Haven't tried this, but talking to Claude in its app is so much better than talking to Siri that Apple should be ashamed. It got every word perfectly the first time, including programming / project management terms.
Meanwhile, Siri struggles to send basic texts to my kids.
I also use Qustodio, and it has some pretty major rough spots, imo. ScreenTime does as well.
They are both very bad at things like my kids listening to Spotify with the screen off.
Qustodio also has no way to mark an app as "allowed even when they run out of time", or "this app doesn't count towards screen time" (like Spotify, for example).
Then on the PC it gets MUCH worse. I want tracking and blocking on my PCs for my kids' profiles, but if ONE kid runs out of time, ALL the PCs lock everyone out. No message, either. Just bounced to the login screen. Took me like a whole day to figure it out.
I personally can't stand audiobooks (or podcasts, or videos), so I'm with you there. I just read way too fast, and they feel so slow.
On the other hand, one of my kids has a pretty severe eye problem mixed with dyslexia, so audiobooks are basically his only real option (large print is hard to find, especially for books aimed at younger readers, and tablet reading is tiring). So, I'm glad they exist, at least.
I have kids in school. Our school system is one of the top in Connecticut, which is the quintessential "school" state (if any rich kid on TV goes away to school, it's probably to CT).
These kids (all of them, not mine) can't really read. Not like when I was young. (I'm not even old! I graduated in the 2000's!) They certainly can't write. They have no stamina to do an essay or a test like when I was a kid. They can't be bored or be creative.
We've talked to multiple teachers who just don't know what to do about it.
It was better before Covid (my oldest's grade isn't as bad), but those kids who were in early elementary or younger when covid hit? Completely incapable of what adults would consider basic school tasks. Even the smart ones who get good grades!
But it's not (just) smartphones and tablets, imo. It's chromebooks in the classroom. School is online now, even after covid, and it just doesn't work in my opinion.
Personally, I'd drop technology from the classroom entirely.
I'll admit I find ibuprofen to be a bit of a wonder drug. When I have a cold or flu, ibuprofen by itself is the most impactful medicine I take. The anti-inflammatory effects make my whole body better, including my sinuses (my sinuses are a disaster normally anyway, though). I do avoid taking it otherwise because my headache doctor says it causes rebound headaches, though.
But if I need to go out somewhere and am not feeling well? 2 advil and I'm good to go. The only medicine I've found more effective for that is (real) sudafed, but if I take that after like 10am I won't sleep that night.
As someone who has never seen these or paid attention to them I was thinking "how heavy could they possibly be?" Then I saw 13.6 oz and I was blown away. That's actually really heavy for headphones!
The idea made sense to me, but the execution was trash.
Settings was slow, it wasn't any easier than control panel, and if you wanted to do anything that mattered you ended up in control panel apps which were completely jarring UI-wise from the rest of the PC.
I went from Linux (10 years) to Mac (4 years) to Windows (8 months) to back to Mac. (I have not upgraded to Tahoe, and didn't even realize it was so different until recently)
IMO, there's basically no problem Linux has that isn't worse in Windows (at the OS level). Especially once you get into laptops.
No, we don't do any coding tests, just discussions of what you've done and how deep your knowledge of your tools goes. .NET folks are far less likely to understand much beyond the syntax, nevermind the "why" of things (even WHY you need StringBuilder) or what a database index is, etc.
My heart belongs to Django/Python and Linux, however.