I'm expecting a kiddo this winter and my use of devices+my likely future kid's relationship with tech has really been on my mind. The fact that people are thinking through this and actually working on it puts me slightly more at ease.

You probably won't have much to worry about until you have to decide whether screen time for your kid (at age 3-4) is a reasonable trade-off for you and your partner to have peaceful time to yourselves. Then it'll rear it's head again, after lulling you into complacency, when the kid is middle school age and all their friends have smartphones. Then you have to decide whether the convenience factor (for you) of your kid having a device is worth the trade-off of... them having a device.

Fwiw, my older two are 14 & 16 and we still use device control software on their phones and laptops. The younger of the two complains a bit periodically but the older one just accepts that it's the way it is and gets on with his life [most of the time].

I personally advise you not to let your young kid get into e-gaming. Things like Fortnite, Roblox and Minecraft are gateways to increased device usage, and the benefits are (again, imho) not remotely worth it nor irreplaceable by much healthier alternatives.

Fun tidbit: my 8yo has a Kindle Fire and we've let her have Netflix & Disney+ installed on it. She also uses the Kindle & Libby apps to read voraciously, and Khan Academy for math. When she watches streaming media, though, she frequently watches it on mute with subtitles. That shocked me to see, and I asked her about it. She's 100% cool with that and appreciate the "privacy" of being able to watch things without other people meddling in her business. Shrug.

Parents have always wanted time for themselves. There are Americans alive today who will tell you that they used to play outside from dusk to dawn and only saw their parents at dinner.

Banning a 16 year old from minecraft is so far beyond reasonable imo. I'd agree with not giving young kids ipads and walking away. But what sounds like a blanket ban on gaming is absurd.

Serious question (I don't have kids of my own): before smartphones and tablets and the ubiquity of laptops and computers, what did parents do to get some peaceful time to themselves?

It's hard to believe that parents were only able to achieve this during the past 15-20 years.

(When I was a kid in the 80s and 90s, I spent plenty of time outdoors with my friends in the neighborhood, and also inside, in front of my Nintendo, either with friends or without. Not sure how much peace my parents got, but I assume it was non-zero.)

What era are you talking about? Later than the 90s had computers and game consoles. Before that it was going outside and digging holes, throwing stones.

Same thing they do now: Get a nanny, ask the grandparents, playdates, ... Putting kids in front of a device is lazy, and unfortunately, most of us are lazy.

> When she watches streaming media, though, she frequently watches it on mute with subtitles. That shocked me to see, and I asked her about it. She's 100% cool with that and appreciate the "privacy" of being able to watch things without other people meddling in her business. Shrug.

I do this myself from time to time (and I do it more often if I didn't have bluetooth earbuds), that seems like a perfectly sensible thing to be concerned about.

California just got strict about this, too. I have found a dramatic increase in the amount of interpersonal talking that's happening in school as a result, which is great!

Australia banned phones in schools 1-2 years ago and it's been widely recognised as a huge success. I think banning social media like facebook/tiktok/etc for kids would be a huge benefit as well. Leaving just IM/group chats for kids to directly talk to each other without scrolling a feed of ragebait and ai slop.

YMMV. Passing a rule and enforcing the rule are not the same.

And just to show how (US) universal this idea is becoming, a Texas law banning cellphones went into effect at the start of the school year.

This happened at the same time a law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms would have went into effect but was temporarily blocked while it works it's way through the courts [0]

[Texas educators praise new school cellphone ban] https://www.texastribune.org/2025/09/10/texas-cell-phone-ban...

[0] https://apnews.com/article/ten-commandments-bill-texas-schoo...

> how (US) universal

I praise you for not defaulting to US-defaultism, which is quite common on HN, but this really seems to be universal. There are also regulations like this in Scandinavia, France, Germany is talking about it.

Europe + USA != universal

>> There is no need for a phone during the school day

I see you don't have kids yourself. You need to sync up with them when after-school plans change.

We got by just fine during the school day for decades (centuries?) before smartphones existed, and we can continue to do so without them.

Everybody else has a phone so the expectation is that they can do change of plans and you're supposed to know where your kid is.

Inane appeals to tradition are boring as fuck and completely useless. We should continue to circumcise infant males because we did it for decades (centuries?) and got by just fine! This says nothing about whether kids having access to cellphones is worthwhile and everything about how garbage your argument against them is.

what's wrong with circumcision?

What's wrong with genital mutilation of children? Really?

Sigh. Tell me, is "after-school" during the school day or after? Because I would argue that "after-school" is, you know, after school.

Yeah, being restricted by laws passed by random adults about what things you can and cannot do during school hours - such as being at school itself - is certainly characteristic of being a kid.

I don't think it's actually possible for a parent and community to safely and sanely raise a human child without some amount of coercion the kid doesn't want in the moment, so I don't advocate for this. Still, it is important to acknowledge that being coerced by people more powerful than you who think they know better than you do about what is good for you is unpleasant in and of itself, and society should try to minimize doing this to children to the extent possible.