I agree that this is a bit "extra", but you obviously haven't experienced what it's like for someone to have a crippling addiction to their smartphone.
This dad feeling like he had to do something extreme is probably not ill-founded. Sometimes people have to pull out all the stops to accomplish something, especially when dealing with an addict (that's what interventions are). Staying at home could have worked, but much harder when you have to trust and rely on the son using his phone responsibly. The dad just avoided all the pitfalls by doing something extreme. Agreed that it's extra, but I think you're dismissing this hastily.
Exactly. I mean, go to a national or state park and you will likely be out of cell range.
Also - if that family had T-Mobile, likely they would have had free data coverage in Mongolia (perhaps not where they went).
https://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/roaming?icid=WMM_TM_U_18IN...
I remember it was hard to make friends with similar interest in school due to the secluded rural area. I couldn't fit in and I wasn't willing to (parenting might have eased here). I had "friends", everyone believed that and I did too but I didn't interact beyond the usual classes and was isolated emotionally. It was hard to open up and I resorted to online silos where I could talk freely and was emotionally rewarded. It was addicting because even if I had friends irl, I wasn't getting any reward from talking to them. My brain didn't register it. I didn't like them but I couldn't move places or have new friends somehow that were more aligned with my interest. It was an inevitable escape.
[1] Role of lifestyle in substance addiction
[2] Problems arising from smartphone addiction
[3] Alternate to blaming smartphones for addiction
[4] General overview and tips on smartphone addiction
1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4326198/
2) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6449671/
3) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.0014...
4) https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/reading-between-the-...
self plug) https://notably.cc/#/note?id=oz9fMjsOa
Edit: Tried to make links descriptive. No markdown for links :(
>"For a long time, he had dreamed of traveling across Mongolia on a bike. Now that his son was older, why not do it with him?"
The article even says that you do not have to go to Mongolia to do this.
>"You don't have to go all to the other side of the world just to bond with your children, says Caroline Knorr, the parenting editor for Common Sense Media, a non-profit organization that educates parents about media and technology."
Me neither. It's basically junk news, designed to soak up attention cycles. And keep us tapping for more, more, more.
That is to say: part of the same (broader) problem it is ostensibly decrying.
> "I had never before that experienced a weekend without my phone, essentially," Khobe told the BBC. "It was very weird for me."
I cannot take this article seriously at all. From the title, to the premise, to idea you have to go to Mongolia to get your kid to put down their phone and interact with you. You can go literally anywhere or nowhere (stay home) and have the exact same experience.
We can absolutely celebrate a father/son camping trip but the idea this is what parents have to do to pull their kids away from their phones is both false and clickbaity as hell.
> "When you're in a group of people and you're supposed to have social interaction time, but everyone's on their phone, that's when I've tried to change my habits," he says.
> "It's rude to not give people your undivided attention."
That's true, it is rude to not give people your undivided attention also if everyone in your "friend" group is on their phones the whole time and not paying attention then you might want to look for better friends...