Should kids have smartphones?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Funny thing... I've seen bunches and bunches of kids, and all of them have phones, but I've never seen a bunch of kids in the same room talking to each other through screens instead of interacting face to face. This seems to be some kind of myth invented by old people as a strawman argument for why kids shouldn't have phones.

I've seen kids passing the time playing with their phones. When I was a kid I used to bring a book everywhere so I would never be bored, and my whole family were avid readers (as are my kids now) and we would often sit around in the living room immersed in our own books. How sad, that we spend the time reading instead of interacting with each other, right? How sad, that I never learned how to be bored, because I always had a book with me! This is really a good argument for why children should be kept illiterate, so they can learn how to cope with boredom and isolation properly.

[Don Coyote]

You are missing the point.  Remember all of that stuff we wrote about American Idol and TeeVee?  People noy giving a fuck because they are firmly latched to the teat of brainless entertainment?

So you now want to encourage that?

You are confusing the medium with the message.

They are merely doing a more efficient version of what you and I are doing right now.

he's also ignoring the fact that young people will actively engage in a conversation using real meat space wordings about the things on their shiny screens.
But what do I know, I'm just forced to be around young people who were born after Gem and the Holograms and the Adventures of Don Coyote.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The only time I've seen kids in the same room using phones to talk/text each other is when there are more kids involved in the conversation who are not in the room.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Books are a vile technology that is turning people into introverts. Horrible, horrible.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

But what do I know, I'm just forced to be around young people who were born after Gem and the Holograms and the Adventures of Don Coyote.

[AFK]

You are missing the point.  Remember all of that stuff we wrote about American Idol and TeeVee?  People noy giving a fuck because they are firmly latched to the teat of brainless entertainment?

So you now want to encourage that?

You are confusing the medium with the message.

They are merely doing a more efficient version of what you and I are doing right now.

Uh, you and I aren't IRL friends, not thr same thing.  When I want to hang out and talk to an IRL friend or colleague, I go visit them and talk to them in person.  I don't sit in thr same room and text them.

But also, smartphones are more often than not used as portable TeeVees or video games that happen to also be able to make phone calls.

Why on earth do we want to encourage that behavior with kids? 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

You are missing the point.  Remember all of that stuff we wrote about American Idol and TeeVee?  People noy giving a fuck because they are firmly latched to the teat of brainless entertainment?

So you now want to encourage that?

You are confusing the medium with the message.

They are merely doing a more efficient version of what you and I are doing right now.

Uh, you and I aren't IRL friends, not thr same thing.  When I want to hang out and talk to an IRL friend or colleague, I go visit them and talk to them in person.  I don't sit in thr same room and text them.

But also, smartphones are more often than not used as portable TeeVees or video games that happen to also be able to make phone calls.

Why on earth do we want to encourage that behavior with kids?

Because those kids are not anything nearly resembling you and I, culturally.  They have to live and be able to function in the culture they live in, not spend their lives preparing for the 1980s.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You are missing the point.  Remember all of that stuff we wrote about American Idol and TeeVee?  People noy giving a fuck because they are firmly latched to the teat of brainless entertainment?

So you now want to encourage that?

You are confusing the medium with the message.

They are merely doing a more efficient version of what you and I are doing right now.

Electronic interaction with other people is not the same as teevee. I mean, unless you don't believe that the other people you're interacting with are really people. Pixels on a screen, maybe?

Kids don't tend to fall prey to that fallacy, either, because they grew up communicating with people online. You know what else is totally not weird or foreign to children? Making friends online, and then meeting them in person. I remember in 1989-90 when I went to my first BBS meetups, and people were just all ZOMG YOU ARE MEETING PEOPLE YOU HAVE ONLY EVER MET ON THE COMPUTER??? like it was crazy and dangerous and weird.

People don't feel that way anymore. People, and especially kids, don't see people who make words in the magic box as video-game characters, they see them as real flesh-and-blood people, because they are.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

You are missing the point.  Remember all of that stuff we wrote about American Idol and TeeVee?  People noy giving a fuck because they are firmly latched to the teat of brainless entertainment?

So you now want to encourage that?

You are confusing the medium with the message.

They are merely doing a more efficient version of what you and I are doing right now.

Electronic interaction with other people is not the same as teevee. I mean, unless you don't believe that the other people you're interacting with are really people. Pixels on a screen, maybe?

Kids don't tend to fall prey to that fallacy, either, because they grew up communicating with people online. You know what else is totally not weird or foreign to children? Making friends online, and then meeting them in person. I remember in 1989-90 when I went to my first BBS meetups, and people were just all ZOMG YOU ARE MEETING PEOPLE YOU HAVE ONLY EVER MET ON THE COMPUTER??? like it was crazy and dangerous and weird.

People don't feel that way anymore. People, and especially kids, don't see people who make words in the magic box as video-game characters, they see them as real flesh-and-blood people, because they are.

There was a major shift in the way people behave, just a few years ago.  I view it as beneficial, for three reasons.

1.  The kids can filter out information they don't want or need.  Our generation could only do that by becoming Amish or some shit.
2.  The kids are only alone when they want to be alone.  My son and I chat now and again when he has free time on a field exercise in North Carolina.  Kids in Afghanistan can talk with their families whenever they have a spare moment.
3.  Their capabilities are huge.  The US military has more or less given up on controlling smartphone use in Afghanistan, and the kids are using the smartphones for constant communication, GPS location for medivac pickup & artillery, and providing their commanders with real-time footage of events.  And it's a fuckload harder to track than a AN/PRC77 radio.

The other side of the coin is, adults have trouble understanding how this dynamic (as opposed to the technology) functions, so their immediate response is to try to stop it. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

But also, smartphones are more often than not used as portable TeeVees or video games that happen to also be able to make phone calls.

Nonsense. In my experience with children, which is considerable, the preferred order of use is 1. to interact with friends, 2. to play games, and 3. to watch videos. Their innate preference is for more interactive over less interactive, but they will resort to less interactive options if the more interactive options are tapped out.

An aside; I am IRL friends with a number of people on this board. Your social isolation is not reflective of most people's experience, and you should refrain from projecting it onto them.

[AFK]

But also, smartphones are more often than not used as portable TeeVees or video games that happen to also be able to make phone calls.

Nonsense. In my experience with children, which is considerable, the preferred order of use is 1. to interact with friends, 2. to play games, and 3. to watch videos. Their innate preference is for more interactive over less interactive, but they will resort to less interactive options if the more interactive options are tapped out.

An aside; I am IRL friends with a number of people on this board. Your social isolation is not reflective of most people's experience, and you should refrain from projecting it onto them.

I also have considerable experience.  In my former job I organized and facilitated two day trainings for peer mentors.  There was a considerable difference in the level of interaction when phones were silenced and put away.  Electronics becom distractions and limit the ability to really focus and listen, instead of just hearing.

This medium is very limiting to human communication.  Facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, all VERY important in communication.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

[AFK]

I am not socially isolated at all.  I prefer face to face human interaction.

[AFK]

You are proving my point.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

But also, smartphones are more often than not used as portable TeeVees or video games that happen to also be able to make phone calls.

Nonsense. In my experience with children, which is considerable, the preferred order of use is 1. to interact with friends, 2. to play games, and 3. to watch videos. Their innate preference is for more interactive over less interactive, but they will resort to less interactive options if the more interactive options are tapped out.

An aside; I am IRL friends with a number of people on this board. Your social isolation is not reflective of most people's experience, and you should refrain from projecting it onto them.

I also have considerable experience.  In my former job I organized and facilitated two day trainings for peer mentors.  There was a considerable difference in the level of interaction when phones were silenced and put away.  Electronics becom distractions and limit the ability to really focus and listen, instead of just hearing.

This medium is very limiting to human communication.  Facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, all VERY important in communication.

Part of growing up is learning when to silence and turn off electronic devices. That's not really even a question, nor is it what the conversation is about.