If I ever have kids, there's no way in hell I'm letting them run free with an iPad or iPhone. I know it's the "easy way out" to distract your kids at the dinner table, but I can't help but feel like it's bad for their mental development. Then again, I was part of the first generation that grew up with the modern internet and am decently well adjusted despite being exposed to weird content at a young age. Hm.

I'm not saying you wouldn't make boundaries. Boundaries are important. But that may also include a certain amount of time of letting the child "run free" with the iPad.

But turning the TV off (mobile isn't allowed) usually results in solo play with toys. It took a bit of coaxing but now when sitting down, we agree how many episodes will be watched before the screen goes dark.

All it takes is one asshole (Or good Samaritan) to give the latter a call, and you'll have a lot of explaining to do. And heaven help you if either group finds a joint in your home.

Nobody's gonna call Child Protection Services on you when the kids are at home with the iPad.

When I was 12 I yelled a friends name while walking out the door, and was expected to be back by dinner. If I wasn't the best thing my parents could do was to call my friends parents (homes) and ask if I was there.

I had one family tell me they learned about five finger swipes from their 1 year old daughter.

My 4 year old is just now learning to use a mouse, but she's been at a touchscreen for over 3 years.

She was used to iPads, but one day I gave her my Android tablet. She was upset at first because things are slightly different, but adjusted quickly. I was shocked at how fast she picked it up.

When these are adapted for cartoons by Disney and others they are usually greatly sanitized. A parent who remembers those adaptations and thinks that is what they are getting when they get the original book versions is in for a surprise.

They are full of stories of people who are cruel and who cheat and abuse the weak and innocent, and in the end...that works out great for them and they get everything they wanted.

But that doesn't mean these things need to be part of your kids home, work, or play routine. Even kids in nice areas around the bay area aren't about to suddenly bring home an iPad or iPhone without their parents notice. Kids will beg, but they will also learn to stop begging; they will learn that their family just does things differently.

I've seen plenty of parents choose NOT to buy their kids a major computing device until junior high age, and prior to then making them go through the inconvenience of typing on their parents computer.

It doesn't screw them up. It doesn't make them socially weird. It doesn't make them technologically aversive later, and it doesn't stunt their enthusiasm for play.

If you want to give your kids unsupervised play, because you need some personal or work time, what's wrong with biking around the city with friends?

I think there's some way involving a Google account but it's not obvious.

I used it differently back then too. I opened a browser with what I wanted in mind, I found it, then I closed the browser and did something else. There was never this mindless wandering or idle talking, just fetching pdfs and saving html tutorials and downloading compilers. Maybe I've romanticized it though...

But modern social media sites are something different entirely, and they've likely given their users a 30 second attention span or worse.

Sounds a lot like the Cartoon Network I was addicted to as a kid. When I watch some of those cartoons and understand the subtextual jokes ... damn that shit was pervy and weird.

As a kid I had no idea. Didn't even notice, I just liked it when the Coyote got flattened, Dexter's experiment blew up, and Jerry hit Tom with a baseball bat.

"Is captainsparkles child-friendly?" or "child friendly youtubers" into google will return lists saying yes, captainsparkles is child friendly. He's employed by MakerStudios, which is owned by Disney.

Seems pretty solidly okay for children.

Except, when he plays with other people, they'll start swearing.

So, you have to prescreen everything, or have the discussion about language, or just not care about language. (Even if you don't care if your 6 year old says "fuck" I can pretty much guarantee that schools and other parents see it as a problem.)

In some way my daughter must have learned just enough words and sentences to be able to communicate more or less right away. The teachers found this fascinating and asked us if we were teaching her or even talking English at home - which we don't. In fact we had no idea what they were talking about.

Anyway, she seems to understand quite much. I have absolutely no idea where this comes from - the only thing I can think of is that it's because of YouTube.

Not that she spends hours and hours, but since she more or less never watches TV I haven't been bothered that much if she get stuck in front of a tablet for a while.

That being said, I try to be aware of what she's watching because there is some weird stuff out there although I don't exactly think that Spidey kissing is harmful.

TV for children is very restricted and regulated for a very important reason.

If anything it's people with problems that tend to search for such things rather than such videos causing something.

Somehow they failed to be horribly scarred by it.

https://medium.com/the-ferenstein-wire/the-birth-and-death-o...

Over the centuries it's been sanitized and Disneyfied, but the primal drives that fascinated by that sort of thing have not gone away.

Also half todays cartoons would not pass neither comic code nor restrictions at early movies.

In the US, there was no comic code or movie censorship, but there was things like Comstock laws. Would Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" raise many eyebrows today? It did in the 1850s-60s. (http://www.unm.edu/~unmvclib/handouts/bannedboston.pdf)

It is true that Grimm's tales were at first meant to be more of an educational archive of folklore that otherwise would have been lost. (https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2015/marchapril/feature/how-t...) However, apparently, it was found after publishing that the stories appealed to parents and children. So between the first and seventh edition, apparently the stories were made "more appropriate" for children of that era. (https://books.google.com/books?id=6gX-hNshMJEC&lpg=PR39&dq=M...) In those times, that more meant getting rid of any bawdy humor and any references to sex (violence to a "morally correct" end was okay though).

Culture changes; it seems like nowadays, some degree of bawdy humor is okay in children's entertainment. However, I've seen many articles wondering if the Grimm tales are too scary for kids.

The comic code and movies are simply two additional examples of historical censorship.

It is pretty much impossible to defend comic code as written, even ignoring the argument that adults should be able to read horror stories (including those grittier then Game of Thrones) if they like them. Comic code was simply a reaction of people unable to suddenly process that many have different preferences then them.

Try watching disturbing violence (war images/videos for example) for a while yourself. Empathic response will blunt itself within a week or two.

But I'm weird and think that it's far better to let children see sex than even regular hollywood violence, and that things like US military recruitment ads and ISIS recruitment videos should be treated identically (restricted behind a warning that they're not for kids). The normalization of violence is a terrible thing.

Trouble with children is that they may not yet have the moral compass for lack of a better phrase. I would find it important to talk to the child and ask him what he's thinking about the videos, and make sure he understands that the behavior in the videos is horrible, ends the life of another person, what that means, etc. I'd also make sure the child would not get trapped in some cycle of feeling guilty for simply watching some videos and having/not having whatever reactions to it.

Not a great source though.

I'm not sure what kind of parent would let their kids watch stuff like this but it's pretty shocking to see that this stuff is even marketed as "for children". The only "for children" things I've seen on Youtube are pretty innocent animated shorts (lots of nursery rhymes too). But I guess the algorithm will show you what it thinks you like.