Is this accepted now? Young children and electronics on public transport.

[AnneGrommit]

The last few times I've been on a train (not in quiet coach) and quite often on the bus I've had my peace disturbed by toddlers with phones/tablets either playing noisy games on them or watching programmes. When I've asked parents to rein them in I've been invariably met with either passive aggressive remarks about not liking children (I have three myself) or outright hostility and a statement along the lines of "it keeps them quiet". No, it doesn't. It stops them from pestering you but it's far from quiet. AIBU or is this an accepted "thing" now? Because it's fucking annoying.

I suggest you practice tuning out quiet electronic noise

And I suggest you buy some headphones. We could eliminate it from the environment, you just refuse to.

Tablets and other devices are great for children and have widened the repertoire of things to keep children entertained in boring situations. They should use headphones in public places though unless they have some additional needs that mean they can't.

My children are teenagers now and so didn't have these devices when they were small. They didn't spend every restaurant meal screaming and crying and running around. Usually they drew or read or chatted or ate.

But as someone else said it's not an either/or. No one is suggesting that if children don't have the volume up on electronic devices in public that we must necessarily therefore beat them and deny them seatbelts or send them up chimneys or any of the other ridiculous illogical things people are saying in order to prove that modern life is of course better in all ways.

The specific objection is not to children using electronic devices but to the noise from them. If I go out for a meal at night I don't give a flying fuck if the children at the table next to me are glued to screens all evening. I do care if I have to listen to the tinny Frozen soundtrack all night though.

They use tablets and computers in schools so anyone against the electronic move needs to die now. My 3 year old comes home with pictures she's 'drawn' on the computer at nursery.... shall I get out my abacus and try to teach her Latin?

Nobody is against electronics in general, but thanks for telling us to die. You're a delight

Is this what people do? Bottle their opinions up then moan to strangers on Mumsnet? Seems like a really logical solution.

Especially coming from somebody whining about social etiquette.....

I'd be impressed if you can teach Latin using only an abacus, zoflora!

Not acceptable, SN included. Mute, headphones, or nothing.

Nice attitude zoflora. Delightful By the way, 'drawing a picture' on a computer is not the same as actually drawing a picture with a pen or crayon on actual paper.

I am aware,I can do both.

The using tablets itself isn't the issue it is the noise, and quite frankly I find grown adults having loud conversations on their phones or between each other really bloody annoying.

My dd uses my phone but understands that the sound is only on very low or she has headphones on.

Trust me, a whiny grumpy 3 year old is far more annoying than a but if electronic beeping

Y'all need to do some meditation or something. Stop getting so annoyed about everything all the time. Trust me, it'll make life more fun.

Trust me, a whiny grumpy 3 year old is far more annoying than a but if electronic beeping

I wish people would stop saying shit like this.

Firstly, if your kid can't get through a meal without shrieking or shouting enough for other diners to hear, you shouldn't be in restaurants.

Second, actually no, electronic sounds (and one-sided mobile conversations) are processed differently in the brain to normal speech, and can't be tuned out as easily (or at all in some cases). So I, and many other people, would rather listen to a child talking and babbling than an iPad beeping.

Those who say they prefer electronic sounds to organic sounds are biological oddities, and I wouldn't put much store in their claims.

Wow this thread's an eye opener! I go on quite regular long train journeys with now 3yo DD and I'd never let her watch anything with noise as it annoys the hell out of me never mind anyone else.

An ordinary 3 year old is fine. Electronic sounds are not

Those who say they prefer electronic sounds to organic sounds are biological oddities, and I wouldn't put much store in their claims. And the people who let children play on gadgets are the rude ones? Personally I think mother nature did a wonderful job of making it hard to ignore a child crying, very hard to tune that out in my experience.

Stop talking like people want to take us back to the victorian era. The first iPad was released only 7 years ago. 7 years. The world wasn't full of screaming children 7 years ago was it? There are other options, I know Apple sometimes seem to rule the world but they really don't.

My eldest is 46, he had handheld electronic games 40 years ago, remember Speak and Spell? He had a maths game as well. Three years later his younger brother had more to choose from, can't remember the name but very much like the VTech things you can for toddlers, teaching letter sounds and so on. 20 years ago there were loads of handheld games. Gameboys came out nearly 30 years ago. So go back a bit further than 7 years if you want to prove your point.

I bet loads of people who tut about kids on ipads had Gameboys and similar devices when they were kids.

zzzzz, but how many of us do there need to be for us not to be considered an oddity? I reckon there are plenty of us about.

granny Isn't a baby crying meant to be more distressing than a pneumatic drill? We've evolved to be responsive to the sound. My baby cried whenever I put her down for months. I just avoided doing it, the crying was too distressing for me.