I wish mum's phone was never invented
I wish the BBC stopped downgrading their coverage to the level of the mirror+daily wail websites, and create articles by cut&pasting other bits of 'social media' to make 'content'.
As a non-native english speaker, for many years I looked up to the BBC to give me nice, literate -- often bland -- coverage, with excellent use of the language, vocabulary and no notion of dumbing down the language -- on the contrary.
These days, it's a race to the bottom.
The problem seems to be the parents, not the technology. It reminds me of a VSauce episode that brought up the following interesting antidotes:
> In 1871, the Sunday Magazine published a line that may as well have been written today about texting. "Now we fire off a multitude of rapid and short notes, instead of sitting down to have a good talk over a real sheet of paper." And the Journal of Education in 1907 lamented that at a modern family gathering, silent around the fire, each individual has his head buried in his favorite magazine. [1,2]
If the parents weren't lost in their phones, they'd be lost in something else.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc
[2] https://sites.google.com/site/vsaucetranscripts/scripts/juve...
"That is so sad and convicting. Great reminder for us all to put those phones down and engage with our kids more."
I imagine a mother posting that comment on her phone, with a couple young children looking at her sadly in the background. She feels good about the change she decided to make in her life, after checking facebook just one last time.
This goes beyond generations.
Technology, especially the widespread technologies like smartphones are something that just happened upon most people.
So most people haven't adapted on how to use them responsibly. Just look around the average cafe, you can usually find a group of people sitting together but not talking about anything, they just look at their phones.
This also seems to reveal an underlying issue, one which I also experienced. Before smartphones usually, you'd make up conversation, smalltalk, even if you didn't want to talk or had anything interesting to say. These days instead of doing that people just seem to ignore each other and do something that is interesting, using their phones.
> However, one mum pointed out that her teenagers were just as bad, often choosing their phone over family time.
Fight fire with fire, that's what I say. My kid is crying? I cry right back!
I was definitely addicted to my phone right around the last election cycle. Podcasts, reddit politics threads, other social media, websites, you name it. Luckily, its an easy habit to kick. I use timers and a tracking app on my phone to monitor pickups and screen time spent. I try to hit 12 hours between opening any social media apps, 6 hours between opening any news apps etc. I've managed to get it down to under an hour a day.
Perfect time to quote one of my two 'must have parenting books', The Collapse of Parenting.
"To become a better parent, one must become a better person."
Hardly anyone has mentioned that there are plenty of families that do, or did, the same thing with the television. Endless vaguely engaging wallpaper.
One of the subplots of Fahrenheit 451 (published 1953) is that houses would get wraparound screens with a virtual Family on them that people would engage with more than the real family.
We have a rule of no phones at the table. Unless it is for a purpose - while in the middle of conversation if there is a question we can't answer we will check the phone. ("what does a giraffe sound like?" "what does the gallbladder do?")
Otherwise, yes I will use my phone while the children are in the park in the sandpit or playing around. If I was helicoptering over them all the time, they wouldn't explore the climbing frames alone - and i do keep an eye in case they fall but want them to have the confidence to do it alone
and they see how the phone can be useful - want an expensive toy in the shop? let's check the phone and see if we can find it cheaper... - are we lost? let's learn to use a map... - how do you say x or y in a foreign language?
so, let's stop the mum (mom) guilt...
I solved this problem by giving my two year old my old phone. She doesn't complain and I get to use my phone in peace. She calls me out when I'm trying to use the phone and she wants attention.
And in case anyone is wondering, her vocabulary soared after we started letting her use the phone, and most people comment on how advanced her language skills are, so anecdotally the phone seems to be helping her not hurting her, despite all the objections we get when they see my toddler using a phone.
> "Wow. Out of the mouths of babes! We are all guilty!" responded one user, Tracy Jenkins.
Not true, Tracy.
Some people - not just children - have long ago identified the addiction and moved to avoid it.
Yesterday I was leaving a grocery store at the same time as another customer who had 3 kids with her. I got into my car and noticed the family getting into the car next to mine.. being a polite guy I kinda waited a bit for them to pack in to the car and also to wait for them to drive off. After about 3 minutes I was still waiting but being polite wasn't watching closely. Finally I had to see why they were taking so much time. The 3 kids were just sitting in the back seat quietly and the mother was just messing around on her phone. soo this is a thing.
The question was "what invention do you wish had never been created?"
This is not a very nice question for second grade - something is generally described as an invention if it solves a problem, so second graders are unlikely to have a realistic sense of how inventions could be bad.
The phone is the most visible "invention" to second graders and I find it more surprising that only 4 out of 21 said it - any reasonable answer to the question is likely to viral around the classroom.
A smartphone isn't an activity; it's a virtual place where activities happen. Kids (and, apparently, opinion-piece writers) don't usually understand this.
"My mom is on her phone too much!" could actually mean any/all of:
• my mom is a workaholic
• my mom is always chatting with her friends she had to move away from to give me a better place to live
• my mom is flirting on Tinder with my stepfather-to-be
• my mom is tired from work and zones out watching Youtube videos
• my mom is "addicted" to knowing what celebrities are up to so she has water-cooler conversation to share
• my mom is in a self-perpetuating fear spiral, feeding herself every horrible news story she can find even though she hates the feeling of reading them, and should probably see a therapist
• my mom is addicted to showing off on Facebook
• my mom likes reading books
Every one of these activities existed before smartphones; they just occurred in different places/formats.
You'd buy tabloids for the celebrity news; you'd watch the nightly news on cable; you'd flirt in bars; you'd travel to visit friends, or have long, nightly telephone calls with them; and you'd keep up with the real Joneses next-door instead of keeping up with the virtual Joneses on Facebook. And you'd be a workaholic by always being at the office, rather than by being home but inattentive.
My 8 year old cousins are crazy about taking my phone to play games on whenever they come to visit; I literally have to hide it from them. Maybe the kids mentioned in the article were a bit younger (and perhaps their parents are a fair bit younger, with different phone use habits to my uncle, who is in his mid 40s)
My child learned to say "put your phone down daddy!" from Sesame Street when she was just 4 years old.
Strange that the BBC quote says 'mum' but the original piece uses 'mom'
> However, one mum pointed out that her teenagers were just as bad, often choosing their phone over family time.
What a stupid comment. She's basically excusing her own behaviour because her teenagers do it.
Kids don't need constant attention.
How about dad's phone?
/r/thatHappened
Once you’ve juggled a hard career with parenthood, it’s very hard to judge others.
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This is hard. Children can be incredibly boring. I love my kids immensely and they are definitely fascinating at times. But there are games they want to play that literally put me to sleep. Or sometimes my daughter will take 15 minutes to brush her teeth. Should I just stare day after day, week after week? It's BORING. Right now my kid is taking the longest dump and I'm waiting outside of the bathroom. What should I be doing?