Love that.

DOSBOX & SNESEMU 4 life.

Nah, I grew up in the 90s and while we had video games and PC games, we also did a LOT of non video game activities.

Riding our bikes, sports, making shit in our parent’s garage, playing in a band, RISK board game nights, cinema, arcades, hanging out at the mall, rc cars.

I mean, there was almost no time to spend playing video games.

Today’s youth are missing a lot, and they are setting themselves up for a lifetime of mental health issues and the inability to be resilient through a lack of experiences.

My kids, fortunately, had at least part of their youth without a phone. I can’t imagine what disaster awaits kids who only know phones.

Right? Before that it was tv. Before that it was rock and roll. I was actually told to go outside more because I was READING TOO MUCH. Idk why everyone feels like their way of entertainment is better than everyone else’s. It’s so weird that we can’t let people enjoy themselves unless they do it our way.

Wow, this sounds really dystopian. You monitor the porn that your daughters are watching? Then you’re an absolute nut job and maybe you should be the one who should have their technology access regulated.

How old is she?

That might have been partially the intent, but you also don’t see many platforms for kids or teens these days either. When’s the last time that something like Club Penguin was around, rather than everyone having to share the same network/platform?

Yup Kojima 1000 years ahead of his time.

Honestly I think this is the way to go. You can only avoid it for so long. Rather than trying to stop them it’s probably more effective teaching them control and how to navigate this flood of potentially dangerous influences.

Our experience was that iPhone parental controls are broken beyond belief. They basically don’t work. Searching online I’m not the only one with that problem. Maybe it’s better on Android.

And what was the result? Did that work?

Coming from an era when nobody had phones, basically everyone got bullied anyway.

I didn’t have a phone until I was 16 despite most of my peers getting one around 12/13. I didn’t get bullied for not having a phone, in fact no one really made any comments on it other than an occasional “wow, I couldn’t live without my phone!”

Granted, this was over ten years ago, and was probably the first generation of teenagers where cell phones were near-ubiquitous. I don’t know if kids nowadays would get bullied just for not having a phone, but it would severely limit their social interactions. Riding your bike and knocking at your friends’ doors randomly, or going to the mall and expecting you’ll find some people you know there, these are from a bygone era.

No doubt. I’ve only had girls at that age so didn’t want to generalise.

American Republicans seem pretty dumb to me, they probably were smarter as open minded children

That’s still on the parents. My little lad is 15 and never had his own phone until his tweens. Amusingly, he was older than me when I got my first phone back in the 90s.

He never got bullied for not having a phone.

I think if the kids want to bully, they’d just find a lonely and defenseless target and invent an excuse. If you are a potential target, having an expensive phone wouldn’t save you anyway.

Not just pressure to get a fancy phone but that most of the socializing happens on social media now. Even if they sit in the same class, it’s a snapchat message.

If they don’t have access to it, they’re social outcasts by default.

It’s fucking crazy…

Or you could say “and were shocked at the results”! It’s nice of you to highlight how people communicate differently even with a shared language, the world would be so boring if everyone was the same.

It’s important to note that a big part of that book is repeated evidence that Ender is not a “normal” child. He is heavily implied to have murdered one of his bullies before he was ever pulled out of society and into training (where he explicitly kills another bully).

It’s more of an American thing I think. A 20-year-old child, I’ve literally seen that phrase used. Mental.

They can live their childhood as they should do, focus on their learning and enjoy the real world without having to spend their life scrolling, which we all know is not good for them

Older people forget that the norm of childhood has changed. And assume that children should do the same things they did instead of learning how to moderate what they do

Sounds sort of like those virginity contracts.

Is it that important? All technology gets better to the point of it just working, and when it rarely doesn’t, you contact someone who does. My grandfather could build cars from parts alone. My father could do most maintenance repairs and knew enough to understand what the mechanic was telling him. I know what video games and entertainment have told me about cars, but have no clue about it in real life. It hasn’t mattered. Cars are so reliable, I can just have AAA if I get in a bind.

I think hoops and sticks were big for a while

I think many worked. On the farm, in mines, in factories. Farmers would intentionally have many children just for extra labor. School hours and breaks are, in part, the way they are to let children work on the farm.

The last thing you want in your neighborhood is a bunch of bored teenagers.

You forgot about angry mothers. They are scarier. That’s why youtube isn’t banned in russia yet.

Even back when I was 9 and playground near my home was replaced with plastic shit for toddlers I knew it was plastic shit for toddlers. On the other side there was stuff for training though. Still nothing for 10-30 or not physically fit.

what fun and stupid shit?

I was with you until the “construction site and under the bridge” bit. It definitely takes a bit of imagination, but I’m not sure not wanting your kids to play on a site which requires the use of hard hats classifies as being “anxious”

Under the bridge is where the junkies hang out and you’re a shit patent if you want your kids messing around construction sites lmao

In most US states kids under 18 can’t be held to a contract so nobody would give one to them anyway.

Who says you even need cellular service? It’s just a different type of radio signal, VoIP has existed for years. If you even need a phone number. Every app under the sun has a calling feature now, but most people don’t use phone for calling anymore. Wifi is everywhere so cell signal is not as critical these days.

School lunches

What should have been a tool was designed to be a trap, because greed.

That would be TV

“I’m good at multitasking” is just another way of saying you can’t focus on one thing at a 🐿️ SQUIRREL!

Can’t upvote this enough, I have had ppl literally bragging to me about their ability to “multi-task” 🙄

Multi-tasking should rightly be called “context switching”. Your brain is alternating its focus between two things in extremely quick succession.

Its pretty funny how people will take a single low-population college paper over the evidence of their own experience.

I multitask daily, I have to it’s part of my job.

I have ADHD and have the opposite problem most of the time - I can’t keep myself on one thing.

What about the left brain right brain simultaneous use, like people drawing two pieces of art at once or like how I can walk and be on my phone while being completely aware of my surroundings.

Sometimes my brain is thinking in one space and my body is doing another. Like I hit auto pilot and stepped away from the cabin, yet the plane is still flying.

I don’t give a shit, don’t get them anything. Make them wear raggedy clothes and not use deodorant, I’m sure they will be fine

Fair.

Perhaps we can imagine a society where nobody had thought of banning handguns for children. But you can just not buy your own kid a handgun if it’s so important to you.

Instant gratification from unknown sources under the direction of a 9 year old is a serious problem and people like you who pretend its not are probably part of the generation damaged most by it.

Eh, I have to agree begrudgingly. I remember having this discussion with someone I know about mental health post smartphones. We came across a few studies tracking mental health of adolescents for the past few decades. To compensate for lack of data (due to lack of mental health awareness, yadayadayada), they tried to inductively predict this missing data using various factors. The interesting part however was the increase in mental health issues in the early 2010s. Now of course, while their data might be quite error prone, I think it makes sense logically.

1. More exposure to fked up world events (like Gaza, Ukraine, lack of climate action and so on) leads to one being depressed of course.
2. In my experience, faceless trolls are much worse than in person bullies.

So yeah, I do agree with you. The situation is not black and white. Unfortunately, the uncool boomers (sorry for the lame term,-I use it to not generalize all boomers) do not see it that way. Banning smartphones in schools is one of the stupidest things to do. Uncool boomers purely blame smartphones, and almost always engage dialog in bad faith. It’s mudslinging basically.

Now, if I present a nuanced opinion here, it won’t be considered at all. Essentially similar to the “leftist long paragraph” meme. Therefore, to combat this, mudslinging back is most effective. At least it drives home some idea (in this case, the idea of walkable city design). Is this bad faith? Yea, unfortunately. But does it make sense to try to have a good faith dialog with someone who doesn’t want to have one?

Criticizing the ruling class is extremely important to a functioning society. Baby Boomers are largely the ones in power around the world. The largest voting bases of all conservative movements are baby boomers. I wouldn’t mind if the generations that follow criticize us for stuff. That’s just how stuff works.

Few years ago when I played with kids outside in minecraft on phones.

I grew up in the 90s and my entire childhood neighborhood is concrete now. The overgrown wash where we built forts is gone. The desert surrounding the area? Gone. It’s just roads, shitty apartment buildings, and cement for miles. Maybe it didn’t change for you but my kids could never grow up the same way that I did there. Most of the more wild areas are gone. Banished to the outskirts of town now. Hell, we don’t even really have sidewalks and hardly anything is walkable due to traffic. It has everything to do with cars in plenty of places. There is literally nowhere for kids to be kids within walking distance of me now either.

People say many things. It doesn’t change the fact that the ruling class is largely boomers. Hence, addressing the most influential voting class doesn’t seem so absurd to me.

Like if you don’t want you child to use a smartphone - just don’t buy one for them.

Youtube never asked for my ID (I’m in the EU). Which country is this?

You did the right thing. If it was the 1900s and everyone else was to give their child cigarettes, they might get bullied for having no cigarettes, but you know what is best and you stuck with it

Kids can be real shitheads sometimes

What I mean is that it might not be so simple as not giving them access to it if other institutions persist in forcing it on them.

Depends on what you call “budget phone”. If the criteria is the same as today (sub 300-200 USD) then there are loads of smartphone options.

Here are a bunch of decade old phones that were around 150 USD. newatlas.com/best-budget-smartphones-2014/33367/

If you want a cheap non smartphone phone then you could just buy a dirt cheap new one if you wanted.