Screens Are Bad for Young Brains(parentology.com)
parentology.com
Screens Are Bad for Young Brains
https://parentology.com/its-official-screens-are-bad-for-young-brains/
226 comments
You seem to have a serious grudge about breast feeding vs. formula. I am sorry that was so traumatic for you. But it seems to me that this is much more to do with “new (yuppie) parent culture” than with the medical establishment or research community.
Having spent a bunch of time around new parents, my observation is that most of them are way too hyped up about trivial threats. If a breast-feeding mother drinks a glass of wine once every few days the risk to the baby is trivial. If the baby sleeps in the same bed with the mother the risk to the baby is trivial, unless the mother is an a severe alcoholic or high on drugs. If the baby plays with many types of toys marked “ages 3+” while the parents are sitting watching, the risk to the baby is trivial. If the baby climbs up on a play structure marked “ages 4–7” while the parents are standing watching, the risk of permanent injury is trivial. If a 2-year-old walks around barefoot on the sidewalk, the risks are trivial. Etc.
The same kind of tendencies bring us the anti-vax movement, a rush to sanitize all surfaces in the home, excessive fears about kidnapping, theatrical demonstrations of disgust near smokers outside on the sidewalk, and so on.
New parents’ (and people’s in our society more generally) risk assessment and concept of hygiene is excessively black–and–white.
But this is not the fault of “modern medicine”.
Having spent a bunch of time around new parents, my observation is that most of them are way too hyped up about trivial threats. If a breast-feeding mother drinks a glass of wine once every few days the risk to the baby is trivial. If the baby sleeps in the same bed with the mother the risk to the baby is trivial, unless the mother is an a severe alcoholic or high on drugs. If the baby plays with many types of toys marked “ages 3+” while the parents are sitting watching, the risk to the baby is trivial. If the baby climbs up on a play structure marked “ages 4–7” while the parents are standing watching, the risk of permanent injury is trivial. If a 2-year-old walks around barefoot on the sidewalk, the risks are trivial. Etc.
The same kind of tendencies bring us the anti-vax movement, a rush to sanitize all surfaces in the home, excessive fears about kidnapping, theatrical demonstrations of disgust near smokers outside on the sidewalk, and so on.
New parents’ (and people’s in our society more generally) risk assessment and concept of hygiene is excessively black–and–white.
But this is not the fault of “modern medicine”.
It’s most definitely the medical establishment.
There are similar issues with the “back to sleep” campaign - the risk of SIDS apparently is indeed Slightly lower for babies sleeping on their back, but it is only very slightly lower, and some babies will not sleep on their back unless they are exhausted which causes other non trivial issues. If you actually look into the “back to sleep” study data, it is much, much weaker than proponents imply it is.
And yet, every nurse in the hospital kept telling us with religious fervor to not even think of letting the baby fall asleep on their stomach. I was so impressed that I was sure the evidence was overwhelming. But after a week with a hardly sleeping newborn (relatively speaking), I decided to look into it myself. You should to, rather than trust the “experts”. (Or a random internet post like mine, for that matter)
There are similar issues with the “back to sleep” campaign - the risk of SIDS apparently is indeed Slightly lower for babies sleeping on their back, but it is only very slightly lower, and some babies will not sleep on their back unless they are exhausted which causes other non trivial issues. If you actually look into the “back to sleep” study data, it is much, much weaker than proponents imply it is.
And yet, every nurse in the hospital kept telling us with religious fervor to not even think of letting the baby fall asleep on their stomach. I was so impressed that I was sure the evidence was overwhelming. But after a week with a hardly sleeping newborn (relatively speaking), I decided to look into it myself. You should to, rather than trust the “experts”. (Or a random internet post like mine, for that matter)
I went and looked at a few studies. I did not find the same weakness of evidence that you described. E.g. [1] seems decently strong, to take just one example, although I'd be happy to be shown my error. I do agree that folks should examine the research for themselves, since it's so easy to do once you get practice. I also agree that the research on screen time is extraordinarily weak, and that there isn't really a good reason it has a causal negative impact on children as yet.
[1]: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199308053290601
[1]: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199308053290601
Can't find my old notes, but found this graph on a quick google: https://www.cdc.gov/sids/data.htm
Note the decline in SIDS rate, which starts in 1988 (see e.g. https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/105/3/650 ), before the recommendation (1992) and "back to sleep" campaign (1994) and though it does track the decline of belly sleeping position, I found in the past graphs of belly sleeping from before 1986 in which it was essentially uncorrelated (or even inverse correlated, if you go back enough - but I don't trust that data).
But what's more alarming, is that although there is a continuing decline in SIDS, if you look at the combined SUID (Sudden Unexpected Infant Death) rate, it is essentially flat since 1996 (following a decline from 1990 as visible in the CDC graph, and which goes much farther IIRC). As a data scientist, this hints either (a) change of classification system that was not properly noted, or (b) that there's an underlying reason which causes infant death, which may manifest in different ways depending e.g. on whether the infant sleeps on their belly or their back.
As a new parent, this was terrifying (is anything really ever safe?) but also reassuring (the expert advice might technically be true, but seems to be useless).
I've found this over and over in many other cases - e.g., statins seem to reduce the change of a heart attack, but do nothing for (or even slightly increase) all cause mortality. Also financial advisers give advice which is technically correct but often useless.
Experts rarely qualify the limits of their advice, and that goes double when it is delivered 2nd hand (by nurses or even doctors who never bothered to look at the data but just parrot the official recommendations).
Note the decline in SIDS rate, which starts in 1988 (see e.g. https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/105/3/650 ), before the recommendation (1992) and "back to sleep" campaign (1994) and though it does track the decline of belly sleeping position, I found in the past graphs of belly sleeping from before 1986 in which it was essentially uncorrelated (or even inverse correlated, if you go back enough - but I don't trust that data).
But what's more alarming, is that although there is a continuing decline in SIDS, if you look at the combined SUID (Sudden Unexpected Infant Death) rate, it is essentially flat since 1996 (following a decline from 1990 as visible in the CDC graph, and which goes much farther IIRC). As a data scientist, this hints either (a) change of classification system that was not properly noted, or (b) that there's an underlying reason which causes infant death, which may manifest in different ways depending e.g. on whether the infant sleeps on their belly or their back.
As a new parent, this was terrifying (is anything really ever safe?) but also reassuring (the expert advice might technically be true, but seems to be useless).
I've found this over and over in many other cases - e.g., statins seem to reduce the change of a heart attack, but do nothing for (or even slightly increase) all cause mortality. Also financial advisers give advice which is technically correct but often useless.
Experts rarely qualify the limits of their advice, and that goes double when it is delivered 2nd hand (by nurses or even doctors who never bothered to look at the data but just parrot the official recommendations).
> As a data scientist, this hints either (a) change of classification system that was not properly noted, or (b) that there's an underlying reason which causes infant death, which may manifest in different ways depending e.g. on whether the infant sleeps on their belly or their back.
As a data scientist, you should really consider more than these two causes. For example, perhaps some other cause of infant deaths was rising during that same period. Or, perhaps there is a change in classification, AND there has been a saturation point reached in terms of how the existing public health initiatives can affect population behaviors. You really just cannot reason from coarse, population level death rates like this to a specific condition or cause.
Also: https://www.cdc.gov/sids/data.htm
The graph on that site very clearly shows that most of offsetting increase is caused by strangulation and suffocation, not an actual unexplained cause. It appears to be mostly a change in classification.
Finally, I really want to point out that we should not expect that a public information campaign would decrease SIDS rates to zero. After all, we can see in this thread that there are still plenty of parents who put their babies to sleep on their tummies. As far as most people know, the data could show that SIDS is 100% caused by prone sleeping and people would still doubt the evidence and put their child to sleep prone. SIDS rates would still not drop to zero, and that would not be evidence against the hypothetical cause.
As a data scientist, you should really consider more than these two causes. For example, perhaps some other cause of infant deaths was rising during that same period. Or, perhaps there is a change in classification, AND there has been a saturation point reached in terms of how the existing public health initiatives can affect population behaviors. You really just cannot reason from coarse, population level death rates like this to a specific condition or cause.
Also: https://www.cdc.gov/sids/data.htm
The graph on that site very clearly shows that most of offsetting increase is caused by strangulation and suffocation, not an actual unexplained cause. It appears to be mostly a change in classification.
Finally, I really want to point out that we should not expect that a public information campaign would decrease SIDS rates to zero. After all, we can see in this thread that there are still plenty of parents who put their babies to sleep on their tummies. As far as most people know, the data could show that SIDS is 100% caused by prone sleeping and people would still doubt the evidence and put their child to sleep prone. SIDS rates would still not drop to zero, and that would not be evidence against the hypothetical cause.
I did consider more, and I looked much more deeply into it, as I mentioned though that was 10 years ago. Everything about the available data was weird - e.g. Mom’s education level came up in several studies as the strongest predictor inversely correlated with SIDS (but irrelevant in others) - controlled for the usual confounders of that input (smoking, salary, marital and spousal status, mother’s age).
And I started with saying that my conclusion was that it is likely safer for babies to sleep on their back from the SIDD/SUID perspective, but the evidence didn’t seem as conclusive or overwhelming as I was led to believe.
The hospital staff made it sound like letting my baby sleep on their tummy is signing their death warrant.
Do note, also, that prevalence of back sleeping went from less than 30% to more than 80% over the period graphed. One should not expect compliance from such a campaign in general, but (as far as medical compliance goes) a very good one was achieved. New parents are perhaps the most compliant group.
I am unlikely to dig as deep into the data again, but my well supported (I believe) conclusion at the time was that, all-cause-infant-mortality-wise, the recommendation may be somewhat justified, but the strength, might and terror in which it is given is definitely not.
And I started with saying that my conclusion was that it is likely safer for babies to sleep on their back from the SIDD/SUID perspective, but the evidence didn’t seem as conclusive or overwhelming as I was led to believe.
The hospital staff made it sound like letting my baby sleep on their tummy is signing their death warrant.
Do note, also, that prevalence of back sleeping went from less than 30% to more than 80% over the period graphed. One should not expect compliance from such a campaign in general, but (as far as medical compliance goes) a very good one was achieved. New parents are perhaps the most compliant group.
I am unlikely to dig as deep into the data again, but my well supported (I believe) conclusion at the time was that, all-cause-infant-mortality-wise, the recommendation may be somewhat justified, but the strength, might and terror in which it is given is definitely not.
I am away from home on phone at this second, and likely have not kept my 10 year old notes, but from memory:
Strongest predictor of SIDS was mom’s education level, followed by whether or not she was smoking; stomach/back was third. It’s the strongest one that can (easily) be changed, but something is very fishy about the data.
Proponents point out the inverse correlation between sleeping on back and SIDS, starting at the time the recommendations were made, as proof that this is a causal relationship. However, inclusion of time prior to recommendation shows that SIDS is inverse correlated to time; and sleeping on back is positively correlated with time only after recommendations were made.
Also, it’s possible data in the last 10 years paints a different picture - but at the time, the case for causal “back to sleep” was very flimsy.
Strongest predictor of SIDS was mom’s education level, followed by whether or not she was smoking; stomach/back was third. It’s the strongest one that can (easily) be changed, but something is very fishy about the data.
Proponents point out the inverse correlation between sleeping on back and SIDS, starting at the time the recommendations were made, as proof that this is a causal relationship. However, inclusion of time prior to recommendation shows that SIDS is inverse correlated to time; and sleeping on back is positively correlated with time only after recommendations were made.
Also, it’s possible data in the last 10 years paints a different picture - but at the time, the case for causal “back to sleep” was very flimsy.
Fwiw the study I linked to is case controlled. It does not rely on the population timeseries you mentioned. I don't know the downfalls of case controlled trials, but they are not the same as population timeseries data I am certain.
I would be interested in seeing a data set for the risk of SIDS from cosleeping (even on the baby's back) vs. the risk of various other problems from indescribably exhausted parents and a baby who will scream bloody murder for hours and hours and hours and hours if you try to get them to sleep alone in a crib.
Also, not to be all hippie but would we not have evolved to want to be held as infants? What species just leaves its young to sleep without physical contact?
Also, not to be all hippie but would we not have evolved to want to be held as infants? What species just leaves its young to sleep without physical contact?
You won’t find it, likely. Also, on the recommendation against co-sleeping, I went looking for the actual data. What I found was not SIDS related, but deaths from being squashed, and quite a few of them. I managed to find a few case studies, and they all included a parent under the influence (alcohol mostly in cars I found) and obese parents.
Regardless of how true it is, the establishment cannot make a recommendation of the “Co sleeping is ok if you don’t drink, not overweight, and a light sleeper” kind, as many of the people in those categories are in denial of being in those categories. so it will be “co sleeping is always dangerous”.
Regardless of how true it is, the establishment cannot make a recommendation of the “Co sleeping is ok if you don’t drink, not overweight, and a light sleeper” kind, as many of the people in those categories are in denial of being in those categories. so it will be “co sleeping is always dangerous”.
Here in Norway they make that exact recommendation.
I'm impressed. In the US, such a recommendation would be disastrous and whoever made it would be sued to oblivion ....
But then, you nords leave your babies to sleep in the snow which is perfectly healthy but would get you a visit from child protection services in the US (did not hear of such a case, but have heard of cases for letting 9-year old kids walk from school or play basketball without parental supervision)
But then, you nords leave your babies to sleep in the snow which is perfectly healthy but would get you a visit from child protection services in the US (did not hear of such a case, but have heard of cases for letting 9-year old kids walk from school or play basketball without parental supervision)
...which inevitably leads to things like this when the two worlds come into contact: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/26/anette-soren...
I'm leery of co-sleeping mostly because it seems to be highly correlated with kids who have bad sleep habits and keep waking up their parents constantly (don't worry how you'll know, they'll tell you) well into their toddler years, and beyond. And I'm pretty sure the co-sleeping is a big part of the cause (can't get used to waking up mom & dad for entertainment every time your natural sleep cycle wakes you up a smidge if they're not there to wake up and start giving you attention instantly).
But like anything else, fuck, if it's working for you and the risk is very low, do what you need to do. I avoided it because I kept seeing hellish outcomes but if that's not what's happening for you, go for it.
But like anything else, fuck, if it's working for you and the risk is very low, do what you need to do. I avoided it because I kept seeing hellish outcomes but if that's not what's happening for you, go for it.
My wife and I coslept (and often still cosleep) with both of our children. They both sleep through the night without issue.
Our oldest goes to sleep early and will insist on going to sleep when she feels tired and will wake up with me in the morning. Our youngest fights sleep until exhaustion and prefers to sleep in (until 9-10am if allowed). They have been raised exactly the same way.
We take way too much credit for our children's sleep habits.
Our oldest goes to sleep early and will insist on going to sleep when she feels tired and will wake up with me in the morning. Our youngest fights sleep until exhaustion and prefers to sleep in (until 9-10am if allowed). They have been raised exactly the same way.
We take way too much credit for our children's sleep habits.
> can't get used to waking up mom & dad for entertainment every time your natural sleep cycle wakes you up a smidge if they're not there to wake up and start giving you attention instantly
The opposite: When my kids wake up in the middle of the night if they are alone they freak out. If there is another person there they feel comfort and go back to sleep without waking anyone else up. But YMMV.
The opposite: When my kids wake up in the middle of the night if they are alone they freak out. If there is another person there they feel comfort and go back to sleep without waking anyone else up. But YMMV.
The problem is that those indescribably exhausted parents roll on otherwise restrict the breathing of the infant.
Babies want that feeling of comfort, which is why you swaddle.
Babies want that feeling of comfort, which is why you swaddle.
The thing with babies is that they are, from the start, individuals. Some like a lot of contact, some don’t; some are very active sleepers, some aren’t; some will do fine by themselves in a crib, some won’t. You have no choice but to figure out what works for that kid. That’s not to say there aren’t some general procedures you should follow. I think most kids do best on a regular schedule, for example. But you’ve got to take them as you find them.
You seem to have preconceptions that you defend without evidence. There's no 'medical establishment' that purposefully gives bad advice. There are pieces of advice that are later found to turn out wrong, but on average you'll be better off trusting the experts. Don't trust blindly but 'did my own reaearch' is usually codeword for 'read a few mommy blogs'.
Those kind of overreactions and bulldozer parenting are in large part the result of 24/7 news, which made unusual events seem common and created an environment of neverending fear.
Additionally, as the world became safer and sanitized, we became more distanced from injury and it seems more traumatic. Parents are more afraid and focused on the downsides. As well as the fact that we have fewer kids than in the past. The potential consequences are greater.
It's also worth noting that the body and brain are anti-fragile. That is, they become stronger and more robust when challenged. Weaker in the absence of it. The end result of all this sanitization, safetyism and overprotection is a fragile human. One that is less able to cope with the challenges and messiness and nuance of the real world.
That negative feedback loop has led to quite a mess. The Coddling of the American Mind does an excellent deep dive on all this: https://www.amazon.com/Coddling-American-Mind-Intentions-Gen...
Additionally, as the world became safer and sanitized, we became more distanced from injury and it seems more traumatic. Parents are more afraid and focused on the downsides. As well as the fact that we have fewer kids than in the past. The potential consequences are greater.
It's also worth noting that the body and brain are anti-fragile. That is, they become stronger and more robust when challenged. Weaker in the absence of it. The end result of all this sanitization, safetyism and overprotection is a fragile human. One that is less able to cope with the challenges and messiness and nuance of the real world.
That negative feedback loop has led to quite a mess. The Coddling of the American Mind does an excellent deep dive on all this: https://www.amazon.com/Coddling-American-Mind-Intentions-Gen...
Anti-fragile indeed, still sucks when your 7month rolls off the bed unexpectedly...
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I once jumped off the bed straight onto my head and got a concussion at 5. Turned out fine
My sis used to climb out of her crib and flop down to the ground when she was little. Turns out she was just naturally athletic. Now she’s a personal trainer.
Put some pillows next to their bed and let them roll
My sis used to climb out of her crib and flop down to the ground when she was little. Turns out she was just naturally athletic. Now she’s a personal trainer.
Put some pillows next to their bed and let them roll
That will be a very educational experience for it.
The grudge against the breast is best is legitimate and valid. My son was just born in a baby friendly hospital 6 weeks premature. Mom was pumped full of fluids for days before the delivery and they built up in her lungs. The day after delivery, she woke up to the cardio and respiratory alarms going off at 6am and she was talking nonsense to the nurse, presumably because she wasn’t getting enough oxygen. That day, the nurses kept coming into her room and the top priority was to get her to pump. The top priority. I finally had to go talk to the charge nurse and demand they look at her lungs because she obviously couldn’t breathe.
So yes. The hyper focus on breast feeding is a problem. Baby friendly is often hostile to the mother. The medical community is to blame while in the hospital prioritizing pumping over breathing.
So yes. The hyper focus on breast feeding is a problem. Baby friendly is often hostile to the mother. The medical community is to blame while in the hospital prioritizing pumping over breathing.
> Baby friendly is often hostile to the mother.
As it should be. You're the responsible adult in the room, and you will have to make sacrifices to take care of the helpless person you chose to bring into this world.
If you think "mom comes first", then get a fur baby instead.
As it should be. You're the responsible adult in the room, and you will have to make sacrifices to take care of the helpless person you chose to bring into this world.
If you think "mom comes first", then get a fur baby instead.
It is not as black and white as that. You cannot simply ignore the mother and let her deal with baby blues or whatever pops up on her own or else you are not taking care of the child either.
There is enough room to care for both the mother and the child.
> There is enough room to care for both the mother and the child.
I didn't say that there isn't. What I said, literally, is that the mother doesn't come first.
I didn't say that there isn't. What I said, literally, is that the mother doesn't come first.
You do know what the difference is between anecdotal evidence and statistics right?
Your example sounds so far away from everything normal.
Your example sounds so far away from everything normal.
Right, and I suppose modern medicine should ignore rare conditions and syndromes, treating only patients who fall nicely into a normal distribution.
No. Where did i say that?
Has it ever crossed your mind, that medical people have a simliar distribution than every other field? Do you think every software developer is an expert?
Do you think everyone who is painting, paints equally well?
Do you think just because someone studied, that person is smart?
Has it ever crossed your mind, that medical people have a simliar distribution than every other field? Do you think every software developer is an expert?
Do you think everyone who is painting, paints equally well?
Do you think just because someone studied, that person is smart?
His point was that one anecdote of a bad experience at a hospital does not dispute the statistics that breast milk is better than formula.
The data does not support the claim breast milk is better than formula for long term outcomes [1]. Given this, it’s appropriate to be angry and frustrated at the way society and modern medicine treats women who do not breast feed. Especially when the woman is struggling to breathe.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/20/is-brea...
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/20/is-brea...
That is STILL anecdotal. Srsly there are bad people working in hospitals who are doing a bad job. But some of them also just be overworked or don't care or whatever.
“This is the most important thing you can do for your child, and if it doesn’t work for you, that’s very unfortunate and, in the long run, will have serious consequences.” never crossed my plate. In germany mothers try, if it doesn't work, it doesn't. Thats it.
“This is the most important thing you can do for your child, and if it doesn’t work for you, that’s very unfortunate and, in the long run, will have serious consequences.” never crossed my plate. In germany mothers try, if it doesn't work, it doesn't. Thats it.
I don't know that it really has that much to do with "breast is best". I think nurses are just normal overworked people following their script. If it wasn't the breast is best thing, they'd be ignoring you for different reasons.
We had twins two years ago and some of the nurses were just very lacking in empathy. A few of the other ones were fantastic.
The second night we were in the hospital, I went home to stay with our older daughter. This left my wife on her own in the room, and the understanding was the nurses were going to give her time alone and handle a couple of the feedings for her. Well, shift change happened and the new nurse didn't give a care. Have to follow the script.
Sure they took the twins away after the feeding, but when they need to eat every two hours and it takes an hour to do, and then they have a half hour of other checks they need to get in, basically my wife didn't get any sleep all night.
She broke down crying in front of her nurse and the nurse basically said, "Suck it up." Without considering that my wife was dealing with a C-section, new twins, having nurses in and out of the room constantly, and me not being there to lend a hand.
I came in at like 5 am, and she was basically just sobbing in her bed. Thankfully one of the nice nurses came in and sat with her and calmed her down, and then said she would have a chat with the younger nurse and let her know that she needed to cut new moms some slack.
The other noteworthy thing that happened was my wife ordered supper, and while the nurses were in the room, she very obviously was having an allergic reaction to it. They just carried on like nothing was happening because "we're here for the babies". Finally I put my foot down and pointed out that my wife was obviously having an allergic reaction and her eyes were basically swollen shut. Then they finally were like "oh, I guess we should get her something for that."
Which is a long way of saying, I agree that nurses aren't nearly attentive enough. And can relate. But also, I'm not sure if its the focus on breast feeding that is the issue.
We had twins two years ago and some of the nurses were just very lacking in empathy. A few of the other ones were fantastic.
The second night we were in the hospital, I went home to stay with our older daughter. This left my wife on her own in the room, and the understanding was the nurses were going to give her time alone and handle a couple of the feedings for her. Well, shift change happened and the new nurse didn't give a care. Have to follow the script.
Sure they took the twins away after the feeding, but when they need to eat every two hours and it takes an hour to do, and then they have a half hour of other checks they need to get in, basically my wife didn't get any sleep all night.
She broke down crying in front of her nurse and the nurse basically said, "Suck it up." Without considering that my wife was dealing with a C-section, new twins, having nurses in and out of the room constantly, and me not being there to lend a hand.
I came in at like 5 am, and she was basically just sobbing in her bed. Thankfully one of the nice nurses came in and sat with her and calmed her down, and then said she would have a chat with the younger nurse and let her know that she needed to cut new moms some slack.
The other noteworthy thing that happened was my wife ordered supper, and while the nurses were in the room, she very obviously was having an allergic reaction to it. They just carried on like nothing was happening because "we're here for the babies". Finally I put my foot down and pointed out that my wife was obviously having an allergic reaction and her eyes were basically swollen shut. Then they finally were like "oh, I guess we should get her something for that."
Which is a long way of saying, I agree that nurses aren't nearly attentive enough. And can relate. But also, I'm not sure if its the focus on breast feeding that is the issue.
Not noticing that someone can't breath when their face is visibly swollen isn't a matter of being overworked its rank incompetence. If its caused by fatigue one has to wonder how the facility managed to collect the most money in the world for the same situations and manage not to afford enough personnel.
My understanding is that the status quo is 24 hour shifts.
I think you might be underestimating how hard breastfeeding is pushed in US hospitals. Our second night in the hospital with my son, my wife's milk hadn't come in yet.
Our son was screaming because he was hungry. The nurse kept saying this was good, that it would encourage breast milk production. It took several tries to convince her that, while it might be good in the long run, we needed some food for this baby.
This was a consistent experience with all nurses we dealt with. Interestingly, breastfeeding specialists tended to be more understanding.
Our son was screaming because he was hungry. The nurse kept saying this was good, that it would encourage breast milk production. It took several tries to convince her that, while it might be good in the long run, we needed some food for this baby.
This was a consistent experience with all nurses we dealt with. Interestingly, breastfeeding specialists tended to be more understanding.
I don’t have any kids, but I can’t figure out what people are actually
complaining about here. Most comments seem to be referring to breast feeding in the hospital in the few days post birth. Is it just hospital culture we’re upset with? My understanding was that breast milk is generally pretty important to do as it helps transmit antibodies and the like. But, having some formula is fine too.
I see older cases about nestle misleading women in developing markets to suggest formula was better, which led to deaths. However this seems to be due to nutritional deficiencies which I, perhaps naively, would assume they have figured out by now.
I see older cases about nestle misleading women in developing markets to suggest formula was better, which led to deaths. However this seems to be due to nutritional deficiencies which I, perhaps naively, would assume they have figured out by now.
> I see older cases about nestle misleading women in developing markets to suggest formula was better, which led to deaths. However this seems to be due to nutritional deficiencies which I, perhaps naively, would assume they have figured out by now.
They have, it's fine.
> But, having some formula is fine too.
It is harder to get the baby on the breastfeeding train, if you will, if you're switching between breast and bottle. You can pump but many women find that really distasteful and either way it takes up shitloads of time and their body might still not cooperate. A surprising percentage of babies (admittedly anecdotal, but I'm a parent and know lots of others and the sample size is actually pretty large as a result, though not randomized) have a hell of a time "latching" and actually getting enough milk out, and that's if the mother's body's producing enough, both of which are hard to measure so it's really easy to end up with a baby who's in the "failing to thrive" range which can lead to further hospitalization (and more judgement from nurses and such).
Frankly, as soon as shit gets a little sketchy I'd say just go straight to formula and bottle. It's not as good, sure, but the other way seems to be wildly harder and more difficult to track, unless you get very lucky and have one of those pairings where both mother and baby sync up perfectly and it just goes great, in which case it's merely very time-consuming. This is like 20% of babies at best, in my experience.
The rest get to deal with non-stop stink-eye and condescension from nurses and other care providers while they're stressed out, hurting, and anxious already, to probably still fail at the whole breast feeding thing even if they try hard and feel like shit for weeks and maybe don't get their baby enough food to grow properly while attempting it.
They have, it's fine.
> But, having some formula is fine too.
It is harder to get the baby on the breastfeeding train, if you will, if you're switching between breast and bottle. You can pump but many women find that really distasteful and either way it takes up shitloads of time and their body might still not cooperate. A surprising percentage of babies (admittedly anecdotal, but I'm a parent and know lots of others and the sample size is actually pretty large as a result, though not randomized) have a hell of a time "latching" and actually getting enough milk out, and that's if the mother's body's producing enough, both of which are hard to measure so it's really easy to end up with a baby who's in the "failing to thrive" range which can lead to further hospitalization (and more judgement from nurses and such).
Frankly, as soon as shit gets a little sketchy I'd say just go straight to formula and bottle. It's not as good, sure, but the other way seems to be wildly harder and more difficult to track, unless you get very lucky and have one of those pairings where both mother and baby sync up perfectly and it just goes great, in which case it's merely very time-consuming. This is like 20% of babies at best, in my experience.
The rest get to deal with non-stop stink-eye and condescension from nurses and other care providers while they're stressed out, hurting, and anxious already, to probably still fail at the whole breast feeding thing even if they try hard and feel like shit for weeks and maybe don't get their baby enough food to grow properly while attempting it.
Our hospital had a 50 year old lactation consultant that called formula poison when she heard our pediatrician recommended us to supplement breastfeeding with formula.
We decided not to even try with our twins, because it took an hour of pumping to produce half an ounce, every doctor we saw still pushed breastfeeding on us.
There's immense peer pressure surrounding it too. People love feeling superior to each other.
We decided not to even try with our twins, because it took an hour of pumping to produce half an ounce, every doctor we saw still pushed breastfeeding on us.
There's immense peer pressure surrounding it too. People love feeling superior to each other.
Our kids were breastfed for the most part, but I still agree with you on formula not being a big deal. I disagree with this, though:
> People love feeling superior to each other.
I think it’s simply that people are poor at understanding that Option A being slightly better than Option B does not mean that Option B is bad. I think this deficiency in reasoning is what drives a lot of irrational behavior wrt to parenting (eg, making incredible sacrifices to afford a home in a neighborhood with “good schools”, going through hell so your newborn doesn’t sleep on its tummy, etc).
> People love feeling superior to each other.
I think it’s simply that people are poor at understanding that Option A being slightly better than Option B does not mean that Option B is bad. I think this deficiency in reasoning is what drives a lot of irrational behavior wrt to parenting (eg, making incredible sacrifices to afford a home in a neighborhood with “good schools”, going through hell so your newborn doesn’t sleep on its tummy, etc).
This kind of stuff, well the whole fertility process really, is what really opened my eyes to what women have to deal with that most men don't seem to have any awareness of.
The sheer amount of guilt, shame, tut-tutting, and general bullshit around the birthing process is just astounding.
Breastfeeding is the poster child for this (great example here) but so does every other thing about parenting. Women have to make "no-win" choices around this, plus career, plus body changes, plus so many parenting choices.
Every single one of these things has 10 books that say X and 10 books that say Y.
Our pediatrician was supportive of nursing and suggested we stick with it but also said "the data that breastmilk is better in any significant way is just not there".
My wife breastfed for 6 months with both our kids then called it good, and I thought that was heroic.
Having to duck out to pump every couple hours is literally the last thing a new mom back at work (guilt! shame! second-guessing!) wants to be doing.
The sheer amount of guilt, shame, tut-tutting, and general bullshit around the birthing process is just astounding.
Breastfeeding is the poster child for this (great example here) but so does every other thing about parenting. Women have to make "no-win" choices around this, plus career, plus body changes, plus so many parenting choices.
Every single one of these things has 10 books that say X and 10 books that say Y.
Our pediatrician was supportive of nursing and suggested we stick with it but also said "the data that breastmilk is better in any significant way is just not there".
My wife breastfed for 6 months with both our kids then called it good, and I thought that was heroic.
Having to duck out to pump every couple hours is literally the last thing a new mom back at work (guilt! shame! second-guessing!) wants to be doing.
More directly to the topic of this discussion: the problem with screens is that they are a very easy tool for making children shut up and stop bothering the adults, and a much more difficult tool to make into a challenging and thoughtful experience. As a result many adults lean on using screens to distract their children much more than they absolutely need, and end up reliant on them. And the kids end up using screens in a way that is wasting a ton of time and not helping their development.
The material on screen is very often (from what I can observe just walking around town and seeing kids looking at them) grossly inappropriate for the child’s current level – either too simple and repetitive or too advanced and incomprehensible – but the sounds, colors, and especially movement are so exciting as pure distraction that kids will sit entranced, whether or not they are learning anything. The overstimulation from the screen is addictive enough for the kids that the kids will start to fuss and cry when the screen is removed, and when given the choice the screen will crowd out other toys and activities.
It is probably possible to make a screen a meaningful learning experience for young kids, but few parents (especially the ones who are using the screen to get a break from childcare) have the time to research and personally vet material to figure that out.
If a kid watches 30m of Mr. Rogers every day, they’re going to be fine. But the kids watching 2 hours of YouTube low-budget animated nursery rhymes on loop, or watching endless unboxing videos, or playing a too-easy iPad game, when they could otherwise be playing with and learning about the physical world, are really missing out.
This is not to say that kids shouldn’t regularly spend some time entertaining themselves while the parents do something else. But if they can learn to do so with a wimmelbook or some crayons or some blocks or a cardboard box.... they’re usually going to be learning more than if stuck in front of a TV.
The material on screen is very often (from what I can observe just walking around town and seeing kids looking at them) grossly inappropriate for the child’s current level – either too simple and repetitive or too advanced and incomprehensible – but the sounds, colors, and especially movement are so exciting as pure distraction that kids will sit entranced, whether or not they are learning anything. The overstimulation from the screen is addictive enough for the kids that the kids will start to fuss and cry when the screen is removed, and when given the choice the screen will crowd out other toys and activities.
It is probably possible to make a screen a meaningful learning experience for young kids, but few parents (especially the ones who are using the screen to get a break from childcare) have the time to research and personally vet material to figure that out.
If a kid watches 30m of Mr. Rogers every day, they’re going to be fine. But the kids watching 2 hours of YouTube low-budget animated nursery rhymes on loop, or watching endless unboxing videos, or playing a too-easy iPad game, when they could otherwise be playing with and learning about the physical world, are really missing out.
This is not to say that kids shouldn’t regularly spend some time entertaining themselves while the parents do something else. But if they can learn to do so with a wimmelbook or some crayons or some blocks or a cardboard box.... they’re usually going to be learning more than if stuck in front of a TV.
> If a kid watches 30m of Mr. Rogers every day, they’re going to be fine
We try doing that with 20 min of Paw Patrol and it's impossible. Give a finger, they take an arm. It's impossible to regulate the quantity.
No matter how many different options they have available to play or what promises you try to make before hand, it ALWAYS ends in a total meltdown. We get 20 min of peace, followed by 40 min of hysteria.
Before streaming media (YT, Netflix) we could watch something say Sunday 6PM or Saturday 7AM, and that was it. Now everything's on demand and they know perfectly well there's always more as long parents say ok.
The only solution is to stop. After a few days of no TV, they stop asking and happily draw, leaf through books, build stuff. But nothing says "peace" like a kid watching TV.
We try doing that with 20 min of Paw Patrol and it's impossible. Give a finger, they take an arm. It's impossible to regulate the quantity.
No matter how many different options they have available to play or what promises you try to make before hand, it ALWAYS ends in a total meltdown. We get 20 min of peace, followed by 40 min of hysteria.
Before streaming media (YT, Netflix) we could watch something say Sunday 6PM or Saturday 7AM, and that was it. Now everything's on demand and they know perfectly well there's always more as long parents say ok.
The only solution is to stop. After a few days of no TV, they stop asking and happily draw, leaf through books, build stuff. But nothing says "peace" like a kid watching TV.
This is because Paw Patrol is designed to a very specific formula that is designed to get kids super-hyped up so they a) become mesmerized by what they are watching and b) want more of it - which just so happens to be possible, courtesy of the toy store.
(The "there's always more [content out there]" component you mention - something I am very familiar with as someone with ADHD :X - folds nicely into the mesmerism/relive component described above.)
Where I learned about this recently: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/television/whats-paw-pa...
Linked from: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/02/how-toys-... / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22259025 (9 days ago)
(The "there's always more [content out there]" component you mention - something I am very familiar with as someone with ADHD :X - folds nicely into the mesmerism/relive component described above.)
Where I learned about this recently: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/television/whats-paw-pa...
Linked from: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/02/how-toys-... / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22259025 (9 days ago)
Agreed. I don't think many kids could make it through 2 episodes of Mr. Rogers w/o wanting to do something else. I remember being really bored with my choices of shows / movies growing up. If I was a kid today, I think I'd be on YouTube every waking moment.
Maybe try watching full-length ballets or operas instead, or nature videos, cooking shows, videos of people doing carpentry projects, videos of people playing music, ...
Or something along the lines of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Machines
Dunno.. I tend to watch video with my 3.5 year old rather than leaving him to watch video while I go do something else. We only watch videos occasionally (maybe 3 hours/week on average), and don’t really end up with meltdowns when we stop. But that method doesn’t help if the goal was to get some time alone as a parent.
Or something along the lines of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Machines
Dunno.. I tend to watch video with my 3.5 year old rather than leaving him to watch video while I go do something else. We only watch videos occasionally (maybe 3 hours/week on average), and don’t really end up with meltdowns when we stop. But that method doesn’t help if the goal was to get some time alone as a parent.
I generally agree with all of that. And all of that, to me, suggests even just a fundamental level of involvement by parents is what's important. This doesn't seem to have anything to do with screens being a problem.
well the problem is that screens exist. when i grew up screens didn't exist (at least not in my home), and so the problem solved itself in other ways. we got crazy on comic books. parents didn't get involved. (though they helped us buy up the remaining stocks of a second hand comic book dealer when that closed down.
the problem with screens is that they are strongly attractive. my kids don't even notice me when they watch a screen. from the available entertainment kids will pick what is most attractive, and the only way to reduce screen time is to not make it available, and instead provide other options.
the problem with screens is that they are strongly attractive. my kids don't even notice me when they watch a screen. from the available entertainment kids will pick what is most attractive, and the only way to reduce screen time is to not make it available, and instead provide other options.
> theatrical demonstrations of disgust near smokers outside on the sidewalk
I'm with you completely except for this one. Cigarette smoke feels like it sucks the air out of a nonsmoker's lungs from quite a wide radius. A nonsmoker can smell an outdoor cigarette from a block away, and it doesn't smell good even at that distance. Up close it makes people involuntarily gag. Not recognizing that seems pretty blind.
I'm with you completely except for this one. Cigarette smoke feels like it sucks the air out of a nonsmoker's lungs from quite a wide radius. A nonsmoker can smell an outdoor cigarette from a block away, and it doesn't smell good even at that distance. Up close it makes people involuntarily gag. Not recognizing that seems pretty blind.
Never been a smoker or even smoked until I was well beyond 30 and even then, something like 6 small cigars over the course of 4 years or so.
None of my parents, aunts/uncles or grandparents have been smoking since before I was born AFAIK and I still disagree with you.
I've always liked the distant smell of smoke for some reason. As everyone stops I'll probably miss it a bit but that is OK, I don't want them to destroy their lungs.
But your blanket statements feels weird to me, even as a non-smoker from a non-smoking home.
None of my parents, aunts/uncles or grandparents have been smoking since before I was born AFAIK and I still disagree with you.
I've always liked the distant smell of smoke for some reason. As everyone stops I'll probably miss it a bit but that is OK, I don't want them to destroy their lungs.
But your blanket statements feels weird to me, even as a non-smoker from a non-smoking home.
Cigarette smoke is not nearly as bad or gross for the average person as you make it out to be - how do you think smokers could possibly stand it otherwise? If you didn't know it was bad for you you wouldn't be making such a pearl clutching fuss about it.
This post is pure hysteria. You're rationalizing a conditioned, exaggerated reaction.
This post is pure hysteria. You're rationalizing a conditioned, exaggerated reaction.
It didn't bother me back when everyone smoked, but now that I'm rarely around it it's about as bad as described. I can tell when someone's smoking two cars in front of me at a stoplight, too, when both our windows are rolled up. Smells awful.
On and off smoker chiming in here. I love the smell of cigarette smoke when I’m smoking or recently quit. If I haven’t smoked in several months, though, the smell is as the person you’re responding to describes: terrible, imposing, and wide reaching.
I honestly don't think you're posting in good faith.
Is it that difficult to understand that most people don't want to inhale smoke and find it really distasteful?
Honestly, inhaling flatulence is probably less dangerous than inhaling second-hand smoke, and I don't think anyone is going to blame someone for intensely disliking inhaling that.
Is it that difficult to understand that most people don't want to inhale smoke and find it really distasteful?
Honestly, inhaling flatulence is probably less dangerous than inhaling second-hand smoke, and I don't think anyone is going to blame someone for intensely disliking inhaling that.
> Cigarette smoke feels like it sucks the air out of a nonsmoker's lungs from quite a wide radius [...] makes people involuntarily gag
Unless you have an allergy or something, this is entirely in your head.
Some people also “involuntarily gag” when they think about interracial marriage or a person eating pickled cabbage. This kind of paranoid disgust is a conditioned response, not a reasoned risk assessment.
* * *
Note: I am not defending tobacco advertising, smoking in enclosed public spaces like restaurants, smoking in a car with kids inside it, smoking on primary school campuses, etc. (For that matter I’m not defending spending time near an indoor wood cooking fire, etc.)
It is clear that getting significant amounts of second-hand smoke is bad for anyone, and children are especially vulnerable because they can’t make choices about where to go.
But desire to avoid dangerous levels of smoke doesn’t excuse being a jerk to people who are engaged in a behavior (outdoor smoking) which they have a physical addiction to, and is predominantly harmful to themselves alone.
Unless you have an allergy or something, this is entirely in your head.
Some people also “involuntarily gag” when they think about interracial marriage or a person eating pickled cabbage. This kind of paranoid disgust is a conditioned response, not a reasoned risk assessment.
* * *
Note: I am not defending tobacco advertising, smoking in enclosed public spaces like restaurants, smoking in a car with kids inside it, smoking on primary school campuses, etc. (For that matter I’m not defending spending time near an indoor wood cooking fire, etc.)
It is clear that getting significant amounts of second-hand smoke is bad for anyone, and children are especially vulnerable because they can’t make choices about where to go.
But desire to avoid dangerous levels of smoke doesn’t excuse being a jerk to people who are engaged in a behavior (outdoor smoking) which they have a physical addiction to, and is predominantly harmful to themselves alone.
> Some people also “involuntarily gag” when they think about interracial marriage or a person eating pickled cabbage. This kind of paranoid disgust is a conditioned response, not a reasoned risk assessment.
What a peculiar defense. The next time you use a bathroom that has gone far too long between cleanings, just remember that your response to the odor is all mere conditioning and that you just need to make a risk assessment. Inhale deeply, my friend. Take it all in. Let the fresh shitsmelling air cleanse your thoughts. It's not dangerous after all.
What a peculiar defense. The next time you use a bathroom that has gone far too long between cleanings, just remember that your response to the odor is all mere conditioning and that you just need to make a risk assessment. Inhale deeply, my friend. Take it all in. Let the fresh shitsmelling air cleanse your thoughts. It's not dangerous after all.
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> > Cigarette smoke feels like it sucks the air out of a nonsmoker's lungs from quite a wide radius [...] makes people involuntarily gag
> Unless you have an allergy or something, this is entirely in your head.
The fraction of the population with asthma is easily high enough that there's plenty of people for whom it's not in the head.
Personally I just hold my breath and speed up until I've passed those people, but its most definitely unpleasant.
> Unless you have an allergy or something, this is entirely in your head.
The fraction of the population with asthma is easily high enough that there's plenty of people for whom it's not in the head.
Personally I just hold my breath and speed up until I've passed those people, but its most definitely unpleasant.
That isn't being a jerk - it is downright narcissism to think that everyone or most who cough in their presence is faking it because it interferes with their fix and gratification. First time smokers cough frequently and that is why menthol was targetted, for making it easier to start by masking its effects. The old cliche even back when it was more acceptable was forcing precocious smokers to smoke the whole pack to put then off of it! A body /not/ rejecting tobbaco smoke is a sign of a problem.
The narcissism of tobbaco users is emminently obvious to non-smokers but completely invisible and incomprehensible to them and their gratification. Just like how cigarette butts are the most common litter, and chewing tobbaco was curtailed due to concerns of tuberculosis from spitting it everywhere. It seems to be an effect of the drug more than anything sociological that all dissenting evidence is mentally erased.
The narcissism of tobbaco users is emminently obvious to non-smokers but completely invisible and incomprehensible to them and their gratification. Just like how cigarette butts are the most common litter, and chewing tobbaco was curtailed due to concerns of tuberculosis from spitting it everywhere. It seems to be an effect of the drug more than anything sociological that all dissenting evidence is mentally erased.
After having dealt with narcissism in people around me it's quite amazing how often this pattern emerges. They must be faking it to lord over me, to make me feel bad, clearly everything these other people are doing must be about me.
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> If the baby sleeps in the same bed with the mother the risk to the baby is trivial, unless the mother is an a severe alcoholic or high on drugs.
Yep, this is just as obvious as you want it to be.
And yet there's a massive government advertising campaign taking out billboards with the message "if you let your baby sleep with you, you are a bad mother and your baby will die". Check out the posters in the BART system sometime.
I find this incredibly disgusting. Nothing can justify this official message. But there it is out there anyway. The government, spending your money to hurt you.
Yep, this is just as obvious as you want it to be.
And yet there's a massive government advertising campaign taking out billboards with the message "if you let your baby sleep with you, you are a bad mother and your baby will die". Check out the posters in the BART system sometime.
I find this incredibly disgusting. Nothing can justify this official message. But there it is out there anyway. The government, spending your money to hurt you.
Nope. Medical staff effectively saying you must feed your baby now or it will die three hours after it was born and after a 24 hour labour tends to focus your mind and scare the crap out of you.
There is just as much unsubstantiated fear generated by medical staff when it comes to kids as everywhere else in the community.
Seems that just having been a child qualifies somebody to comment on how you choose to raise your children.
Too much attention and you are a helicopter parent, not enough and you are neglectful. God forbid you let them play in the park without you being there.
There is just as much unsubstantiated fear generated by medical staff when it comes to kids as everywhere else in the community.
Seems that just having been a child qualifies somebody to comment on how you choose to raise your children.
Too much attention and you are a helicopter parent, not enough and you are neglectful. God forbid you let them play in the park without you being there.
He is commenting on the depressingly short 1/2 life of recommendations from the medical fraternity, and he is spot on about breast feeding recommendations having changed recently. I'm guessing the abandoned recommendations got their start when Nestlé dressed up their sales women in WHO uniforms and instructed them to tell African woman "formula is best", and the medical fraternity understandably went basaltic, but they also went too far. Now that has come back to bite them.
Medicine is not unique in it's "accepted dogma" having a 1/2 life of course, all sciences do. But it's horribly short. From https://hms.harvard.edu/news/medicine-changing-world :
> Today, the half-life of medical knowledge is currently about 18-24 months, and it is projected that in about four years that half-life will be only 73 days.
That's from a mob trying to flog education so it's going to be an exaggeration, but it's still short no matter who measures it. By comparison Engineering knowledge 1/2 life is till measured in decades, although I expect they conveniently leave software engineering out of that.
Overall I agree with him, the doctors are far too eager to hard sell the latest advice in some paper. I guessing that's because selling advice is how they make their money. That behaviour has its downsides.
Medicine is not unique in it's "accepted dogma" having a 1/2 life of course, all sciences do. But it's horribly short. From https://hms.harvard.edu/news/medicine-changing-world :
> Today, the half-life of medical knowledge is currently about 18-24 months, and it is projected that in about four years that half-life will be only 73 days.
That's from a mob trying to flog education so it's going to be an exaggeration, but it's still short no matter who measures it. By comparison Engineering knowledge 1/2 life is till measured in decades, although I expect they conveniently leave software engineering out of that.
Overall I agree with him, the doctors are far too eager to hard sell the latest advice in some paper. I guessing that's because selling advice is how they make their money. That behaviour has its downsides.
> theatrical demonstrations of disgust near smokers outside on the sidewalk, and so on.
We are disgusted because the poison in cigarette smoke is extremely harmful to young lungs.
Smokers should have to go into designated areas they should have no right to pollute the air of those around them.
We are disgusted because the poison in cigarette smoke is extremely harmful to young lungs.
Smokers should have to go into designated areas they should have no right to pollute the air of those around them.
The amount of crap you get from momentarily standing near a smoker nearby outside is orders of magnitude less than you get from automobile exhaust walking around a typical city.
When someone is idling their car or truck do you go knock on their window and make a big scene about how they are poisoning your child?
When someone is idling their car or truck do you go knock on their window and make a big scene about how they are poisoning your child?
> The amount of crap you get from momentarily standing near a smoker nearby outside is orders of magnitude less than you get from automobile exhaust walking around a typical city.
That is a big claim. In view of the association with passive smoke and SIDS you will need some citations. It should not be hard to find them. Huge efforts have gone into researching causes of SIDS and there should be a good correlation between city vs countryside dwellers if your hypothesis is correct.
> When someone is idling their car or truck do you go knock on their window and make a big scene about how they are poisoning your child?
When my child was new born I would have moved away from them whilst saying loudly how disgusting they are - exactly the same as I did for smokers.
If someone is running their engine for no reason I would probably ask them to turn it off.
That is a big claim. In view of the association with passive smoke and SIDS you will need some citations. It should not be hard to find them. Huge efforts have gone into researching causes of SIDS and there should be a good correlation between city vs countryside dwellers if your hypothesis is correct.
> When someone is idling their car or truck do you go knock on their window and make a big scene about how they are poisoning your child?
When my child was new born I would have moved away from them whilst saying loudly how disgusting they are - exactly the same as I did for smokers.
If someone is running their engine for no reason I would probably ask them to turn it off.
The complaints of the people you’re responding to are not merely health related, but also aesthetic. Cigarette smoke smells bad to most people. Smoking where other people will smell it is like farting in an elevator: highly inconsiderate.
From a purely aesthetic perspective, someone waving their arms, holding their nose, and talking loudly about how disgusting smokers are as they walk past a cigarette smoker is far more unpleasant than the original act. Theatrical public shaming is one of the ugliest things in society.
Given the strong association with SIDS and cigarette smoke the desire of parents to get their newborn babies away from the poison is not theatrical. It is practical.
I don’t know what to tell you, but there’s a fundamental difference between being the transgressor and responding to a transgression.
And I say this, FWIW, as a on and off smoker.
And I say this, FWIW, as a on and off smoker.
FWIW, I have never smoked a cigarette in my life. (But did grow up, as the child of anthropologist parents, frequently sitting near wood cook fires in small smoke-filled huts, which is at least 1000x worse than any second-hand cigarette smoke you could possibly get outside.)
There is a fundamental difference between someone minding their own business on a public street, not harming anyone else, and someone else putting on a show to shame them based on gross mis-assessment of risk.
There is a fundamental difference between someone minding their own business on a public street, not harming anyone else, and someone else putting on a show to shame them based on gross mis-assessment of risk.
I’m not sure what to say here. You have reiterated that there is no health issue, but my point is that
whether or not a given behavior presents a physical harm to others is not the sole standard by which public behavior is governed.
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> hyped up about trivial threats
and really, this is the worst for kids
and really, this is the worst for kids
It seems like in developing nations were getting into the realm of diminishing returns around health risks (obviously not everything, but a lot of things).
Go back 50 years and the things like nutrition, vaccination, etc had huge benefit in risk reduction.
Now that we’ve tackled those, we go after the next set. Now it’s breast feeding, screen time, etc. we put a similar focus on those but the returns are much smaller and sometimes questionable.
Is breast feeding better? Sure. Is your child going not going to reach their full potential if you use formula? No. Not worth getting stressed over.
Go back 50 years and the things like nutrition, vaccination, etc had huge benefit in risk reduction.
Now that we’ve tackled those, we go after the next set. Now it’s breast feeding, screen time, etc. we put a similar focus on those but the returns are much smaller and sometimes questionable.
Is breast feeding better? Sure. Is your child going not going to reach their full potential if you use formula? No. Not worth getting stressed over.
A lot of medicine is basically cargo-culting or at least it feels that way because Doctor's rarely talk about the curve of how doing something will affect an outcome down the road. Are we talking about 50% chance of bad thing happening or 1% chance in 30 years? The former is serious, but the latter is probably one of those things most people would be very happy gambling on if it means to prevent that one percent they're gonna need to take a bunch of medications with all kinds of fun possible side-effects and interactions.
Right with you. I’ve watched them manipulate my wife and guilt her into so much stress over such things. (I’m a bit to much of an asshole (with classical statistics training at the level of grad school econometrics) to be anything other than bemused at best by their bald faced claims)
No amount of deconstructing the studies and deconstructing the health care we receive can mitigate the doctor who tells her our son needs x and not y.
Not to say that scientific medicine isn’t amazing. Just saying sometimes it gets ahead of itself.
Yeah, I found actual medical professionals (even the lactation consultants I dealt with) to be pretty chill about breastfeeding and formula. Online mommy culture is a scourge though, and is ridiculous about the benefits (real, imagined, and wildly overstated) of breastfeeding.
Might be a reaction to the eighties. My mom tells me how doctors were pushing that mothers should wipe their breasts with antibac before babies could have milk.
With stories like that as background you can see why people are sceptical.
With stories like that as background you can see why people are sceptical.
>The last three years of being a parent have left me disenchanted with experts.
That's a valid sentiment. We should be suspicious of experts in non-hard sciences (in hard sciences a proof is a proof). They often get things wrong, they are often paid by industry, and they often follow ideological or other fashions.
But the suspicion should also be cautious, and you don't seem to have much of an argument, just "I dislike what the experts say".
>I watched first hand the harm that was done by the medical community obsessing over "breast feeding is best and formula feeding is basically admission of failure.
What "harm" was that, and who said they are wrong? For one, there are several 100s of millennia of evolution backing beyond breast feeding, and feeding a baby is at the very core of evolutionary processes, so if anything one should began being suspicious of any novel industrial formulas made for profit...
Not sure why screens wouldn't be bad for "young brains". Evolutionary speaking almost everything that's not part of 1000000s of years of evolutionary history and takes such a huge time each day and such huge changes in lifestyle (from eyesight/brain used outdoors to eyesight/attention devoted to a backlit screen for hours each day), will be bad in one way or another -- unless it actively corrects for another bad thing (like how housing corrects for exposure to raw weather elements).
That's a valid sentiment. We should be suspicious of experts in non-hard sciences (in hard sciences a proof is a proof). They often get things wrong, they are often paid by industry, and they often follow ideological or other fashions.
But the suspicion should also be cautious, and you don't seem to have much of an argument, just "I dislike what the experts say".
>I watched first hand the harm that was done by the medical community obsessing over "breast feeding is best and formula feeding is basically admission of failure.
What "harm" was that, and who said they are wrong? For one, there are several 100s of millennia of evolution backing beyond breast feeding, and feeding a baby is at the very core of evolutionary processes, so if anything one should began being suspicious of any novel industrial formulas made for profit...
Not sure why screens wouldn't be bad for "young brains". Evolutionary speaking almost everything that's not part of 1000000s of years of evolutionary history and takes such a huge time each day and such huge changes in lifestyle (from eyesight/brain used outdoors to eyesight/attention devoted to a backlit screen for hours each day), will be bad in one way or another -- unless it actively corrects for another bad thing (like how housing corrects for exposure to raw weather elements).
The problems with science as it is practised now are well-known on HN. The system is broken in ways that are designed to produce erroneous newsworthy blanket statements like the one in this article.
This article was not produced in order to help parents. The "science" behind it was not produced in order to help parents. The article was written to get clicks. The "science" was done to get citations/funding/tenure.
It is entirely appropriate as a parent to tell these "experts" to go and stand in the corner and think deeply about what they've done, and only come out again when they're ready to actually do something useful for society.
This article was not produced in order to help parents. The "science" behind it was not produced in order to help parents. The article was written to get clicks. The "science" was done to get citations/funding/tenure.
It is entirely appropriate as a parent to tell these "experts" to go and stand in the corner and think deeply about what they've done, and only come out again when they're ready to actually do something useful for society.
> you don't seem to have much of an argument, just "I dislike what the experts say".
I don't think that's a very generous interpretation, and your paraphrasing feels like you decided early on that you could safely dismiss everything that person wrote.
I don't think that's a very generous interpretation, and your paraphrasing feels like you decided early on that you could safely dismiss everything that person wrote.
> constantly feeling like they're a failed parent because they used formula or a tablet
I don't have kids but I was 8 when my sister was 0 so I like to think of myself as having seen how things go.
Kids are very resilient. They'll raise themselves if they have to. Just keep them fed and sheltered and you're fine. The more you leave them to their own devices, the more confident and self-sufficient adults they'll become.
Our great grandparents raised their kids by letting them run around in the fields "helping" while everyone else was working and everyone turned out just fine. You do not have to optimize every little second of their lives.
It's okay for kids to struggle a little in a nurturing environment. You are not their butler.
I don't have kids but I was 8 when my sister was 0 so I like to think of myself as having seen how things go.
Kids are very resilient. They'll raise themselves if they have to. Just keep them fed and sheltered and you're fine. The more you leave them to their own devices, the more confident and self-sufficient adults they'll become.
Our great grandparents raised their kids by letting them run around in the fields "helping" while everyone else was working and everyone turned out just fine. You do not have to optimize every little second of their lives.
It's okay for kids to struggle a little in a nurturing environment. You are not their butler.
My kids are high school and college age now. The impression I formed of "parenting" advice is that anything works if you're unusually organized and self disciplined, otherwise it will fail and you'll find yourself being blamed.
One thing I learned: Any advice that starts with "just" should be ignored. Smile and nod.
One thing I learned: Any advice that starts with "just" should be ignored. Smile and nod.
I have seen parents bring their kids to a nice holiday, sit them down on the table with a tablet.
This boy actually missed the dance performance from the native people. Where do you draw your line?
When does it become just normal vs. neglecting your child? And i'm not talking about neglect in a directly hurtful way, i mean it in a way that the potential this kid could have had in the future is between university vs. non university.
Whats <kid> up to? He watches tv. Oh so why does he not play games? Or with others? Or why does he not have any interesests etc.?
"So !@#$ you Parentology." there are people out who smoke in the same room as their kids. People who do not take any precautions and have a dead kid because the shelf collapsed. You think they do the articles? Those are click bait articles.
This boy actually missed the dance performance from the native people. Where do you draw your line?
When does it become just normal vs. neglecting your child? And i'm not talking about neglect in a directly hurtful way, i mean it in a way that the potential this kid could have had in the future is between university vs. non university.
Whats <kid> up to? He watches tv. Oh so why does he not play games? Or with others? Or why does he not have any interesests etc.?
"So !@#$ you Parentology." there are people out who smoke in the same room as their kids. People who do not take any precautions and have a dead kid because the shelf collapsed. You think they do the articles? Those are click bait articles.
Surprised this rant is the top comment, seeming to put the feelings and convenience of the parents in prime position. You may think that is ok, but it is not the basis of proper argument.
It’s really quite simple - have we have proven that formula is non-inferior to breast milk over the life time of the child? No. Is there some evidence that it is inferior? Yes. What is the size of the difference? Not clear, but probably depends on the child. Who decides what goes into formula? A for-profit company.
For the health system to encouraging breast feeding seems eminently reasonable under these conditions.
It’s really quite simple - have we have proven that formula is non-inferior to breast milk over the life time of the child? No. Is there some evidence that it is inferior? Yes. What is the size of the difference? Not clear, but probably depends on the child. Who decides what goes into formula? A for-profit company.
For the health system to encouraging breast feeding seems eminently reasonable under these conditions.
If the benefits were large they’d be much easier to measure. From my research, it seems to amount to 1-2 fewer colds as a baby, if that.
Contrast that with what pregnant women are told from doctors and lactation consultants: that breastfeeding helps with bonding, dental structure, allergies, weight gain in babies, weight loss for mothers, etc. They’re pushed to websites like KellyMom that cherry-pick studies supporting these outcomes, and shamed for choosing alternatives. They’re told that just one bottle in the first month can ruin their chances of breastfeeding successfully.
Many hospitals belong to an initiative that pushes breastfeeding on new mothers to the extent that they have to get a prescription to give formula. You can’t put your baby in a nursery anymore because the baby needs access to the breast round the clock. But heaven forbid the mother fall asleep holding her baby! Babies go home from the hospital to mothers who are exhausted from birth and trying to feed round the clock. Their milk supply hasn’t come in yet and their babies leave the hospital having lost 5-10% of their birth weight. Some of these babies never get enough milk, and they die while their mothers are still told ‘Breast is Best’. Others feel shame, embarrassment, and inadequate for not nursing their children, from professionals and laypeople who have internalized this message.
All this to prevent a couple of colds in a baby. It’s insane.
Contrast that with what pregnant women are told from doctors and lactation consultants: that breastfeeding helps with bonding, dental structure, allergies, weight gain in babies, weight loss for mothers, etc. They’re pushed to websites like KellyMom that cherry-pick studies supporting these outcomes, and shamed for choosing alternatives. They’re told that just one bottle in the first month can ruin their chances of breastfeeding successfully.
Many hospitals belong to an initiative that pushes breastfeeding on new mothers to the extent that they have to get a prescription to give formula. You can’t put your baby in a nursery anymore because the baby needs access to the breast round the clock. But heaven forbid the mother fall asleep holding her baby! Babies go home from the hospital to mothers who are exhausted from birth and trying to feed round the clock. Their milk supply hasn’t come in yet and their babies leave the hospital having lost 5-10% of their birth weight. Some of these babies never get enough milk, and they die while their mothers are still told ‘Breast is Best’. Others feel shame, embarrassment, and inadequate for not nursing their children, from professionals and laypeople who have internalized this message.
All this to prevent a couple of colds in a baby. It’s insane.
It is a mistake to conclude that if there was a big difference, we would have found it with largely observational data. There are many counterexamples to this idea.
I’m not so sure that the data proves that there isn’t much difference. The randomized PROBIT study showed less eczema (3 v 6%) and less gastrointestinal infections (9% v 13%). That is with 43% of mothers breastfeeding in the intervention arm versus 6% in the control arm at 3 months. You might not care about this at all, but clearly breastfeeding is doing something significant. It also shows, inescapably, that some kids will get eczema because they were not breastfed. This was my point that breastfeeding probably does make a big difference to some kids. Finally, this study showed that encouraging and supporting breastfeeding really made a lot more people breastfeed.
Again, it seems very reasonable to encourage breastfeeding. You might not like the way it is done, but this is a public health type intervention, and it is impossible to please everyone. Most of the population isn’t looking up the evidence themselves, so I guess you aren’t really the target audience. I mean I could whinge about anti-smoking ads on TV because I would never smoke, or the extra time it takes people in wheelchairs to get on the bus because I’m not in a wheelchair, but on the population level these things are very desirable.
I’m not so sure that the data proves that there isn’t much difference. The randomized PROBIT study showed less eczema (3 v 6%) and less gastrointestinal infections (9% v 13%). That is with 43% of mothers breastfeeding in the intervention arm versus 6% in the control arm at 3 months. You might not care about this at all, but clearly breastfeeding is doing something significant. It also shows, inescapably, that some kids will get eczema because they were not breastfed. This was my point that breastfeeding probably does make a big difference to some kids. Finally, this study showed that encouraging and supporting breastfeeding really made a lot more people breastfeed.
Again, it seems very reasonable to encourage breastfeeding. You might not like the way it is done, but this is a public health type intervention, and it is impossible to please everyone. Most of the population isn’t looking up the evidence themselves, so I guess you aren’t really the target audience. I mean I could whinge about anti-smoking ads on TV because I would never smoke, or the extra time it takes people in wheelchairs to get on the bus because I’m not in a wheelchair, but on the population level these things are very desirable.
Anecdote is not data and data is not annecdote. But you have one experience and I have the opposite:
I am 100% pro tech, showing the kids how to use smartphones constructively, etx. We were controlling what our kids watch to avoid in particular all the modern crap pumper onto YouTube or various American TV channels - and yet our four year old developed serious attention issues.
It's not gone but it's MUCH better since the TV is banned to only be on on Friday evenings. Choose your own path forward but I am happy I managed to help my son be a more balanced person, rather than park him in front of the TV just to have my own 'quiet time'. We read more, the parents themselves drop their phones more often - all in all family life is much happier. I just wish my wife would accept to get fully rid of the thing. Spending time with kids is enjoyable, especially when they are not unbearably begging for TV TV TV or can't focus on a thing longer than 20 seconds.
That said - not sure what you're going on about breastfeeding but the evidence that it's good for kids is pretty overwhelming. You shouldn't feel guilty if it doesn't work out for one reason or the other, but breastfeeding is a positive for the child.
I am 100% pro tech, showing the kids how to use smartphones constructively, etx. We were controlling what our kids watch to avoid in particular all the modern crap pumper onto YouTube or various American TV channels - and yet our four year old developed serious attention issues.
It's not gone but it's MUCH better since the TV is banned to only be on on Friday evenings. Choose your own path forward but I am happy I managed to help my son be a more balanced person, rather than park him in front of the TV just to have my own 'quiet time'. We read more, the parents themselves drop their phones more often - all in all family life is much happier. I just wish my wife would accept to get fully rid of the thing. Spending time with kids is enjoyable, especially when they are not unbearably begging for TV TV TV or can't focus on a thing longer than 20 seconds.
That said - not sure what you're going on about breastfeeding but the evidence that it's good for kids is pretty overwhelming. You shouldn't feel guilty if it doesn't work out for one reason or the other, but breastfeeding is a positive for the child.
> It ticks me off that this junk ends up on social media
> who eventually spend nights weeping over their inability to feed their child
But that's your problem, not science's. You seem very resentful, do what works for you but don't expect scientists to lie to make you feel better. If the fact is "breast feeding is better than formulas" and you can't breast feed just get over it...
> who eventually spend nights weeping over their inability to feed their child
But that's your problem, not science's. You seem very resentful, do what works for you but don't expect scientists to lie to make you feel better. If the fact is "breast feeding is better than formulas" and you can't breast feed just get over it...
Op's comment is about harm done by people who directly interact with new parents:
> they never found a way to quantify what practical harm they cause to parents who get judgy nurses and a birthing room full of "Breast is Best" posters, who eventually spend nights weeping over their inability to feed their child, constantly feeling like they're a failed parent because they used formula
Your response inferred the OP desired scientists to lie - but that's a notion you introduced to the conversation:
> You seem very resentful, do what works for you but don't expect scientists to lie to make you feel better.
> they never found a way to quantify what practical harm they cause to parents who get judgy nurses and a birthing room full of "Breast is Best" posters, who eventually spend nights weeping over their inability to feed their child, constantly feeling like they're a failed parent because they used formula
Your response inferred the OP desired scientists to lie - but that's a notion you introduced to the conversation:
> You seem very resentful, do what works for you but don't expect scientists to lie to make you feel better.
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The first part of what you're saying sort of aligns with one of the rules in "12 Rules for Life".
Don't let your kids do something that'll make you hate them. Which essentially boils down to take care of yourself so that you can be the best parent to your child when it matters most.
Yeah and maybe watching Netflix would give an improvement say decades down the road from being exposed to extreme amounts of culture at an early age.
Maybe being exposed to order of magnitudes higher level of culture will make them build an utopia. How could they rule that out?
Maybe being exposed to order of magnitudes higher level of culture will make them build an utopia. How could they rule that out?
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last time I looked there wasn't much evidence for breastfeeding when you controlled for other factors.
https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2014/02/28/sibling-study-f...
https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2014/02/28/sibling-study-f...
You're obviously right about badly formed science, and of course stuff should be verified before it's shouted about. I also have personal experience (well, personal via my wife!) with the whole breastfeeding thing - you're right, there are some BreastNazis out there and they do need calling out, for sure.
Having said that - people have managed to parent their kids for ever without screens. Why are we suddenly so reliant on this shit like it's some kind of third arm? I just don't get it.
It's kind of blindingly obvious to me - even without the evidence of science - that putting a screen in front of your kid falls short in so many ways compared to how it used to be - maybe encouraging them to play, properly, with blocks / Lego, soft toys or books. This is so obviously more likely to enable them to build their spacial awareness or encourage reading than staring mindlessly at YouTube Kids, surely? Not least of all it will give them some understanding of how to interact with the real world around them. Plus - and this is a big one for me - real, quality time with parents actually interacting, properly, with their kids - talking to them, reading to them, playing with them - is lost! You can pretend you're "browsing YouTube together" or whatever but we all know that's b/s - there's no meaningful interaction between you and your kids in doing that.
You want space in the evening to be an adult? Sure - get your kids to bed at 7pm every night so they have a routine and you get to have grown-up time! You don't need a screen to do that shit - you just need to parent with conviction and stick to your guns. It's hard, really hard, but it's never been anything else. Expecting it to be somehow made easy with an iPad is a fools game.
Final thing - we gotta be really careful with the "I don't believe in experts any more" thing. That way ...is Trump.... ;-)
Having said that - people have managed to parent their kids for ever without screens. Why are we suddenly so reliant on this shit like it's some kind of third arm? I just don't get it.
It's kind of blindingly obvious to me - even without the evidence of science - that putting a screen in front of your kid falls short in so many ways compared to how it used to be - maybe encouraging them to play, properly, with blocks / Lego, soft toys or books. This is so obviously more likely to enable them to build their spacial awareness or encourage reading than staring mindlessly at YouTube Kids, surely? Not least of all it will give them some understanding of how to interact with the real world around them. Plus - and this is a big one for me - real, quality time with parents actually interacting, properly, with their kids - talking to them, reading to them, playing with them - is lost! You can pretend you're "browsing YouTube together" or whatever but we all know that's b/s - there's no meaningful interaction between you and your kids in doing that.
You want space in the evening to be an adult? Sure - get your kids to bed at 7pm every night so they have a routine and you get to have grown-up time! You don't need a screen to do that shit - you just need to parent with conviction and stick to your guns. It's hard, really hard, but it's never been anything else. Expecting it to be somehow made easy with an iPad is a fools game.
Final thing - we gotta be really careful with the "I don't believe in experts any more" thing. That way ...is Trump.... ;-)
> Why are we suddenly so reliant on this shit like it's some kind of third arm? I just don't get it.
Because our lives are different. It was overwhelmingly common for a parent to stay at home a generation or two ago (yes, it was almost always the mother but there’s no reason that would have to be the case today). But plenty of families, my own included, need both parents to be working in order to get by.
Simply put, we’re paid less than people used to be. Housing is more expensive than it used to be. Transport is more expensive than it used to be. So we have to work harder and our personal lives suffer.
Because our lives are different. It was overwhelmingly common for a parent to stay at home a generation or two ago (yes, it was almost always the mother but there’s no reason that would have to be the case today). But plenty of families, my own included, need both parents to be working in order to get by.
Simply put, we’re paid less than people used to be. Housing is more expensive than it used to be. Transport is more expensive than it used to be. So we have to work harder and our personal lives suffer.
But that does nothing to explain or justify further use of mobile phones with kids. I mean, you're presumably not suggesting that people go to work and leave their kids at home with an iPad, right?
Also just a defensive style sidenote :-) - My kids are now 12 and 15 so this was, what 10-12 years ago, not the 1950's. We both had to work. We had no money. We got by, no phones, just shed loads of books and a massive heap of love and care.
Also just a defensive style sidenote :-) - My kids are now 12 and 15 so this was, what 10-12 years ago, not the 1950's. We both had to work. We had no money. We got by, no phones, just shed loads of books and a massive heap of love and care.
I'm not sure what you are advocating here. (Letting children fall asleep to Netflix???)
Imagine these statements in an engineering context:
"Linked lists are bad."
"Java is bad."
"Databases are bad."
As an engineer, those are useless to me for making day-to-day decisions, because they're obviously made with some implicit context, and I need to evaluate them in a probably-different context. There are cases where linked lists are bad, and cases where they are great.
The same thing applies to these parenting generalizations. When some parenting guru or doctor says "x is bad", before we can fit that advice into our lives we have to know: how bad? In what scenarios is it worse, in which scenarios does it not matter, and in which scenarios is it better? What's the context in which they reached that conclusion? Does that context apply to me?
And all of that is just way too much effort for me to evaluate, so those recommendations don't carry much weight to me (they still carry weight, just not much). I trust my observations and my ability to understand my situations better than blanket statements.
"Linked lists are bad."
"Java is bad."
"Databases are bad."
As an engineer, those are useless to me for making day-to-day decisions, because they're obviously made with some implicit context, and I need to evaluate them in a probably-different context. There are cases where linked lists are bad, and cases where they are great.
The same thing applies to these parenting generalizations. When some parenting guru or doctor says "x is bad", before we can fit that advice into our lives we have to know: how bad? In what scenarios is it worse, in which scenarios does it not matter, and in which scenarios is it better? What's the context in which they reached that conclusion? Does that context apply to me?
And all of that is just way too much effort for me to evaluate, so those recommendations don't carry much weight to me (they still carry weight, just not much). I trust my observations and my ability to understand my situations better than blanket statements.
This is a classic strawman. Which researcher or medical professional is just saying "formula is bad"? It's obviously more nuanced than that, and letting your child go hungry because you can't breastfeed is obviously not the conclusion to draw. If you have the choice between the two, some researchers would encourage you to choose breast milk. They're not saying you're evil if you're unable to breastfeed.
Will your child be worse off if they're fed with formula instead of breastmilk? There's some evidence showing that this is the case. If you're unable to breastfeed and feel guilt because you have this knowledge, that's not a valid reason to tell these researchers to silence themselves.
Will your child be worse off if they're fed with formula instead of breastmilk? There's some evidence showing that this is the case. If you're unable to breastfeed and feel guilt because you have this knowledge, that's not a valid reason to tell these researchers to silence themselves.
The only strawman here is your claiming that I want to silence researchers. Research is one of the most important things we do as humans. I’m not claiming the research is invalid, I’m claiming that the broad overgeneralizations that some people draw from them is invalid, and creates a lot of unnecessary anxiety and encourages parents to focus on the wrong things.
If you need an example of this, read the title of this post.
If you need an example of this, read the title of this post.
I'm advocating against these studies being turned into blanket statement advice that can do real harm.
"IT’S OFFICIAL: SCREENS ARE BAD FOR YOUNG BRAINS" does harm.
If you want me to advocate for something, it would be, "find a balance, demonize nothing, you're a competent parent and you'll know unhealthy behaviour when you see it."
"IT’S OFFICIAL: SCREENS ARE BAD FOR YOUNG BRAINS" does harm.
If you want me to advocate for something, it would be, "find a balance, demonize nothing, you're a competent parent and you'll know unhealthy behaviour when you see it."
Often it’s not the papers but the headline creators of these on-line magazines.
You're right. That's important to keep in mind. But I don't think the medical and scientific communities are innocent to this either.
Humans are guiltiest. The market for attention optimizes for clear messaging, not nuanced, because that's what humans react most easily to. If it wasn't researchers or their university putting out press releases with clickbait headlines for funding purposes, it would be the next step down along the chain, popular science publications trying to maximize their readership. It still seeps out into the press when the results are of broad interest.
Regulation is necessary to avoid: self-regulation of publishers, self-regulation of readers, regulation of speed of transmission. But the more connected our society is, the more power a viral message has to blow up, so the most viral messages crowd out everything else, and before you know it it seems like the whole world mysteriously has the same headlines.
Regulation is necessary to avoid: self-regulation of publishers, self-regulation of readers, regulation of speed of transmission. But the more connected our society is, the more power a viral message has to blow up, so the most viral messages crowd out everything else, and before you know it it seems like the whole world mysteriously has the same headlines.
"you're a competent parent and you'll know unhealthy behaviour when you see it"
Except so many people are incompetent parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids, abuse them emotionally, physically, and/or sexually, feed them all sorts of junk food (US obesity epidemic, anyone?), the list goes on, and on, and on, and on.
Many kids will survive despite the awful way they were brought up, though often with psychological scars, and are likely to engage in the abuse they themselves were subject to, or turn to self-destructive behavior.
Not that the parents of all psychologically scarred, abusive, or self-destructive people are 100% to blame, but they tend to play a significant role.
So, yeah, I don't think the advice of "do whatever you think is best" to parents is necessarily the wisest approach, despite a lot of parents thinking they're smarter than the experts and that they don't need to listen to advice.
Except so many people are incompetent parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids, abuse them emotionally, physically, and/or sexually, feed them all sorts of junk food (US obesity epidemic, anyone?), the list goes on, and on, and on, and on.
Many kids will survive despite the awful way they were brought up, though often with psychological scars, and are likely to engage in the abuse they themselves were subject to, or turn to self-destructive behavior.
Not that the parents of all psychologically scarred, abusive, or self-destructive people are 100% to blame, but they tend to play a significant role.
So, yeah, I don't think the advice of "do whatever you think is best" to parents is necessarily the wisest approach, despite a lot of parents thinking they're smarter than the experts and that they don't need to listen to advice.
> Except so many people are incompetent parents...
>... who refuse to vaccinate their kids,
>> The percentage of children who have received no vaccines has increased, reaching 1.3% for children born in 2015, compared with 0.3% among those 19–35 months when surveyed in 2001 (6). Some children might be unvaccinated because of choices made by parents, whereas for others, lack of access to health care or health insurance might be factors.
Source: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6740a4.htm?s_cid=mm...
> ... abuse them emotionally, physically, and/or sexually,
>> 0.92 %
>> The majority (77.5%) of perpetrators are a parent to their victim.
Source: https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/cm2018.pdf
> ...feed them all sorts of junk food (US obesity epidemic, anyone?)
>> The prevalence of obesity [in children aged 2-19] was 18.5% and affected about 13.7 million children and adolescents.
Source: https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html
I'll leave this to you to parse out which parts of these are evidence of bad parenting; but it's pretty clear to me that the GP's statement is largely correct.
>... who refuse to vaccinate their kids,
>> The percentage of children who have received no vaccines has increased, reaching 1.3% for children born in 2015, compared with 0.3% among those 19–35 months when surveyed in 2001 (6). Some children might be unvaccinated because of choices made by parents, whereas for others, lack of access to health care or health insurance might be factors.
Source: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6740a4.htm?s_cid=mm...
> ... abuse them emotionally, physically, and/or sexually,
>> 0.92 %
>> The majority (77.5%) of perpetrators are a parent to their victim.
Source: https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/cm2018.pdf
> ...feed them all sorts of junk food (US obesity epidemic, anyone?)
>> The prevalence of obesity [in children aged 2-19] was 18.5% and affected about 13.7 million children and adolescents.
Source: https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html
I'll leave this to you to parse out which parts of these are evidence of bad parenting; but it's pretty clear to me that the GP's statement is largely correct.
How about instead of bitching at experts you bitch at the idiots that pump up and propagandize the results of one study that vaguely adheres to their predetermined outcome?
Kind of thought that this site would attract a slightly more intelligent group of people than that.
Kind of thought that this site would attract a slightly more intelligent group of people than that.
(Parentology: Scientology for Parents?)
Anyway, I just want to point out that the medical system et. al. mostly can't do better than placebo (except surgery (but then there was that study of placebo knee surgery...))
And how can you "do science" to parenting without multi-generational "longitudinal" (I think that's the word) studies with control groups?
Can we compare e.g. Amish children with Sentinelese children with tech-saturated children?
(The people of N. Sentinel Island are likely the closest thing we have to a control group for human society.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese
> The Sentinelese, also known as the Sentineli and the North Sentinel Islanders, are an indigenous people who inhabit North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal in India. They are one of the world's last uncontacted peoples.
> ...the Sentinelese appear to have consistently refused any interaction with the outside world. They are hostile to outsiders and have killed people who approached or landed on the island.
Anyway, I just want to point out that the medical system et. al. mostly can't do better than placebo (except surgery (but then there was that study of placebo knee surgery...))
And how can you "do science" to parenting without multi-generational "longitudinal" (I think that's the word) studies with control groups?
Can we compare e.g. Amish children with Sentinelese children with tech-saturated children?
(The people of N. Sentinel Island are likely the closest thing we have to a control group for human society.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese
> The Sentinelese, also known as the Sentineli and the North Sentinel Islanders, are an indigenous people who inhabit North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal in India. They are one of the world's last uncontacted peoples.
> ...the Sentinelese appear to have consistently refused any interaction with the outside world. They are hostile to outsiders and have killed people who approached or landed on the island.
wtf?
"medical system et. al. mostly can't do better than placebo"
What? Is there anything at all from your side which resembles an argument here?
What beef do you have with 'medical system' that you think that it is as good as just guessing everything?
"medical system et. al. mostly can't do better than placebo"
What? Is there anything at all from your side which resembles an argument here?
What beef do you have with 'medical system' that you think that it is as good as just guessing everything?
> wtf?
Yeah, I take it you didn't know that?
If I'm on any "side" it's the side of truth and health.
Other than some kinds of surgery and a handful of chemicals (like anesthetics, the action of which is still very mysterious, and penicillin, discovered accidentally) our fancy "scientific" Western medicine is actually pretty crappy.
Now I never said it's "as good as just guessing everything", and since Galen it's been kind of scientific even, but in the USA at least, the medical system is a major cause of death. Not to mention that it's more expensive and less effective than in other first world nations.
Heck, the idea that nutrition is crucial to health is still considered new-fangled and radical!
Don't even get me started on Reiki, which is a radical healing agent I have personal experience with that is typically dismissed as pseudoscience (despite not being scientific in the first place.)
> Reiki is a pseudoscience, and is used as an illustrative example of pseudoscience in scholarly texts and academic journal articles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiki
Here is a healing life force the very reality of which is denied by the "scientific" medical system.
So yeah, if I get creamed by a car please take me to the ER to get sewn back together, that's awesome! And some morphine please. But the current system is in many ways still stuck in the dark ages.
Yeah, I take it you didn't know that?
If I'm on any "side" it's the side of truth and health.
Other than some kinds of surgery and a handful of chemicals (like anesthetics, the action of which is still very mysterious, and penicillin, discovered accidentally) our fancy "scientific" Western medicine is actually pretty crappy.
Now I never said it's "as good as just guessing everything", and since Galen it's been kind of scientific even, but in the USA at least, the medical system is a major cause of death. Not to mention that it's more expensive and less effective than in other first world nations.
Heck, the idea that nutrition is crucial to health is still considered new-fangled and radical!
Don't even get me started on Reiki, which is a radical healing agent I have personal experience with that is typically dismissed as pseudoscience (despite not being scientific in the first place.)
> Reiki is a pseudoscience, and is used as an illustrative example of pseudoscience in scholarly texts and academic journal articles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiki
Here is a healing life force the very reality of which is denied by the "scientific" medical system.
So yeah, if I get creamed by a car please take me to the ER to get sewn back together, that's awesome! And some morphine please. But the current system is in many ways still stuck in the dark ages.
Yeah okay i'm out.
I'm not discussion someone who believes in Reiki.
I'm not discussion someone who believes in Reiki.
That's hardly a open-minded scientific attitude, now is it?
When I first encountered Reiki, it was just my scientific curiosity that was aroused. I've experienced electromagnetic fields (e.g. a Van De Graff generator, static electricity, and so on) and currents (touch a 9v to your tongue, once touched a socket that was improperly grounded, etc.) and I have worked with simple circuits. I grok Ohm's law. I'm well-grounded in modern science (for a layman.)
So, when I felt Reiki, whatever it is, I knew something serious was going on: either it's a unknown form of bio-electricity or something even stranger.
But you don't want to discuss it.
When I first encountered Reiki, it was just my scientific curiosity that was aroused. I've experienced electromagnetic fields (e.g. a Van De Graff generator, static electricity, and so on) and currents (touch a 9v to your tongue, once touched a socket that was improperly grounded, etc.) and I have worked with simple circuits. I grok Ohm's law. I'm well-grounded in modern science (for a layman.)
So, when I felt Reiki, whatever it is, I knew something serious was going on: either it's a unknown form of bio-electricity or something even stranger.
But you don't want to discuss it.
> Some of the kids experienced parents reading often to them, and little screen time. Other kids who’d had lots of screen time (more than one hour per day, the max recommendation by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the WHO) throughout early childhood.
If this description is accurate (and I haven't gone to the source and I'll admit that popular media descriptions of scientific studies are often quite bad), the study experimental group seems likely to differ from the control group in two ways (parental reading time and screen time), and the one which isn't screen time is already known to have a significant effect of exactly the type being attributed to screen time. Which would make the study useless for drawing conclusions about screen time. It's quite possible for children to have parents reading to them often and more than an hour a day of screen time.
> If more screen time leads to less white matter development (as the study cautiously indicates), the results might be truly detrimental.
So, even with it's conclusion on screen time taken at face value (which it looks like to shouldn'tbe), the study indicates an effect which, if true, “might be truly detrimental”, but the headline is the total clickbait: “IT’S OFFICIAL: SCREENS ARE BAD FOR YOUNG BRAINS”.
If this description is accurate (and I haven't gone to the source and I'll admit that popular media descriptions of scientific studies are often quite bad), the study experimental group seems likely to differ from the control group in two ways (parental reading time and screen time), and the one which isn't screen time is already known to have a significant effect of exactly the type being attributed to screen time. Which would make the study useless for drawing conclusions about screen time. It's quite possible for children to have parents reading to them often and more than an hour a day of screen time.
> If more screen time leads to less white matter development (as the study cautiously indicates), the results might be truly detrimental.
So, even with it's conclusion on screen time taken at face value (which it looks like to shouldn'tbe), the study indicates an effect which, if true, “might be truly detrimental”, but the headline is the total clickbait: “IT’S OFFICIAL: SCREENS ARE BAD FOR YOUNG BRAINS”.
> It's quite possible for children to have parents reading to them often and more than an hour a day of screen time.
I wonder if this is the case? I think you're quite right about the fact that it's more likely the time with parents than the screentime. But I don't think there will ever really be a chance to study kids whose time with parents and time with screens differs.
My kids are pretty young, but because they're in bed so early there just isn't enough time in the day for them to have dinner, a story and even an hour of TV after pre-school. I suspect that's the case for most kids of two working parents.
I wonder if this is the case? I think you're quite right about the fact that it's more likely the time with parents than the screentime. But I don't think there will ever really be a chance to study kids whose time with parents and time with screens differs.
My kids are pretty young, but because they're in bed so early there just isn't enough time in the day for them to have dinner, a story and even an hour of TV after pre-school. I suspect that's the case for most kids of two working parents.
I read to my kids every night, until they could start reading to me and then to themselves. They also get plenty of screen time. My kids are doing great in school. This article seems like complete BS to me. At best it compares kids with lots of reading to kids with no reading - we already know this makes a difference. To say that the kids with no reading had lots of screen time and then to blame only the screen time seems disingenuous. This is a boat load of confirmation bias by smug assholes that know better than you.
I was born in 89. Until I turned 9 or 10, one of my parents would read to me every night, and I had over an hour of screen time just about every day too.
That was probably not as common back then, since it was hard to get an hour in unless you were really into computers and happened to have one.
Today, it’s hard to find a parent who will read to their kid every night. Who will read them good stuff like poetry, the classics, Greek mythology, etc., Not Harry Potter or whatever. It’s also hard to find a kid today who isn’t exposed to at least an hour of screen time. And that’s not time being social or productive like screens meant for kids like me - it’s time for them to be pacified by some crap manufactured by Netflix.
The people here trying to apologize for their parenting choices and accusing the stats of having a twisted ulterior motive, are making some puzzling remarks. Haven’t these people not realized how much harder it is today to be a good parent than it was in prior eras? They should have thought of that before breeding children.
Obviously the way screens are utilized today is going to warp kids brains in some difficult to measure ways. But better parenting would probably offset that tremendously.
That was probably not as common back then, since it was hard to get an hour in unless you were really into computers and happened to have one.
Today, it’s hard to find a parent who will read to their kid every night. Who will read them good stuff like poetry, the classics, Greek mythology, etc., Not Harry Potter or whatever. It’s also hard to find a kid today who isn’t exposed to at least an hour of screen time. And that’s not time being social or productive like screens meant for kids like me - it’s time for them to be pacified by some crap manufactured by Netflix.
The people here trying to apologize for their parenting choices and accusing the stats of having a twisted ulterior motive, are making some puzzling remarks. Haven’t these people not realized how much harder it is today to be a good parent than it was in prior eras? They should have thought of that before breeding children.
Obviously the way screens are utilized today is going to warp kids brains in some difficult to measure ways. But better parenting would probably offset that tremendously.
Parents today aren’t as sucky as you think. Here’s some data on reading for 0-5 year olds:
https://www.childhealthdata.org/browse/survey/results?q=7196...
The vast majority of parents are trying, reading at least a couple times a week.
I also haven’t seen any data to suggest that WHAT is read is all that important. The important things seem to be that the reading happens and roughly aligns with or mildly stretches the child’s language capacity.
Finally, there is no reason to assume a “twisted ulterior motive” to parents doubting the article- the study was small N (47) and doesn’t seem to disentangle high screen time from low reading/other interactions.
The vast majority of parents are trying, reading at least a couple times a week.
I also haven’t seen any data to suggest that WHAT is read is all that important. The important things seem to be that the reading happens and roughly aligns with or mildly stretches the child’s language capacity.
Finally, there is no reason to assume a “twisted ulterior motive” to parents doubting the article- the study was small N (47) and doesn’t seem to disentangle high screen time from low reading/other interactions.
It's harder to be a good parent in the sense that the bar has been raised much higher. Go ask your parents' generation how much time their parents spent with them. Then compare to what's seen as the minimum now.
Oh man, the time use surveys in the US are amazing here. I can’t find the data or remember specifics, but the amount of time both moms and dads spend parenting has gone WAY since the 60s, even as family size as plummeted.
Edit: I assumed you meant to write "way down" but now realize you probably meant up... original comment below.
That's interesting! I'm mainly going by my mother's recollections of her childhood in 1950's rural Finland, but in her words: "We kids didn't spend time with our parents. It would have been embarrassing!"
That's interesting! I'm mainly going by my mother's recollections of her childhood in 1950's rural Finland, but in her words: "We kids didn't spend time with our parents. It would have been embarrassing!"
How long is preschool? My guess would be like 5 hours of time between schools out and bed, but that could be way off.
Many (Most?) Parents pick and drop off before and after work, so around 8:30 to 5:30.
My kid's bedtime is 7:30. So not much time to do anything other than eat and get ready for bed.
My kid's bedtime is 7:30. So not much time to do anything other than eat and get ready for bed.
There are many meta-studies demonstrating that repeatedly for the past 20 years. TV is bad for children. Video games are bad. Phones are bad, and tablets, and consoles, and computers. It's bad for their mood, their IQ, their sleep, it gives them obesity, ADHD, it's bad any way you look at it; it's even bad when the parents are watching the phone instead of interacting with their children...
Here's one meta study:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abst...
"This study suggests that education and public health professionals should consider screen media use supervision and reduction as strategies to improve the academic success of children and adolescents."
here's another one:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263708644_Media_Use...
"Our results indicated a small significant relationship between media use and ADHD-related behaviors."
Here's one meta study:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abst...
"This study suggests that education and public health professionals should consider screen media use supervision and reduction as strategies to improve the academic success of children and adolescents."
here's another one:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263708644_Media_Use...
"Our results indicated a small significant relationship between media use and ADHD-related behaviors."
Honest question: why don't you include books as a media?
From what I can tell, listening to books read aloud is by far the most effective and efficient way to promote child language development. Listening comprehension is a foundational prerequisite for most kinds of intellectual work.
In comparison watching videos, playing tablet games, etc. comes nowhere close.
The differences are (1) the language in books read aloud is more often tailored to the child’s comprehension level, because parents can figure out whether books are too easy or too hard; (2) the range of grammar, vocabulary, styles, ideas, etc. is much wider in books than most kids get from other kinds of media; (3) the book is not a fixed medium but also has a live interpreter who can define or skip difficult words, repeat sentences rephrased a different way, answer questions, ask questions, go back to cross-reference earlier parts of the book, point specific things out in the illustrations, etc.
Anecdotally, the preschool kids around me whose parents read to them for 1+ hours/day seem to end up advancing about twice as fast in their language skills as their peers. YMMV.
In comparison watching videos, playing tablet games, etc. comes nowhere close.
The differences are (1) the language in books read aloud is more often tailored to the child’s comprehension level, because parents can figure out whether books are too easy or too hard; (2) the range of grammar, vocabulary, styles, ideas, etc. is much wider in books than most kids get from other kinds of media; (3) the book is not a fixed medium but also has a live interpreter who can define or skip difficult words, repeat sentences rephrased a different way, answer questions, ask questions, go back to cross-reference earlier parts of the book, point specific things out in the illustrations, etc.
Anecdotally, the preschool kids around me whose parents read to them for 1+ hours/day seem to end up advancing about twice as fast in their language skills as their peers. YMMV.
Yes I heard this too. Frankly something doesn't click for me, I can't say what exactly. The brain is far, far more complex than that, we can't boil "child language development" down to "read them 1+ hour/day" and "limit screen time".
It’s not that reading is literally the only possible way to get the same kind of linguistic input to the child. I’m sure listening to an expert storyteller, watching a puppet show or play, listening to someone reciting poetry, having a thoughtful conversation with an adult while looking at some wordless artwork, singing songs together, etc. can be similarly stimulating.
The thing is: it’s hard to find actors for a play in the child’s bedroom at night. It’s hard for parent to come up with 200 different well-plotted stories at the appropriate level with visual props. Etc. But after 2 years of daily practice I can read a picture book decently (including funny voices, etc.) while half-asleep and consciously thinking about something unrelated with half my attention.
The kind of logical reasoning, grammatical variety, vocabulary, etc. used in books is not literally impossible to imitate with some other medium. It’s just a lot more work and in practice not really done.
The thing is: it’s hard to find actors for a play in the child’s bedroom at night. It’s hard for parent to come up with 200 different well-plotted stories at the appropriate level with visual props. Etc. But after 2 years of daily practice I can read a picture book decently (including funny voices, etc.) while half-asleep and consciously thinking about something unrelated with half my attention.
The kind of logical reasoning, grammatical variety, vocabulary, etc. used in books is not literally impossible to imitate with some other medium. It’s just a lot more work and in practice not really done.
Don't take it personally, you're fully entitled to have your own thought on this subject. But to me it looks like you are putting really too much importance on bedtime readings (or at least you are citing studies and trends that says so).
Because, I don't know if you have children, I do (8 and 6): you can't read them a different book every evening for 1h. Even for more than 5 minutes.
You just can't. Life is messy, there's no place for such idealistic hobbies.
That's why I can't relate to those "advice" (too use kind words), I just don't think they are relayed by real parents.
Because, I don't know if you have children, I do (8 and 6): you can't read them a different book every evening for 1h. Even for more than 5 minutes.
You just can't. Life is messy, there's no place for such idealistic hobbies.
That's why I can't relate to those "advice" (too use kind words), I just don't think they are relayed by real parents.
Same reason vegetables aren't grouped together with soda and candy and chips, despite all of them being "food"
Did the study only compare differences between siblings?
There are so many studies that are wortless because they don't controll for the environment.
Besides there is quite a bit of evidence that games and especially competitive games are good for the brain.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201502...
There are so many studies that are wortless because they don't controll for the environment.
Besides there is quite a bit of evidence that games and especially competitive games are good for the brain.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201502...
Yes, these studies and particularly meta-studies control for other parameters, social, economic, etc.
There are so many factors that influence child development and media use. I don't think it is even possible to properly control for them.
How can you for example control for the believe that they are bad? Better parents will have more success reducing the metrics that are believed to be bad than other parents. How can you control for the rising philosophy?
I'm especially skeptical about the claim about ADHD and that games are bad. There is lots of evidence that games, especially of competitive nature like shooters or strategy games, improve cognitive functions. ADHD is to a large degree heritable and influences all kinds of behavior. I think it is by far more realistic that ADHD would influence screen use and not the other way around.
How can you for example control for the believe that they are bad? Better parents will have more success reducing the metrics that are believed to be bad than other parents. How can you control for the rising philosophy?
I'm especially skeptical about the claim about ADHD and that games are bad. There is lots of evidence that games, especially of competitive nature like shooters or strategy games, improve cognitive functions. ADHD is to a large degree heritable and influences all kinds of behavior. I think it is by far more realistic that ADHD would influence screen use and not the other way around.
Actually games improve very specialized cognitive functions. For instance you know that being good at chess doesn't relate much to being good at poker, and being good at tennis doesn't do much for your football abilities.
Similarly, being good at some FPS game makes you at best marginally better at video games of a different genre, and have no actual relationship to your abilities in the real world. Even a study on driving games showed no improvement of actual driving in test subjects.
Similarly, being good at some FPS game makes you at best marginally better at video games of a different genre, and have no actual relationship to your abilities in the real world. Even a study on driving games showed no improvement of actual driving in test subjects.
Hours of TV watched also correlates with violent/bullying behavior in adolescence and adulthood:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/295/5564/2468.full
Deferred imitation is a powerful thing. "Brain Rules for Baby" is a great resource for new parents that covers this topic pretty comprehensively.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/295/5564/2468.full
Deferred imitation is a powerful thing. "Brain Rules for Baby" is a great resource for new parents that covers this topic pretty comprehensively.
I continue to be surprised by the scope of these studies. Has nobody figured out that the screens are incidental and it is the content difference that matters? Listening to several hours of inane audio books every day is unlikely to be any better for a child's development.
Interaction. Competition. Surprise. These are the keys, not the lack of blinken lights
Interaction. Competition. Surprise. These are the keys, not the lack of blinken lights
Pedagogy is hard, but I am inclined to agree.
But it's really easy to put a kid in front of some cartoon and forget about them, they'll re-watch the same thing over and over and over, lacking interaction, competition and surprise. So "screen time" is probably a good enough proxy for "passive screen time", which would be bad by your definition too.
But it's really easy to put a kid in front of some cartoon and forget about them, they'll re-watch the same thing over and over and over, lacking interaction, competition and surprise. So "screen time" is probably a good enough proxy for "passive screen time", which would be bad by your definition too.
Yes of course it's important to note that screens are huge enablers of passive consumption.
But the way we name things is important. Calling it passive consumption yields all sorts of interesting questions. Is the sickness of Facebook/Instagram any different from that of Netflix/YouTube? How about than Fox news? Does it actually matter what age you are? How much is bad? Does live theater count? What about a concert?
Parents deserve the nuanced result/questions when deciding what is right for their children and selves (if indeed my supposition is correct ish). Calling it screen time is lazy science until it is shown to be unique to screens (which would be an immense surprise to me)
But the way we name things is important. Calling it passive consumption yields all sorts of interesting questions. Is the sickness of Facebook/Instagram any different from that of Netflix/YouTube? How about than Fox news? Does it actually matter what age you are? How much is bad? Does live theater count? What about a concert?
Parents deserve the nuanced result/questions when deciding what is right for their children and selves (if indeed my supposition is correct ish). Calling it screen time is lazy science until it is shown to be unique to screens (which would be an immense surprise to me)
I would have thought Facebook contained interaction, competition, and surprise, for better or worse.
Only if you're publishing a lot. I think most users mostly just scroll through their feed.
Nonetheless I see your point. Perhaps there is an interesting distinction! Maybe worth investigating, and not particularly suggested by a 'screens are bad' line of thinking
Nonetheless I see your point. Perhaps there is an interesting distinction! Maybe worth investigating, and not particularly suggested by a 'screens are bad' line of thinking
Since you've "figured it out" I assume you have done a complete study to come to that conclusion? Otherwise your hunch is as good as mine.
I've certainly not figured it out, but I think I'm allowed to make criticisms of a study and how it's reported. And further to describe what I think is a reasonable guess at the underlying cause. It's likely my guess is incomplete or even wrong. But I think it's even more likely that screens are a bogeyman.
I seem to have read a number of reports confirming that list.
Challenge - but not overwhelming challenge - is really good for minds. All ages. And a passive screen does not challenge anyone ... without real world interaction...
Yes challenge is much better suited than surprise in this list. Thank you
Right. The brain is like a muscle, and if it's not being engaged or challenged, then what would you expect?
You could replace these studies with: "Not using the brain is bad for the brain."
The screen itself is basically a red herring. What's on the screen matters. There's a big difference between interacting with a puzzle or strategy game and passively consuming a video, for example.
You could replace these studies with: "Not using the brain is bad for the brain."
The screen itself is basically a red herring. What's on the screen matters. There's a big difference between interacting with a puzzle or strategy game and passively consuming a video, for example.
The thing is your brain is 'stimulated' but not deep enough or the right way. So everybody feels attracted to it.
> not the lack of blinken lights
I can’t agree with this.
Stimulating lights and sounds which distract attention and make it more difficult to focus on a problem or task are actively getting in the way of learning.
I can’t agree with this.
Stimulating lights and sounds which distract attention and make it more difficult to focus on a problem or task are actively getting in the way of learning.
You're describing a situation where the screen is a secondary activity in the background. A conversation by adults could be just as distracting and yet you hopefully wouldn't advise that adults conversing is harmful to childhood development
No I am talking about the media itself being overstimulating in a way irrelevant to what the medium is capable of teaching or what the media is intended to teach.
For a 2-year-old, playing with a toy with a bunch of buttons that blink lights and make sounds is a lot less developmentally appropriate than playing with blocks or plastic gears.
For a 4-year-old, watching action cartoons (or modern “PBS Kids” shows for that matter) is a lot less developmentally appropriate than watching Mr. Rogers episodes from 30 years ago.
For a 7-year-old, spending time on a computer playing an unchallenging but flashy game is a lot less developmentally appropriate than figuring out how to make a Logo turtle draw a picture.
Etc.
This isn’t to say that children should never ever play with flashy things, but access should be moderated by parents so they don’t crowd out other activities, because they can be highly addictive.
One of the problems with screens is that the more hyperstimulating e.g. a game or show is, the more likely someone is to pick it vs. alternatives, which means that the medium in general tends towards distraction over meaningful content.
This is not as big a problem with physical books. Even e.g. popup books and comic books are nowhere near the level of stimulation of a TV or smartphone. Same goes for non-electrified physical toys
For a 2-year-old, playing with a toy with a bunch of buttons that blink lights and make sounds is a lot less developmentally appropriate than playing with blocks or plastic gears.
For a 4-year-old, watching action cartoons (or modern “PBS Kids” shows for that matter) is a lot less developmentally appropriate than watching Mr. Rogers episodes from 30 years ago.
For a 7-year-old, spending time on a computer playing an unchallenging but flashy game is a lot less developmentally appropriate than figuring out how to make a Logo turtle draw a picture.
Etc.
This isn’t to say that children should never ever play with flashy things, but access should be moderated by parents so they don’t crowd out other activities, because they can be highly addictive.
One of the problems with screens is that the more hyperstimulating e.g. a game or show is, the more likely someone is to pick it vs. alternatives, which means that the medium in general tends towards distraction over meaningful content.
This is not as big a problem with physical books. Even e.g. popup books and comic books are nowhere near the level of stimulation of a TV or smartphone. Same goes for non-electrified physical toys
I think you make an important point here and I wish your top content weren't greyed out.
That said, I think my point that the devil is in the content remains with the additional important note that screens enable new types of particularly dangerous content.
That may in fact be a more important point than mine and thus bolster the original decision to study screen time specifically.
That said, I think my point that the devil is in the content remains with the additional important note that screens enable new types of particularly dangerous content.
That may in fact be a more important point than mine and thus bolster the original decision to study screen time specifically.
There is a difference: Kids are really bad in learning from a screen and no one means with 'screen' a wikipedia article.
screen = tv with tons of ads, basic entertainment, simple mobile games with tons of ads etc.
screen = tv with tons of ads, basic entertainment, simple mobile games with tons of ads etc.
I think most people (parents) do not in fact distinguish between screen activities. In particular, games are bucketed into the same box as tv regardless of the game.
I'm not aware of any studies indicating learning something from a webpage is any less effective than learning it from a book. I'd be interested to see studies targeting that. Even more so if it had breakdowns by age
I'm not aware of any studies indicating learning something from a webpage is any less effective than learning it from a book. I'd be interested to see studies targeting that. Even more so if it had breakdowns by age
A more skeptical interpretation of the paper (worth a read): https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-study-...
> 5. The abstract reports the study found significant associations between language scores and the ScreenQ, giving the impression that these are robust, whereas the main text notes that these associations are no longer significant when household income was included as a covariate. Since many readers only read the abstract, this is misleading.
I think "misleading" is a generous way of putting it, frankly.
I think "misleading" is a generous way of putting it, frankly.
Decades of twin studies, consistently replicated across dozens of large-scale studies, have found that family environment explains effectively 0% of the variance in adult IQ. In contrast, genetic heritability explains well over 50% of the cross-sectional population variance[1].
Always keep this indisputably true fact in mind when reading association studies like the one in the link. In fact one simple exercise is to imagine a close analogy between intelligence and height. After all, the structure of adult IQ inheritance closely matches that of adult height[2].
Imagine if you read a study that found that kids whose parents frequently played basketball were several inches taller. Would you conclude that basketball causally increases height? Of course not. Given what we know about the highly genetic hereditary nature of height, there's a much more logical conclusion. Tall parents pass along their genes and tend to have tall kids. Tall people are more likely to play basketball. Therefore basketball players are more likely to have tall children.
When you have highly genetically inherited traits like IQ or height, association studies can find all sorts of superficially compelling ways to supposedly improve the trait. However all of these findings are basically worthless unless we control for genetics, for example by pairing siblings.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104160800... [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-of-human...
Always keep this indisputably true fact in mind when reading association studies like the one in the link. In fact one simple exercise is to imagine a close analogy between intelligence and height. After all, the structure of adult IQ inheritance closely matches that of adult height[2].
Imagine if you read a study that found that kids whose parents frequently played basketball were several inches taller. Would you conclude that basketball causally increases height? Of course not. Given what we know about the highly genetic hereditary nature of height, there's a much more logical conclusion. Tall parents pass along their genes and tend to have tall kids. Tall people are more likely to play basketball. Therefore basketball players are more likely to have tall children.
When you have highly genetically inherited traits like IQ or height, association studies can find all sorts of superficially compelling ways to supposedly improve the trait. However all of these findings are basically worthless unless we control for genetics, for example by pairing siblings.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104160800... [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-of-human...
And as we all know, IQ is a perfect measure of mental capability and the only thing that really matters in the end. Self-confidence, ambition, passion, knowledge - that's just balderdash!
Twin studies on personality factors[1] find that genetic heritability explains 40-50% of the cross-sectional variance in adults, while the impact of family environment is non-significant. All of those factors you listed show a nearly identical genetic pre-disposition as IQ itself.
[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-6494....
[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-6494....
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What if they are video chatting with a relative? Is that bad because it is a screen?
If you are going to make an exception for such things (as they usually do), you really need to step back and look at the whole idea of lumping all things screen based as a single entity, "screen time."
Is it possible that the real problem isn't that it is in a screen, but it is the type of content, the passiveness vs. interactivity, the intentionally addictive nature of games and video content, etc? And maybe the likely correllation between kids who spend a lot of time on screens, and parents who aren't very interested in interacting with their kids.
If you are going to make an exception for such things (as they usually do), you really need to step back and look at the whole idea of lumping all things screen based as a single entity, "screen time."
Is it possible that the real problem isn't that it is in a screen, but it is the type of content, the passiveness vs. interactivity, the intentionally addictive nature of games and video content, etc? And maybe the likely correllation between kids who spend a lot of time on screens, and parents who aren't very interested in interacting with their kids.
— What other tools for creativity and learning do you arbitrarily limit? Do you have a hard rule on “paper time”?¹
1. http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/06/30/quantification
Related blog posts:
http://penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/06/30/quantification
http://penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/06/30/screen-time
1. http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/06/30/quantification
Related blog posts:
http://penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/06/30/quantification
http://penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/06/30/screen-time
It's like once people have children something flips in their brains and they become unable to think rationally about perceived dangers.
Screens are not bad. Screens display things. What is on the screen and how the child is interacting with that defines what is good or bad. Screens just are.
And re: this study, when I was a kid in the 90s I used my screens to read books (and still do). It's not either or when it comes to books and screens.
Screens are not bad. Screens display things. What is on the screen and how the child is interacting with that defines what is good or bad. Screens just are.
And re: this study, when I was a kid in the 90s I used my screens to read books (and still do). It's not either or when it comes to books and screens.
Do you think the AAP recommends a limit of one hour of screen time because parents are unable to think rationally?
I personally am a little skeptical that these studies have no confounding factors, but I don't think it's fair to blame parents for what doctors, researchers, and clickbait authors are saying.
I personally am a little skeptical that these studies have no confounding factors, but I don't think it's fair to blame parents for what doctors, researchers, and clickbait authors are saying.
There's few groups more in the thrall of the irrational desires of parents than the American Academy of Pediatrics.
I don't understand the incentives or mechanism here. Let's assume you are correct, and parents irrationally fear screens (and many other things). Then what, the AAP issues guidelines based on what parents already fear? Then they conduct studies and what? Fudge the results? I'm having trouble connecting the dots.
If it's anything like this, it still seems like doctors are more guilty than parents. They're supposed to be the experts.
If it's anything like this, it still seems like doctors are more guilty than parents. They're supposed to be the experts.
Here's a theory. The parents don't irrationally fear screens on their own, but they are very susceptible to being told to fear them especially by a seemingly credible source. Now that they fear them, they are grateful to the organization that warned them. Grateful parents are key to funding.
Organizations (and doctors, as you note) have a real incentive to conveying to parents things that parents subsequently find to be valuable, "action item" information. In other words, they are biased toward making themselves seem important.
I don't think they necessarily "fudge" the results, but they can certainly avoid going out of their way to think of how such results might be biased toward "useful data".
Organizations (and doctors, as you note) have a real incentive to conveying to parents things that parents subsequently find to be valuable, "action item" information. In other words, they are biased toward making themselves seem important.
I don't think they necessarily "fudge" the results, but they can certainly avoid going out of their way to think of how such results might be biased toward "useful data".
> The review of 33 studies concluded reading from screens had a negative effect on reading performance as opposed to reading an actual book. Even stranger was that students had a more realistic assessment of their own skills when reading a paper document. This only held true for non-fiction reading material, leading the Hechinger Report to remark, “go ahead and read Jane Austen on a Kindle.”
So non-fiction screen time is bad?
It's studies like these that get parents like me to get all riled up but with no answers. I should start a research that tests if too much media consumption by parents leads to erratic child development.
So non-fiction screen time is bad?
It's studies like these that get parents like me to get all riled up but with no answers. I should start a research that tests if too much media consumption by parents leads to erratic child development.
This smells of p-hacking. Split along enough dimensions and one of them will look barely significant under the wrong model.
5 kids here, ages 1-8, with the school aged ones at or near the top of their class reading-wise.
Basic points on how we use technology: -totally disable the internet before the age of 6 -find all the interesting ABC / Songs / etc. that are interesting and download them locally (ssyoutube) -Always differentiate between the activities, i.e. are they consuming, creating, or playing with content?
On the last point, it is interesting that the kids will sometimes not want to play the iPad if they aren’t allowed to watch ‘shows’ Once it becomes another toy, instead of an addictive consumer-driven device, it gets used just like the other things in the house.
Can answer questions if there are any>
Basic points on how we use technology: -totally disable the internet before the age of 6 -find all the interesting ABC / Songs / etc. that are interesting and download them locally (ssyoutube) -Always differentiate between the activities, i.e. are they consuming, creating, or playing with content?
On the last point, it is interesting that the kids will sometimes not want to play the iPad if they aren’t allowed to watch ‘shows’ Once it becomes another toy, instead of an addictive consumer-driven device, it gets used just like the other things in the house.
Can answer questions if there are any>
Why did you have so many kids and so close together in age? Or are they adopted?
Are you able to work or are you a stay at home mom?
If you work, does your company or government provide assistance/aid?
I hear people with 1 or 2 kids struggling, I don't think I've met any with 5 kids so young.
Are you able to work or are you a stay at home mom?
If you work, does your company or government provide assistance/aid?
I hear people with 1 or 2 kids struggling, I don't think I've met any with 5 kids so young.
2 years between kids is quite common. Sometimes you get a multiple and sometimes "the last one" isn't a "one".
The full text of the study is behind a paywall [1], but from the abstract we can see that:
- It's 47 participants (out of 69 recruited)
- The only other variables controlled for are household income and age
The study's conclusion itself says:
> The findings suggest further study is needed, particularly during the rapid early stages of brain development.
So we should all be interested in the results of that future study, but at this point nobody can really make a strong claim one way or the other.
1: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abst...
- It's 47 participants (out of 69 recruited)
- The only other variables controlled for are household income and age
The study's conclusion itself says:
> The findings suggest further study is needed, particularly during the rapid early stages of brain development.
So we should all be interested in the results of that future study, but at this point nobody can really make a strong claim one way or the other.
1: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abst...
I don't quite understand where people are finding the time to let their kids watch over 1 hour of TV (much less read to them) each day.
My wife and I work a standard 8 hour day. Kids wake up at 700. We leave for daycare/work by 800. Arrive at work by 9. Work until 6pm. Pick up kids. Get home by 7pm. Prepare and eat dinner. Bedtime routine starts at 8pm.
This leaves zero hours of dedicated kid time during the work week.
My wife and I work a standard 8 hour day. Kids wake up at 700. We leave for daycare/work by 800. Arrive at work by 9. Work until 6pm. Pick up kids. Get home by 7pm. Prepare and eat dinner. Bedtime routine starts at 8pm.
This leaves zero hours of dedicated kid time during the work week.
I don't understand this comment. Why do you expect us to have the same schedules and lifestyle?
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People generally seem to have difficulty thinking about the diversity of types of lives on a population-level scale.
There are quite a few stay at hone parents. Also what do you think is happening at most day cares? There is craft time for sure and recess but also at the understaffed places that are lower cost a lot of movie time.
may I ask what do you mean with day care, and where do you live?
In my experience kids in nursery/kindergarden don't have movies at all, other than unusual circumstances, so I may have a biased world view, or simply not understand the context.
In my experience kids in nursery/kindergarden don't have movies at all, other than unusual circumstances, so I may have a biased world view, or simply not understand the context.
Our daycare (Montessori school for whatever that's worth) never showed videos, ever. Our very-good-for-our-city and excellent-for-our-state primary school, however, shows them quite a few movies (every indoor recess, for one thing, which... WTF), and puts the kids (yes, even kindergarteners) on the iPad a ton. Our first kid's reading ability actually dropped significantly for a while after the transition, and I largely blame all the "reading practice" in an iPad app that would read the book to the kids at the press of a button. Yeah, very, very few kindergarteners, even ones who are advanced readers, will choose to read over being read to, and being read books that are already under their current reading level (which is another topic) is doing approximately nothing to improve their reading ability.
They also give the kids math practice in a gamified app that nags them to sign up at home for bonuses and to unlock parts of the game—but of course the home version requires a subscription. Yeah, thanks assholes. What happened to just being able to buy edutainment software? That ecosystem weirdly seems less vibrant than it was in the 80s through the early 2000s, which, given the (surely?) massive decrease in development, art, and distribution costs and the huge increase in the market size makes no damn sense to me, and yet, here we are, just a handful of decent apps of that sort that can be purchased outright and even then, they're just OK.
It's shitty, frankly, but it's the trend now so you have to go way out of your way (=upend your life even more than you already are to be near "good" schools) to avoid it.
They also give the kids math practice in a gamified app that nags them to sign up at home for bonuses and to unlock parts of the game—but of course the home version requires a subscription. Yeah, thanks assholes. What happened to just being able to buy edutainment software? That ecosystem weirdly seems less vibrant than it was in the 80s through the early 2000s, which, given the (surely?) massive decrease in development, art, and distribution costs and the huge increase in the market size makes no damn sense to me, and yet, here we are, just a handful of decent apps of that sort that can be purchased outright and even then, they're just OK.
It's shitty, frankly, but it's the trend now so you have to go way out of your way (=upend your life even more than you already are to be near "good" schools) to avoid it.
[deleted]
I'm not the one to get between a man and his daily routine especially when it comes to family so please take this as a curious question.
How bad would it be to move the kids bedtime one hour later and have an hour or a half hour of reading time with them before bed?
How bad would it be to move the kids bedtime one hour later and have an hour or a half hour of reading time with them before bed?
Depends on the kid but my sample size of two says very bad. If they don’t get at least 12 hours they’re a mess the next day and it starts a horrible cycle of not enough rest leading to it being hard to sleep.
Depends on the age of the kids, but I would go with pretty bad. Daycare was mentioned which suggests preschool. Kids of that age need 10-12 hours of sleep (it really depends on the child). Even starting the bedtime routine as late as 8pm sounds too late to me.
My data should not be considered normal. I have a six year-old who goes to sleep at around 10pm and wakes up at 7:30am. Sometimes later than 10pm. She's been doing this for at least a year. When younger, she wasn't a napper. Extreme attitude if she goes to bed after 11pm, but bed time between 9pm-10pm yields a fairly consistent mood for the day. If left in a dark room by herself at 8pm, she'll be awake for at least an hour. Now we just let herself read herself to sleep.
The four-year-old and two-year-old go to bed at 8:30pm and wake up 7am. They have stronger negative responses to going to bed later.
The 6-year-old reads by herself for a couple hours a day? And is read to for about an hour. I would guess she's in front of a screen for two hours per day. Maybe more when she dives into BrainPop or something.
The four-year-old and two-year-old go to bed at 8:30pm and wake up 7am. They have stronger negative responses to going to bed later.
The 6-year-old reads by herself for a couple hours a day? And is read to for about an hour. I would guess she's in front of a screen for two hours per day. Maybe more when she dives into BrainPop or something.
They’re supposed to sleep 12ish hours, give or take, until a later age than you’d think. Lots of people do put their kids down later and get them up just as early but it’s not clearly the better choice.
Sleep is incredibly important for kids and its also extremely hard to perturb - if we miss our kids bedtime by an hour he is a wreck.
There's the 2hr commute that some people avoid and can use for TV.
There's all the weekend time.
There's jobs with only 30min unpaid lunch.
There's the hour of morning time that only needs half hour.
There's dinner prep where the kids might have free time.
There's all the weekend time.
There's jobs with only 30min unpaid lunch.
There's the hour of morning time that only needs half hour.
There's dinner prep where the kids might have free time.
Depending on where your daycare is, you could fit in half an hour of commute to and from, where the kid could watch something on the mobile phone...
Then there's dinner. Kid gets done quickly and is bored, off to watch the pad.
At least that's what happens with some kids I know.
Then there's dinner. Kid gets done quickly and is bored, off to watch the pad.
At least that's what happens with some kids I know.
I do almost everything like you said. But my kid wakes up at 700, and we could play or read chapter from a book for 30 minutes when my wife working on breakfast. When i came back from work at 1900 i'll either play with wife/kid in the yard, or i could read books/draw/play with kid, while my wife working on dinner, or we switch here (i'm cooking, she playing).
And my daughter has 20 minutes screen time a day. She choose on what to spend it between game on mobile, game on PC or cartoons on TV.
And my daughter has 20 minutes screen time a day. She choose on what to spend it between game on mobile, game on PC or cartoons on TV.
A 6 PM pickup is pretty late. Mine wake up between 5:30 - 6:00 typically, and the screen time eases the separation from parents when the babysitter arrives. (Yes, we tested to see if they were faking it to get screen time.) wife takes over again at around 4 PM, and bed time is at 7, which leaves about an hour for wife to get stuff done. She gets up at 5AM leaves the house by 6AM, so asking her to wait until 7:30 to start prepping for the next day would not only be impractical as relates to her having dinner and getting to bed, but would be too mentally exhausting to start doing evening work, leaving her no time at all to mentally unwind.
I remember when I first tried to schedule my days after we became a family of 3, thinking "A bit of organizing is going to sort this madness right out!". Cue my dismay when I realized that no, I'm simply 1.5 hours short each day of getting everything done and sleeping 8 hours.
It did get better later on as the kid grew up.
It did get better later on as the kid grew up.
Can confirm, kid three is where it all goes to hell and there's not much you can do about it. I hear the difficulty levels off after that but damned if I plan to find out. No way.
The hope that it improves is the only thing keeping me sane, hah!
I raised my kids without cable or broadcast tv, and they had limited access to computer games. However I did have a tv, later a digital projector and we would watch vhs tapes and dvds. They had a tandy 102 they could play with as much as they wanted. I think the problem is not so much screens, but a screen activity without a defined beginning and end, and in isolation. I had a lot of fun watching star trek, etc with my kids. Later as teenagers there was streaming etc, and at that point well they are just like me. The only kind of hard thing is when they felt kind of left out, like not knowing the shows other kids were talking about, or the games etc. I know it's not a easy choice for everyone to make, but at least for me I think it was a pretty good one. I more or less grew up watching tv every night, and what can I say, I know the lyrics to many tv sitcoms. It didn't wreck my life or anything, but it certainly didn't help it.
"It's a small study" -- likely to be dominated by noise rather than effects.
There is also a selection effect where small studies with boring results don't get articles written.
Absolutely it's called publication bias.
Also studies who's results challenge the prevailing bias are much less likely to get published.
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...
Also studies who's results challenge the prevailing bias are much less likely to get published.
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...
Our kids would definitely be worse off without screens. We don't have time to give them their ideal levels and kinds stimulation, and screens are a tool which helps their parents' sanity. Us, as their parents being driven insane would adversely affect these children. One of them has special needs and the other 2 crave constant input. Overall screens are the lesser evil, and they're all doing just fine. It's all contextual and this article is nowhere near holistic enough.
Why can't the two provide input for each other? How did our
grandparents with 8 kids do it?
Context is everything
Yeah and TV will make you blind and videogames will give you epilepsy.. I heard so much nonsense when something new gets wide adoption, stop forcing the old world into your kids
Do you think that raising a child in front of a TV is a good idea?
Eh, in moderation it's fine. My kids get a couple hours of screen time a day, maybe even a little more sometimes. Both are at the top of their respective classes in school.
But I've also been careful to keep them aware of the consequences of their various choices (screen time, junk food, etc) and they self-regulate pretty effectively. Although my daughter is currently addicted to fantasy novels and I may need to help her dial that back a little so she gets enough sleep at night :).
But I've also been careful to keep them aware of the consequences of their various choices (screen time, junk food, etc) and they self-regulate pretty effectively. Although my daughter is currently addicted to fantasy novels and I may need to help her dial that back a little so she gets enough sleep at night :).
If you are actually asking if television can be part of a healthy child's life, I would say absolutely. For example, I watched Sesame Street in the 1970's and my kids watched it in the 2000's and the quality was still great.
Not being outside enough at a young age probably does give you nearsightedness, so it's kind of related.
The key seems to be exposure to bright sunlight including the UV part so you could watch TV outside and I guess that'd work (modern windows are often UV blocking so cheating and watching in front of a window might not do it)
To be fair, reading or doing anything else indoors while not getting outside much is just as bad, though.
The key seems to be exposure to bright sunlight including the UV part so you could watch TV outside and I guess that'd work (modern windows are often UV blocking so cheating and watching in front of a window might not do it)
To be fair, reading or doing anything else indoors while not getting outside much is just as bad, though.
It’s been obvious for years that the kids who are sitting silently through 3 hour weddings glued to their iPads are not developing any of the skills like creating fun, making friends, or being disciplined on proper conduct. It’s great for the parents though, but if you give a kid an iPad you should be aware that you’re damaging their brain, the same way that ice cream damages their health (that doesn’t mean kids should never have iPads or ice cream).
Letting your kid stare at an iPad for 3 hours at a wedding is damaging their brains? This is a bold claim and requires evidence. The article is talking about daily screen time, not the occasional one-off.
No, having a kid who you've never bothered to socialize because using the iPad is easier is damaging their brains. My kids are much more disruptive at adult social events than their iPad-addled peers, but 100x better-behaved than those kids would be if you took away their iPads. Sadly, the expected standard of behavior is tending towards the iPad zombies, it's mostly the older generation who sees my kids' petty transgressions as "kids being kids."
Some of those kids might be coming up fine but a bunch of them are growing up unable to behave without constantly being entertained by YouTube. It's why their parents give them the devices to begin with—it's work to train them initially, and there's some unpleasantness and inconvenience involved, and giving them your phone works immediately—and why they have to keep giving them to them even when they're older.
Failing to improve or temporarily affecting mood != damaging
[deleted]
Yeah, but they're bad for my brain as an adult. Video games and Netflix occupy 90% of my free time, which I would rather spend on hobbies, family, or exercise. But I am habituated.
Cancel Pause Netflix justbfor a month. It's super easy to go back if you don't like it.
Or make a gym-only rule.
This article is absolutely incorrect.
Go to the source journal article (Not CNN, it also is blatantly incorrect), it does not say what they claim.
What this article claims is phenomenal. Why would you trust parentology.com with a discovery that would win a noble prize?
To me, if you trust this article and use it to justify "Screens Are Bad for Young Brains" you clearly are not looking at the evidence. And that to me means you are not thinking at a low level what's best for a child. That's bad parenting.
Go to the source journal article (Not CNN, it also is blatantly incorrect), it does not say what they claim.
What this article claims is phenomenal. Why would you trust parentology.com with a discovery that would win a noble prize?
To me, if you trust this article and use it to justify "Screens Are Bad for Young Brains" you clearly are not looking at the evidence. And that to me means you are not thinking at a low level what's best for a child. That's bad parenting.
How do they account for the correlation that kids on screens are the ones that have less parental involvement?
They've been saying this since the computer revolution started back in 1976.
I watched first hand the harm that was done by the medical community obsessing over "breast feeding is best and formula feeding is basically admission of failure." That experience left me so untrusting that the medical community isn't just on their n'th generation of, "everyone before us had it wrong, our advice is finally the right advice."
Do you know what damage you can do when you convert some study, full of error bars and reproducibility concerns into a blanket statement? You fuck with struggling parents who just need a few hours of their evening to be quiet so that they can do chores and maybe watch an episode of Netflix. Not everyone has the luxury of a stay-at-home mom or plenty of free time or money to throw at problems like meals and transportation. You pile onto that barely-getting-by-near-crisis-where-alcohol-at-night-sounds-like-a-great-idea yet another negative factor: you get to feel like a shitty parent about the screen-based remedy that works.
It ticks me off that this junk ends up on social media because it undermines the things that _actually_ have a real lasting effect on raising children. Build lifestyle habits that enable you to be happy, sleep well, and spend time with your kids. Even if that means hours of tablet time on weeknights or a quick to make meal that isn't the healthiest.
I blame this ass-backwards non-holistic look modern medicine likes to take on problems like these. They did the study on breast vs. bottle feeding and found real measurable results (I do indeed believe the results are valid), but they never found a way to quantify what practical harm they cause to parents who get judgy nurses and a birthing room full of "Breast is Best" posters, who eventually spend nights weeping over their inability to feed their child, constantly feeling like they're a failed parent because they used formula or a tablet.
So !@#$ you Parentology. With these articles you're doing a kind of harm that you're systemically incapable of measuring. I hope people much smarter and more articulate than me take up this banner.