Our teenager has a phone we found that is a locked down Android, and has no internet (no wifi or 4g/5g). It is just a phone, with multimedia text, and non-network enabled calendar, clock. There is no app store.

My daughter is autistic. Our problems with the phone has more to do with her feeling like we are cutting her off of connecting with people she clings to, triggering some childhood history. I have no idea what will happen when our neurotypical son becomes a teenager.

There is much more to life than just what are on devices, and I have a general idea on how to approach this. I have been studying, and to some extent, applying regenerative paradigms. A good deal of that will involve the kids into the natural cycle of life. To viscerally experience where their food comes from, and where it goes. How to connect with another living being as a whole being in an ecosystem and community, whether that being is a human, animal, or plant. I am going to teach them the ethical framework, “care for people”, “care for land”, “fair share”.

Technology, then, is thoughtfully applied within that context.

What that means, I am still discovering for myself. But I have already made some progress on that —- what Christopher Alexander really meant by pattern languages and a timeless way of building; what Smalltalk and Hypercard had in common, why we had turned our back to it, and maybe it is time to use it; the philosophy of Free Software and how it is different than open source, and why it matters more than basic rights and liberty; how sandstorm.io enables community-oriented and local platforms.

It has not all gelled together for me yet, but I know something is there.

I'm not saying it's easy, i've had some epic battles with my kids in how they handle/navigate the complex social structures around technology in the palms of their hands - but i certainly don't think taking that away does anything and may be detrimental.

Society is all of us... There isn't a single one of us that didn't stay up all night reading a book, watching a movie, talking on the phone, writing a letter, sending "beeper" texts out, texting on smart beepers, getting on BBSs, connecting to internet, having phones, then text messages and so on and so forth. It's all connectedness and culture we've always had, but now more readily available.

Help your children navigate it, grow in it and thrive in it. Be there to keep it safe.

Yes, it's important for children to engage with culture, to read, to explore music but this shouldn't be used as an argument to justify everything that can be grouped in under 'connectedness'. It's interesting you put reading there first because that is actually a solitary activity. Today it's arguably much more important to teach kids how to engage with their own minds and how to spend time alone and build out their own personality and views than hooking them into Instagram feeds. Which is not social in any genuine sense of the word.

With that said, everything should be done in moderation. It's a skill important to know whether your socializing, or spending time alone.

The old school online forums were not designed to create such attention. Posts are made asynchronously. Absolute instead of relative timestamps are used.

There are purpose-designed social media software with UX designed to bring people to consensus rather than dissension. They have been used in highly contentious political debates and bring about policy consensus. But you cannot monetize that.

Maybe OP drinks alcohol but they don’t let their kids drink it.

Maybe they own firearms but they don’t let their kids wield them.

Maybe they watch movies with violence and gore but they don’t want their kids watching them.

etc.

There is a double standard, and there should be, imo.

As a teenager, I would have loathed being restricted from the internet the way the above poster describes restricting their autistic teenager's.

(in fact, on one occasion my mother did restrict my computer access because I wouldn't go to the guitar lessons she paid for me anymore, I did absolutely loathe it, and I still consider that mildly abusive)

These platforms have very little to teach, so it's not like there is useful tradeoff being made in any case. It's simply an often toxic form of entertainment, worse than television imho.

Do you think being on Facebook, et al is a proper course in these subjects? How did you learn about them in the days before social media? The idea that corporate surveillance and conditioning is somehow required for growing up is silly and dangerous to the kids themselves.

I was on irc throughout my early teens.

I suggest watching the Social Dillema on Netflix for an idea. Here's a decent article I recently read on the subject, though there are probably better ones: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lonely-burden-of-todays-tee...

Perhaps my argument is not clear enough, but it feels like we are not arguing the same point. I have no problem with technology, simply that kids should not be the product. There are plenty of higher-quality alternatives, just like there are alternatives to broadcast television and McDonalds.

Everyone uses the internet.

The fantasy world is also the one that the likes of Facebook want to lead us to.

To know that there are opportunities to socialize and grow my friendships, and those opportunities are being intentionally and needlessly withheld from me as some kind of "character growth" would evoke a kind of primal rage that would have caused me permanent harm as a child.

I'm extremely grateful my parents saw the value of learning how to build and maintain relationships, and I wouldn't dream of taking that away from my children, or any other children I somehow had supervision over.

At first, they fought me... and it was a dumb battle for battles sake. My parents never bothered to understand anything I did and generally just gave up and let me do whatever...

Turns out, they were in the midsts of a relationship failure and there was no time for the kids, so they let me have at the computer...

BUT... It worked :) I taught myself programming, operating systems, I ran a BBS that was the first BBS in texas to offer Linux downloads, I got published in books/magazines/journals talking/writing about OS/2, Linux and DESQview.

In the end, I never went to school, my parents relationship was still crap but I made friends, found my wife and still work online to this day..

My kids are 13 and 17 and its new battles... but i just think back and remember where I started - I try and fill in the gaps of just "Caring" in general and just "wanting a relationship" with my kids in general - and i do that in lieu of trying to prohibit something that is already pervasive in their lives.

Yes, I run firewalls, safety, anti-virus, family-safety, yes there are some things blocked - yes their phones have family safety too but mostly to do what I can to protect them from maliciousness.

The last battle any parent can or should fight is the battles of pop culture, society and social interactions... espeially a year+ into a pandemic.

we had to re-think the whole grounding from devices during pandemic because that was suicide to a teen... and in doing so - it sparked conversations we weren't having and made me realize i was just following in the same ignorant foot steps as my parents.

Kids will get burner devices if they're grounded, they will jailbreak/root phones/devices to bypass controls, they will buy sims at 7/11 to get around time/restrictions - they may find a drawer of old devices and keep one alive for tethering and many other things - lock down their PC? they will install bluestacks and have unlimited android environment...

It's crazy

But damn, if they're doing all that effort and learning/collaborating on all that - they're getting skills that i find many adults still lack

This brought to mind: Years ago when I was a teen, my mom grounded me and took my desktop away for quite a while, which was like a death sentence even back then. Given that it was an oversized cube case and there really wasn't anywhere to lock it away, I would always just grab it after school and keep using it until she got home. Problem is, she put the computer next to the door so I had to resort to locking the second lock to give myself time to put it back when she got home. I didn't think about it at the time but I. was being blatantly obvious and she clued me in years later that she knew what I was doing from the beginning.

Punishments don't have to be all or nothing, they can be like locks: they won't stop the determined, but they will stop the opportunists. The punishment is the inconvenience of the workaround and often has the added benefit that enforcement requires spending more time with them. </parenting "advice" from a coddled nonparent>

Parents who impose "grounding" on children tend to impose sanctions that last far too long. Children have a poorly developed pre-frontal cortex so very short groundings (ten minutes, an hour for most severe things) is more effective that longer groundings.

I was 10 back then. Both my parents were in academia and wouldn't just let me play all the time, but at some point they gave up.

Later, I played Civilization for so many hours and through the night that once I fell asleep my dreams were filled with hexagons.

Then there was Tetris. Oh, and, Wolfenstein, and the all legendary Age of Empires!

And, here I am, 25 years later, and I am doing just fine. I am healthy, mentally stable and don't care about any computer game no more (ok, I am addicted to HN but that's a different story...).

I now wonder what society will look like in 20-30 years.

By life skills I mean things like creativity, being able to work out things on their own, in person interpersonal skills, grit, etc.

I too share some concerns as a parent of 1 and expecting 2nd soon, but I don't mind accepting that I have no clue what kind of world our kids will live in. I might be out of touch with it in similar way current old generations are from phones and internet. It could also be that shielding kids from it at all costs because we think we know what's best for them might be a significant harm for them later in life.

Some things will disappear, some will get different and/or better, and new ones will come. Fine by me. I just wish it wasn't Facebook, a company with crystal clear amoral values through and through. Anytime Facebook wins, mankind loses in long term. But that might be just me getting already out of touch with current reality out there.

We'll see how this plays out, though. I think some aspects are constructive. The growing content creation community seems to be a Good Thing. The even faster growing content creation consumption community, doesn't seem to be. Personally speaking, I've found myself at an expert at a ton of things, but haven't actually done any of those things.

Additionally - I don't know if it really is an irrelevant factor for the future. This is a flu variant that could continue to mutate and cause havoc if governments act irresponsibly or if a particularly large segment of the population continues to resist vaccination and mask wearing while being egged on by idiots on TV. Lastly, global habitat destruction increases the chances we discover fun new world ending diseases, hopefully we won't see another one for decades, but it's unlikely that we'll be spared another global pandemic for the next 100 years.

But here is something else I also know: the modern way in which kids develop through the teenage years is already screwed up, even without the internet, smart phones, and social media. It seems normal now because it is normative.

Exactly. So let's not make it worse by making children communicate through devices without even a flimsy justification.

I'm not sure if this is good or bad for my personal development. Though it did jumpstart my education in computer science and career as a software engineer.

Messenger kids has been great for my family, especially the times when we've had to self isolate and couldn't meet friends outside.