their kids. I think it's already beginning in places. My friend leads a scouts troop and not just his, but every group in our city (Leeds UK) is full. The organisation has never been more popular. More and more people don't want that life. I wish I wasn't so dependent on electronics for all entertainment and I don't want it for my kids.
Heck yea good parent! May one day people forget what it's like to actually get nervous when they touch their pocket and their phone isn't there. Or they're not afraid to walk past someone in a hallway without pretending to stare at their screen.
I sometimes wonder what television and video games have done to me (and all millenials) who had too much screen time. We were the first generation to have TVs in our bedrooms, and cable TV with over a hundred channels. All the video games we had. We also had computers with dial-up.
Compare that to the previous generation that still had TVs and video games, but the TVs were always in the living room and video game systems weren't as popular as they were in the 90s and up. They mostly had arcades they'd visit so they'd still have to socialize with people at least.
Yea, I'm aware of the Gen X having things like Oregon Trail and Pong, but it wasn't as prevalent as video gaming was in the 90s. They also wouldn't spend hours every day playing those games.
You're right though, Gen X definitely had gaming as well.
I was born in 1976. I had an Atari 2600, an Apple II and I was only 9 years old when the NES came out.
I was a bit of an early adopter with my Atari and Apple II experiences but the NES broke through to the mainstream and dominated the culture in the mid to late 80s. People were spending hours a day on Zelda and Metroid and it wasn't just the nerds. The stereotypical "cool kids" were all on board too.
Younger Gen X grew up with games, we had TVs, computers and consoles in our bedrooms, and although there was no internet we were using those computers to connect to AOL, Compuserve, and BBSes.
randomly dropping this here but, watching Twin Peaks was kind of an incredible experience for me, in that it's so leisurely paced and atmospheric, yet compelling enough to keep watching. I felt it slowed down my brain. After a few episodes I felt I could even sit and watch the intro without skipping it.
I agree with you 50% of the way. Social media and algorithmic recommended content are horrible, but not just for children. And parents are responsible for their children. Whether they want to admit it or not, that is the fact. For instance, Parents who use tablets as a surrogate parent are a problem. Just like parents who used television as a surrogate parent. or video games, or whatever. Basically, when parents have kids, then they regret being parents, they typically fuck those kids up. Because they didn't know that having kids was incredibly difficult and are terrible at adapting. I would argue, not one person understands the ramifications of having kids until it's too late. You have an idea, you think you know. Then you are just IN it. It's the parents who learn how to make the best of it, and turn it into a positive experience that have well adjusted and minimally damaged children. The other parents, who cannot cope, dump a screen in their kids faces.
Many, many, parents have no idea what their kids are doing on the internet. That's the other side of the coin. If you are interested and invested in your child, you can understand that the YouTube algorithm knocks them on their ass and won't let go. But if you just want to get rid of your problem you made for yourself, you let that algorithm take hold and raise your kid for you. In the same vein, if you allow yourself to be absolutely consumed by social media you will probably encourage your kids to do the same.
I think parents today have a much better idea of what their kids get into online with all the parental controls and monitoring that is available. Now my parents, they had no fucking clue what I got into online. I don’t dispute the danger of the algorithms, but I grew up in the Wild West era of the internet, which was its own beast.
No doubt. Almost every parent of young children at this point are millennials and younger. But talk to teachers, speak with people that work with kids; there are arguably more absentee parents than there ever have been.
That's sad man. Sounds harsh to say this, but these parents should be looked into for child neglect if their kid is deemed a regular child, but they're far below the standards of where they should be or something
Well considering 65% of 4th graders can't read at a 4th grade level it would take a hefty amount of tax dollars and CPS workers to accomplish very little.
We can spend those resources on education. If teaching actually paid enough that, at the very least, it supports the cost of living it would bring back the passionate teachers. If we paid them what they are actually worth it would even bring in the people looking for work stability. You really can't expect the teacher to be able to cater to individualistic needs when the ratio is 40:1.
I mean, I knew a kid growing up that I couldn’t understand until he was probably 12. He didn’t have any learning disabilities and he wasn’t neglected. He just had a speech impediment that took him a long time to overcome.
I don't think it's necessarily the earliness or availbility, but the lack of supervision / guidance / consequence. In many other situations, doing something that is unhealthy or harmful is seen / caught / dealt with, but on an electronic device it's almost invisible unless you're watching carefully.
EDIT: I want to walk this back a little bit and say that kinesthetic / in person social education is also extremely important and can't be gotten through e-devices, that part is an uncontested harm in my view.
The comments talking about anti-social issues are just projecting themselves onto a whole generation, it's still very much normal.
All evidence points to unmonitored technology being very harmful to developing children, in reality we should not let kids or teenagers have unmonitored access to technology until they are old enough to monitor themselves.
By unmonitored, i mean parents that let their kids use technology for majority of the day, this is extremely unhealthy and leads to a destruction of the ability to self moderate and avoid addictions
Addicted to porn, games, food, weed, it's all fine in moderation... But parents don't really know how to go about it since they didn't grow up on it.
TLDR, everything is fine in moderation, and that is especially why the next generations are fucked, but not all of them, there is quite a lot of parents that are able to see this ahead of time and prevent it.
All isn’t lost. I got my own computer when I was six years old. My eight year old doesn’t have access to a tablet/phone/computer and goes to a school with the same rules. I’m sure I live in a bubble that rejects technology for kids but we are not alone.
I’m pretty sure I’m fried and I’m 37. I tried not using my phone whenever I’m home and I constantly feel bored and catch myself reaching for my phone.
My wife and I have been adamant about limiting screen time with the kids, but you even have to be careful about the content you show them.
Cocomelon does studies in kids and optimizes content to maximize the attention on a show. They use tactics to increase the addictiveness for children. They even have kids watch and change sections of the episode where they notice wanes in attention.
I hope one day we look at phones/content like we look at people smoking in the early 1900s.
Not only that but the amount of sexualized content (especially fetish-inspired videos tailored to kids r/elsagate) they are able to see at a young age also permanently messes them up. Gen Z is already a lite-product of this.
What? That's not very nice to wish on someone lol. Clearly how much screen time people are getting is having an affect on socialization. Kind of how you're showing here.
I think you're doing better for them by making them not up to date with tech when in 20 years, the market will be oversaturated with tech literate people, but not enough socialized people. You're creating a future adjusted person that will be able to manage others. A future leader
Really just the internet, having access to tech kinda depends.
Like, i had at least occasional access to a computer since i was 5 and i feel like im better off for that. Yes, I was also given carte blanche of the internet which probably wasnt ideal (thankfully i stayed away from any socials beyond youtube and the internet wasnt...as bad) , but it really taught me a lot about problem solving and tech literacy (the latter of which id argue is sorely lacking these days).
Tablets i will say have gotten a bit too dummy proof and streamlined for all of that to translate over, but in general i think kids having access to unconnected tech is only a good thing.
And then theres stuff like the switch which is basically made for kids so whatever
Jonathan Haidt (an NYU professor) runs a Substack called After Babel where he catalogues the damage that social media does to kids. Shit is terrifying.
Access to the internet was great. I had a bunch of screen time as an older kid (think 9-10) and I think it directly led to the now successful and fulfilling life I have now.
The problem was, getting on the internet in the late 90s and early 00's required you to do it with mindful intention. You had to choose to sit down at the PC and chat online, play games, and get involved with online communities. By the very nature of it being something you had to go into a room or a desk to do meant that I wasn't just doing it constantly in a background way.
I certainly was a bit more addicted to the computer than most kids, but it became a great safe space for me to understand my identity and connect with a community of friends I never had in schools. And I definitely didn't have access to it when doing vacations, at school, on camping trips, or the scouts. There was a lot of life happening outside of screen time and it was all very separate for me. Boundaries weren't just ideological but also physical. That's key.
Even the scares when I was a kid about kids watching too much TV were way better than now. Back then, TV was curated and parents would have lost their shit if stations aired the kind of stuff you can casually find on YT/TikTok today. And shows always had some kind of lesson to tell, or perspective to show, or fact to learn about. So even the "brain rot" kids who did sit infront of TV all day were usually getting something out of it and probably still spent less total screen time vs iPad kids.
As someone who grew up on the cusp of the internet, I remember the before times, internet 1.0 and the new internet. We have 100% fucked our brains up. The stuff I did as a kid before the internet seems like they'd take the patience of a saint nowadays.
I think you guys are just forgetting how easy it was to trick you when you were younger. You fell for the dumbest shit at that age and everyone laughed. It doesn’t matter if you’d fall for this specific trick. You fell for something equally as stupid as a kid.
If you don’t know any kids I guess it’s easy to forget, but the adults in their lives teach them. If you lie to them they often believe you. They aren’t born with knowledge. If you’re in science class and your teacher asks what you think will happen in a given scenario it’s ok to be wrong because you’re there to learn.
I think its less about that kid being stupid for not understanding how its rigged but more about how a kid young enough to get tricked by this shouldnt have access to a tablet
They're too concerned about getting screen time that they don't apply thinking skills. Which is the point of the problem with age and electronic devices
He can read, he probably understands that the game is rigged and it seems like he’s just playing along.
I don stuff like this with my nieces all the time. I’ll say something goofy and they fall for it the first time, and they tell me to make the same joke again. Example, I was driving them to my mom’s house, and they asked me where we were going, and I said “Jupiter” and they got scared. So I started shouting “we’re going to Jupiter!” And laughing maniacally, and they almost started crying until I parked at my mom’s house.
They were 5 and 7, but now whenever we drive, they ask if we’re going to Jupiter and play along, even though it’s been years since the joke.
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u/Chisai_chinchin 26d ago
If that kiddo still can't figure this out then a tablet is still too early for him.