Comment by czhu12
5 hours ago
I'm not a parent, but don't parents give their kids tablets all the time? The number of toddlers I've seen walking around with tablets glued to their faces makes me uncomfortable, but they're actually just ipads or android tablets. This product seems to me like just another tablet, with a slightly different build for kids.
I'd guess any parent who is already planning on giving their kid a tablet would get this but any parent who is against it will not? I'm not sure this product in isolation increases the number of tablet viewing toddlers.
If you’re not a parent, you're probably only seeing children in places which are not designed with children in mind - places where there’s no place to run and play, and kids have to be quiet. In those places you have to pacify child somehow, a lot of parents use digital entertainment. If you go to child friendly places, you would see it much less.
Our child has maybe 1 hour of tv a week, but if someone sees them only on a plane, they would guess it’s an iPad kid.
Another big part of this is the lack of support structures. As a family we need to get things done, toddlers often prevent that. When there's no grandparent who is able to be there and help watch the kids, what really is the alternative?
Books? Coloring in? drawing? Audio books? Duplo? Magnatiles?
There are any number of alternatives that don’t involve a screen.
2 replies →
Honestly, when I was a kid I was dragged to a lot of places which were adult spaces with my parents and it'd be boring but I'd just have to deal with it. We shouldn't be conditioning kids that they should be kept entertained and distracted for every waking second of their day because it doesn't prepare them for the fact that sometimes in life, things will be boring.
I hugely agree with this, not so much because they need to tolerate boredom, but because I think there are huge benefits to observing things/watching the world go by, to daydreaming, and to simple activities.
> I'm not sure this product in isolation increases the number of tablet viewing toddlers.
Probably not, but it just adds another measure of normalization for something all the evidence suggests is insidiously harmful to the development of a young brain.
Yeah they do. Usually staring at Peppa Pig and crap like that. Take it away and they have a meltdown. It's awful.
Mine were never exposed to tablets and consumption based technology until they went to university when they were given an iPad and apple pencil. One science grad and one still studying at top tier universities, no cognitive issues or addiction. Their peers, not so much as since the advent of the iPad they were given an unrestricted device to stare at.