Why are you approaching other people’s kids and take away their ipads?
Imagine portraying Homelander judging anything as an argument for agreeing with him.
People when kids screech at a restaurant: ‘Must be shitty parents.’
People when kids run around at a restaurant: ‘Must be shitty parents.’
People when kids use an ipad at a restaurant: ‘Must be shitty parents.’
There’s no winning here. Children just aren’t allowed to exist.
We are the exception because we most definitely weren’t like that at all as a kid. /s
I’m guessing it’s because the perception of people who don’t have kids have the thought “every time I’m in a restaurant I see kids on their parents phone/ipad so that must be what they do 24/7”, and I’m totally guilty of that too. Once I had a kid, I think me and my partner had a pretty good no screen time rule but when we wanted to go out to eat at a restaurant that rule was relaxed not just for us but for everyone else as well.
#2 is shitty parenting. Kids running around a restaurant puts them and staff in dangerous situations with hot food and steak knives etc
I’ve recently gotten a hold of an older ipad. I’ve been installing apps and stuff on it and playing with all the things.
And godDAMN that os has problems. I’m back on my android phone and it’s so much smaller, but Jesus Christ having a back button and responsive apps and ui and os feels like coming home.
Android isn’t without its problems though. The apps are all definitely aimed at a poorer/cheaper demographic, the audio drivers suck big fat rectum, and the hamburger-scrolly-floating-button design philosophy is straight up garbage.
But there are so many missing QOL and presumably standard features on Android. On iOS, I get so lost in the loose ux standards that often end up bewildering me. I used procreate for like 8 hours today, and by the end, I had memorized a ton of really really bad designs. They work, and within the app, they’re… Mostly consistent. But I have this deep down rage for whoever made some of these decisions.
It’s entertaining, at the bare minimum, to see UX and UI slowly develop over the years, and neither OS (or Samsung’s OneUI) are perfect. It’s fascinating to see what the other camp is doing.
But yeah… Kids crying over having their ipad taken away? Shame.
Get them something better.
Like a desktop computer.
App suggestions make it so hard to keep kids away from slop. I started out only letting my toddler watch PBS Kids programs and a few other educational programs, but then your kids start seeing suggestions for all sorts of shlock, and they want to see the show with the superhero kitties is (it’s called Super Kitties and it is garbage). God help you if you try to watch something on YouTube; every suggested video is either low-quality home movies of people playing with toys (which is like crack to toddlers or weird shit like this that absolutely shouldn’t be on YouTube Kids but often is anyway.
Set YouTube kid to only show selected channels. My kid is actually bored of youtube now.
Which channels did you select?
We did some shows that we both liked, like bubble guppies, sesame street, ABC mouse, cool school, paw patrol, peppa pig. Then there’s also some like packages that were okay like BBC and discovery kids, Disney channel. The most brain rot one we let them keep watching was pinkfong (baby shark).
Holy shit, I did not know you could do that. That is going to be life changing.
So don’t give a tablet then. Or if you do, don’t have Apps like that. Get an wifi only android tablet, install VLC and specific shows and games. Real games and real shows. Not short form shit or bs mobile “games”.
I don’t give him a tablet, he only watches at home on TV (or a phone on very long car trips). I don’t know a toddler parent that has the time to download a curated media library for their kids, and even if you do have the time, things like that fall apart eventually. My wife and I managed to avoid most crap TV until we wound up in a hotel room with two dead phones and a fussy toddler, and that’s when we finally caved and put on Nick Jr. For a while, we managed to convince him that Paw Patrol was only available in hotels, but eventually he saw the thumbnail for it when we were trying to show him Dora the Explorer, and that beautiful lie finally died.
Paw Patrol is a regular length cartoon with a real, albeit basic, plot. I’m talking Cocomelon or Five Finger Family or other short form shit.
I don’t know a toddler parent that has the time to download a curated media library for their kids
No. Curating what your child consumes, both dietary and cultural, is the basic requirement raising a child. It takes very little tech skills to download files and load them on a device. Even just an old school portable dvd player and a disc wallet is preferable. The point isn’t to cut all media, but to cut the short form shit the drains attention. Even a show with a plot that takes ~22 minute to get to the end teaches some degree of patience.
Paw Patrol is empty calories. It doesn’t teach emotional regulation like Daniel Tiger, or shapes and colors like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, or numbers, letters, and problem solving like Sesame Street. It’s not harmful like Cocomelon, and I’ve accepted that my son loves it, but that doesn’t mean it’s good.
Curating what your child consumes, both dietary and cultural, is the basic requirement raising a child.
Yeah, I curate what my child consumes, thanks, I just don’t have the time or energy to create a bespoke tablet of torrented kids shows to present him, or track down a circa-2002 portable DVD player and start a new physical media collection. If you’ve got that kind of free time, great, but I’ve just got to use the apps I’ve got, accept that he’s going to want to watch some shows that I find worthless, and make sure he doesn’t consume anything actively harmful.
Saying downloaded media or physical media collections are hard and fall apart is illogical considering that’s how everyone on the planet used to engage with media before internet streaming became such a huge thing
Except they didn’t. They mostly watched live TV.
Maybe that was the case where you grew up, the world is a large place and people live different lives, I grew up on bottleg and official CD’s and DVD’s, physical comics and novels, mp3 songs downloaded from limewire and torrented movies, friends and family would exchange flash drives and other media regularly for new content, all my content was both curated and organically found and diverse, and I consumed content from all over the world and my life was better for it. And I still rely on some of these methods to get my media, tech companies benefit from taking away ownership of things from people and packaging it as convenience, I’m not falling for that, I’m building my own home server now to host my own open source apps and services, it’s not even that difficult anymore.
Yeah, I was a teen in the early 2000s too. Most people still consumed most of their media through live TV. Anyway, you’re right, I should build a home server and start burning my own torrented DVDs. That’s the only reasonable solution to, “apps suggest crappy shows to my kid,” and it’s definitely the thing a parent of a toddler has the time to do.
So them put some effort into acquiring good health media for your kid to watch and put that into the tablet and remove all other apps so they can only engage with content that has been pre veted by you, parenting takes effort
Yeah, thanks, I’m not looking for notes.
Parent of the year over here lol
Sees someone articulating the problem of streaming platforms elevating low quality or toxic media in children’s feeds.
You (a genius): “This is bad parenting.”
Ted Ed, Vsauce, CGP Grey.
It’s easy to judge from like 30 minutes in public, until you have an autistic kid and no support network.
Thank you for saying this. I used to judge parents of kids on screens until I had my own. You never know what’s going on and there’s a chance that the 30 minutes of quiet that family is getting from the iPad is the only peace they’ve had all day.
I mean there’s other things besides brain rot. Also people did raise kids prior to iPads.
Yes, parenting existed before iPads. That doesn’t imply that everything they used to do to cope with similar situations was correct, or better. Previous generations of parents used to do things that would terrify us now.
Or it’s the only meal they’ve had out in a month and it coincided with a sleep regression or something.
I have friends without kids tell me how they would parent and what they don’t think is “good parenting” all the time. They have no clue…
Yes, before the existence of iPads, autistic children could do nothing except scream and seize on the floor. Yep. Thank God we have iPads now, there is literally no other way to handle autistic children.
I mean, you’re kinda being a dick… it’s a better than my parents generations response to being autistic. Jesus lol, trust me.
Before modern era, they used to do lobotomies and lock up kids that are neurodivergent
Jesus Christ…
No, keep proudly displaying your ignorance. We’ve got time.
Well chosen character, sorry if that’s you.
Somewhere right now there is a iPad kid watching skibidi toilet that will one day be president.
Somewhere right now there is a President watching skibidi toilet that will one day be dead.
you jest. fox news would never stoop so low to play that garbage.
they stoop lower by playing fucker carlson, or other fascist talking heads.
You’re on lemmy. Such hypocrisy.
You watch skibidi toilet on a corporate-controlled spyware machine known as the “iPad”
I read the anarchist cookbook on my RISC-V PineTab
We are not the same.
But you also watched new grounds and shit like goatse
read … on my RISC-V PineTab
Because it’s not powerful enough to play a video. /s (sorry, just teasing)
And do you trust the people that fabricated your RISC-V cpu?
Don’t judge the kid, judge the parents. Parents who should not be parents prefer to make their kids less of a burden to them by handing them over to the overstimulation square
100% My kids have tablets. The only time they get them is on road trips and plane rides. Some parents we know bring them to restaurants, family gatherings, you name it. It’s fucking annoying. Make your kid socialize or they’re going to grow up weird AF.
When I was a kid, we’d get together with family and do our thing. Then we’d all eat a meal, and usually after the meal it was all right, everyone go do whatever you want, and the kids would usually go down the basement and play toys or video games, and adults sit around digesting, having some drinks, etc.
Fast forward to now, I’ll bring my kids tablets or whatever, and when the party is entering the food coma stage, I say do whatever you want, you’ve spent the last couple hours talking to people, or just existing around people who are 30-60 years older than you.
I feel like it always comes to this, but everything in moderation. I played a lot of Nintendo as a kid, and I grew up well adjusted (enough), and I don’t doubt my kids can do the same. For me, the whole tablet thing just stretches out the amount of time I get to hang. Kids get antsy. Shit, I get antsy and I’m an adult, but if letting them do whatever for 30-60m at the end of a party let’s me unwind with my family and friends, it’s fine.
The annoying part is when the kids roll into the party iPad already blasting.
Got a earn that shit. Also gives me something to say hey, get your shit together or no games.
I was at a friends and family barbecue recently, and it just so happened none of the parents there brought tablets for their kids. It was just kids running around the backyard being kids. The parents generally let them do whatever but were attentive enough to prevent them climbing on the shed and stuff.
I can’t remember the last time there wasn’t some kid glued to a screen at that type of party. It was a joy to see.
my brother’s got six kids. whenever he visits, first thing he and his wife do is go to sleep. they wake up for meals, then go back to sleep. now, i love my nieces and nephews, but i don’t invite my brother over to be unpaid babysitters. i invite them over to see the family. so, we don’t invite them over much anymore.
That’s too many kids. Poor things can’t get the parental attention they need :(
you’re preaching to the choir dude
Yeah or they’re really introverted they’ll at least use their imagination to disassociate.
Like I used to look around and imagine little beings making their way around objects and walls. Or looking into the distance and imagining things farther away were right in front of me, but the same size — so now you’ve got a miniature waiter running around the table, trying to catch the little beings.
My ability to zone out probably masked a lot of brain problems, but it did also make me a champ at sitting in waiting rooms while having the time of my life.
My child is autistic.
The only way to get him to be calm in a restaurant was to give him earphones and play something comfortingly familiar.Now that hes a bit older, it’s a bit better. But he still frequently needs something similar in those kinds of situations.
And their parents allow them to blast the sound in public with no headphones. I can’t fathom the lack of give-a-fucks for their fellow humans (to include their own children).
Yes that’s kind of a pet peeve of mine. I understand that sleep deprived parents sometimes need to put their kids in front of their phones. But in recent years I have noticed that they just blast the sound really loud and don’t care about any other human being. I’m really shy but after almost freaking out on a train ride because of two different kids just watching something full volume I have asked parents to tone it down. They were even kind of embarrassed and nice about it. I have no idea how you can be so disconnected to your surrounding… The worst were grandparents with a 2 year old kid during a kids theater and they just let the kid watch a show with the volume up. I mean what about all the other kids who are performing and you sit in the middle with a phone just blasting full volume. They wanted to stop him and then he started throwing a tantrum. They just laughed and were like oh he’s so cute and we can’t do anything about it. Fuck that’s not cute, if you want to watch a tv show with volume, just sit outside of theater with your little brat!
i mean, if they were wearing headphones the kid’d still be blasting it. it saves the kid’s hearing at a minor social cost. tinnitus really sucks and if the parents have to take measures to prevent it, i’ll take being annoyed for a few minutes to keep someone else from getting tinnitus. it’s beyond a fair trade.
Set volume limit then? Lol
you may be assuming too much tech savviness for that amount of sleep deprivation, but you’re completely correct.
Me when a friend of mine who’s an engineer who sometimes works for the CERN unironically watches Mr. Beast and listens to Papa-a-pate (?, this nonsense k-pop song, it was popular some months ago…).
Like, yeah, you have the hardware, why fill your brain with malware! ;-;
Malware for the brain. Best description of brainrot I’ve heard yet.
E: any social media “challenges” pretty much fall under this umbrella as well.
Are you sure they don’t work at SERN?
10/10 reference!
Is he on the spectrum perhaps?
Lol, no, he’s just a classic “work hard party hard” engineer lad! If any ladies here live in Barcelona and want a (truly) kind hearted, hardworking man to mould a bit, shoot me a DM. 😅
Baby shark do do dooodododoododo
I’m not having kids, but this always feels like such a missed opportunity to let kids do something more mentally stimulating on that tablet.
Drawing apps and eBooks are right there! Hell, set up Termux and Acode up for them and let them program a bit (or like, I bet there’s a mobile version of Scratch they could use if they can’t read yet). Let them take photos and make little collages. Get them some music Synthesizer App so that they can tinker on their own little beats. Literally just show them that they have the tools to make something great instead of just shoveling in mindless content all day…I am the donor for a lesbian couple. I’m pretty involved in my son’s life. I took him for his third haircut. Midway through, he was bored, and shooting me one of the angriest looks I’ve ever gotten from him. I took a pic and sent it to his mom.
“Oh god look how mad he is, give him your phone!”
What? He’s being quiet and learning how to be patient while a haircut happens. Some parents think reality is a BAD substitute for devices, it seems.
At least one night a week, he comes to my house and plays without any screens. We talk and explore the world.
Makes sense when even adults use phones as a means to escape even a moment of boredom. How many adults use their phones while driving? That’s one of the most mentally stimulating things I can think of, and people get BORED.
i “use” my phone while biking, mounted to the fucker, to play music (so i don’t have to use my bell as often, also music rests my brain) and the other day i passed a kid pedaling, holding his phone in his lap and staring into the thing and jesus heelslut christ he wasn’t even wearing a helmet i’m still worrying about him
To be fair driving isn’t stimulating at all (at least for me). Doesn’t mean I use my phone while doing it though, because… I’m not an idiot
Driving is honestly very stimulating for me. I have AuDHD and it is one of the few times I feel calm because I can actively engage all of my senses. Something about keeping an awareness in your head of what’s around you and your car really keeps me occupied.
Those are harder than the dopamine of brainrot content though. I struggle with it myself. I know programming is far more rewarding in the long-term, yet I often end up browsing lemmy instead due to the immediate dopamine hit compared to the delayed one.
These kids won’t have any sense of self-control or understand why one is better for them than the other and the kind of parent that gives a child a tablet and just turns on YouTube does so because they don’t want to actually parent. So while this is decent advice for proper parents, these kinds of parents aren’t gonna do that, because it requires more work for them.
If you block any of the unproductive apps, and allow only the productive ones, and give the kid “free” access to what they have on the iPad, they will tinker with what’s available
They might fuss around for a bit if they know there’s other stuff, but ultimately they can’t force your hand, and it should still be plenty fun to do the harder things
Totally agree!
I see the problem more in the parents. First, that these kids can use the iPad so much and second, that they can just consume on it. Like you said: Create, build and explore. Use the iPad, not get used by the iPad.
The thing that would scare me the most is that the parents don’t even know that such things are possible on their devices
Maybe my opinion of others is low, but I find it highly unbelievable most would even realize that something like programming is understandable, or tinkering around with music, or other stuff along those veins. Maybe drawing is still realistic though
But that would just go to show that there’s a lack of all of this in the first place, even for parents
If I had termux with ghc as a child I would NOT stop studying math.
“just one more monad, dad”
bet there’s a mobile version of Scratch they could use if they can’t read yet
And for older kids apple made a scratch-like game for teaching their Swift programming language!
Scratch also works entirely in the web browser
