Any PC game that is age appropriate gets a pass, but only if it's evening and we're inside already, or if it's really shitty outside.

As a non-tech person, the one thing I haven't been able to figure out is how to encourage 'tinkering' in an active way. So much technology today is meant to be set and forget. I had my oldest build a linux pc last year, and that seemed to pique his interest, but it was short lived, because so much is just apps and consumption with no backend. Even age appropriate apps for programming and learning about that sort of thing are very boxed in.

Let me know if you ever figure out - I feel I'll be facing the same problem in the next few years.

From my tech person perspective, I agree with your summary: advances in computer tech and consumer product design have done away with tinkering: where it isn't actively discouraged, it's still hard and doesn't seem that fun anymore.

Yes, people will bring up BBC Micro and those 8-bit handheld boards and Arduinos - but the truth is, even if they replicate the experience of 20-30 years ago somewhat, a big part of the motivation (to me) was knowing you're doing something unique, that you can't just trivially buy a ready-made product that does the same thing but much better.

I feel you can't get people to "tinker" in general - this happens when they have a goal and tinkering is the best way to achieve it. For me as a kid, this was building model rockets and writing video games - it's what got me to do electronics and programming. Without such goals, I wouldn't sustain my interest in learning and playing with these things.

And I honestly question if my children should waste their life on things instead of people.

Most of that came from the fact that I didn't have a lot of the stuff others had - no cable TV, outdated computer, etc. Thus the tinkering came out of necessity and over time I started to like it. That stuff broke constantly and I remember searching for troubleshooting info on school computers to bring home and try.

I did have the Internet though, and soon began exploring Linux, finding ways to make the computer faster, learning to repair secondhand equipment, and so forth. Not having easily accessible entertainment also had the bonus of getting me into other hobbies like writing, drawing, and music which I still do today. The more you do these things, the more you like them - and the satisfaction of making or fixing something is always greater than mindless consumption.

And before you ask - yes, my social life suffered a bit as I couldn't play the games others played, talk about the shows they watched, etc. I knew many other kids who were "good" with tech, but they didn't really have the motivation to tinker as they could easily buy stuff that just worked.

Good, then you can teach them to subvert you productively. Keep the tablet locked down, but put an unlocked Linux machine in the house and tell them they can watch whatever they want in Firefox. Once they've done that, make them launch Firefox from the command line. Once that's mastered, make them connect to the wifi manually. Then make them start the DE manually. Then make them configure the router to get online. Then disassemble the PC and force them to put it together. Better to learn computer literacy skills in the process than just be a drooling, gormless consumer.

> [My kid] I could only catch the last half hour, it took a little longer than I thought to solder all the components on the TV's motherboard before I could turn it on again. The real issue is getting the forge hot enough to heat up the screwdriver I use as a soldering iron...

Our household has pretty simple rules. Keep your grades high (straight A's, one B allowed) and kid can have as much screen time as she wants. Grades drop, and entertainment (including the dreaded screens) proportionately goes away until they come back up. That's it. We've had to limit her once, and she got the message and course corrected.

It didn’t take a lot of My Little Pony before my child’s accent whet from that of a New Zealand child to whatever the accent is that the horses have (Texan?).

I think there is a big difference in the devices and content of yesteryear and the magic phones filled with an unlimited library of today. Eventually the cartoons would end and we would emerge bleary-eyed into the daylight.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is a quantitative difference in the life outcomes between kids who were given firm boundaries by their parents and kids whose parents just gave up and let them watch any old shit. We are running this experiment on live humans, so time will tell.

above all, I would try explaining how media sites try to capture your attention and helping kids recognize when it's happening. easier said than done of course.