To think we should spend less time policing 16/17 year old social media use and more time worrying about young children spending their childhood on iPads?

[Frenchspainiard]

Government has apparently announced a social media curfew on 16 and 17 year olds, I’m unsure how this will be policed but it seems insane to me. They can join the military, they have jobs etc. I personally had a child and moved out at 16.

The real issue from what I see is why do we allow people to buy tablets for young children especially toddlers who then become inactive asocial zombies?

I was in a Wetherspoons at around 8pm the other evening.

What do I hear?

Baby Shark. There was an iPad Child watching a screen while they ate. WTF?

It’s not the only place I’ve seen it happen but this was the latest I’ve seen it. Usually it happens during the day.

Yep seems like the ability to just sit and do something without mindless distraction will be lost for a lot of Gen Alpha/beta

So, what is different to you from them sitting with a colouring book/crayons, or a book, and sitting with an ipad/tablet?

I'm 45 and whenever we went out my parents would bring stuff to keep me occupied and i was expected to sit there, do that, and be quiet.

How is this any different?

Until we have concrete evidence of the effects (good or bad) of screens on cognitive and emotional development in under five’s, I think it’s wise to be cautious. Why risk it? I don’t think under 10s should have their own tablets. People talk about buying their three year olds tablets. It blows my mind.

Because when you’re drawing you’re using imagination, you may look up and say ‘hey mummy guess what I’m drawing!’ Or ‘hey dad look at my dog!’. The iPad is just mindless scrolling onto the next video…then the next. And there’s no interaction from anyone.

Colouring in and reading a book requires more concentration than watching mindless bullshit. Also the colouring books got put away when the food arrived many of these kids will continue to watch while eating and do absolutely zero socialising.
You can’t learn what you never get to practice

I agree, but we should do both.

If they’re in a restaurant, they need to socialise and learn how to act in a restaurant.

It’s not the same as colouring. If DD has colouring we still engage with her, what are you colouring, etc. She’s not gawping at a screen like a zonked out zombie. The colouring goes away immediately when the food comes.

Same completely agree. All this talk about policing 16/17 year olds meanwhile buying under 10s tablets is normalised. Even one year olds having tablets it’s crazy who even thinks that’s a good idea

I think the curfew is sensible. I don’t see why it’s an “either/or”

When I was a kid, no one I knew could afford to go out to eat in a restaurant of any kind regularly. So if we went, it was special and we’d be on best behaviour, in our best clothes. I didn’t have a Wimpy until I was 11 because it cost too much. I didn’t go in a pub until I was 17.

These days everyone takes kids out to eat so it’s not special. Not surprising they need to be distracted - meals out are long and boring!

To be honest I think that these are two sides of the same coin. Those children using ipads at a young age are likely to end up the teenagers addicted to their phones and on social media with all the issues that come with it. I think both are issues that need addressed.

A curfew for 16/17 year olds feels over the top though? I mean how do you police that when I was 16 I moved out, had a baby, loads of my friends had jobs. You can’t learn join the military at 16.

I think the focus needs to be on younger kids and so much of the focus is on phones when tablets are basically the same thing? It’s not just about restaurants because a lot of kids are at home in front of a screen. When I walk past where I grew up (houses around a park) there used to always be children playing when I was young, now it is deathly quiet. Honestly really sad tbh

Won’t let me edit but obviously I meant to say you can join the military at 16

I'm personally not for kids on screens, however to play devil's advocate these threads do often give an inflammatory impression that it's all/the majority of kids when my experience is that's increasingly untrue. There's a growing movement of parents signing up to a screen free childhood, many who are low screen and a whole bunch who wouldn't take their kids out that late let alone entertain them with tech. Perhaps it was a one off/celebration for them and they were let down by a babysitter, when usually they'd absolutely be interacting with and engaging with their child. Maybe they forgot the busy bag so didn't have the colouring stuff! Or maybe they are screen junkies who do this all the time. Who knows!

I have a 5&7 year old. We have no tablets, no television. DH and I have laptops and very occasionally the kids play games like solitaire on them. I use my phone for communication, navigation and photos. Earlier this year stopped to eat en route home from a weekend away. Everyone was a bit knackered and tempers were on the verge of fraying. A drive through would have been more sensible but DH wanted a break. For the first time in my parenting life the kids borrowed my phone and were playing with Snapchat filters and using some ai setting on the photos app to create crazy images of themselves riding dragons. I overheard someone saying a similar comment to you about kids on tech. I personally know that that was totally unprecedented behaviour for us and still the judgement weighed heavily!!

It's going to be like people who watch things on trains without headphones etc. It's prevalent because it's irritating. Hearing someone else's tech whilst you're out and about is more distracting than hearing someone's conversation. But then the number of times you hear people moan/see threads about hearing children out and about in the world I can also understand why some families might think baby shark is preferable to their child being loud and annoying others.

But how are iPads any different to 80s-90s kids who grew up watching mindless and often age inappropriate TV programs? Children would sit on the sofa with adults watching hours of news, game shows, sitcoms, movies etc. In many homes, the TV was like a fireplace which was on the entire day. TV screens were mandatory in hotel rooms and there were screens in lots of restaurants and waiting rooms.

People loved TV in the 90s. Kids would look through TV programs for things to watch and failing that, often end up watching things not suited for their age. Parents usually didn't care because it gave them the time to do their own work and complete chores. When we went to sleepovers, watching TV together or renting a movie was a totally normal thing to do. I recall watching hours of TV with friends and their family after dinner.

Why are we policing kids screentime so hard when this generation grew up doing virtually the same thing, just in a different format? It's also impossible to say how screentime will affect each child as an individual. There are a few "zero screentime" kids in DD's class and their behaviour is still horrific, much worse than the kids who are allowed some screens. Bullying, anger issues, attention seeking. I suspect a lot of parents who come down hard on screens actually enjoy the power they have over their children, rather than for developmental reasons. One girl who is proudly "screen free" clearly comes from an abusive home with lots of other red flags.

All they are proposing to do in terms of 16/17yos is change the default settings for most social media apps (some are exempted, e.g.g if they are mainly used for communication, like WattsApp) to impose a curfew and turn off autoplay and infinite scrolling. You can reset the defaults via settings, as always. The decision is based on the results of a pilot which seemed to demonstrate that this type of restriction had significant positive impacts on older teens in terms of sleep and school performance while being minimally disruptive to their social and family lives.

I doubt the government has spent so much time and energy on this that they have abandoned all other work.

I think we have the capacity to take action on both, don’t we? There is compelling evidence to suggest that screen time should be very, very limited for very young children. There is compelling evidence to suggest that the downside of social media use vastly outweighs the upside.

@Frenchspainiard completely agree with you about the lack of playing out. Makes me sad too. Still wouldn't assume they're all at home plugged into devices though. Think a lot of it is down to increased traffic, increased traffic speed and a steady decline in parental confidence about leaving their kids out of their sight. Watched a clip from the BBC archives about babies being left in prams outside the supermarket whilst mum shopped in the 70's and how it all came to an end after a series of kidnappings. Was that the start of how much more wary we are to give kids freedom now? Is it that modern technology has made stories about children going missing far more prevalent so people have more horror stories in their heads and react accordingly? 🤷🏼‍♀️

On the flip side it feels like there are weekly threads on here moaning about hearing children playing in their own gardens. Honestly cannot win!

I was born in the early 00s so missed out on the 90s but I spent most of my childhood outside playing. One thing about when I did watch tv back then is I watched it with my siblings and we spoke about it together while tablets are more individual. Also you couldn’t take a tv with you everywhere

@User867536 I'd always thought of it that in the 90's kids TV had pretty strict 'start' and 'end' times so it wasn't that you were plugged in all day. TV was also far slower paced and not designed to give dopamine hits/be addictive in the way it often is now. However you've definitely made me remember the amount of inappropriate stuff I watched as a kid, usually because of older siblings/siblings of friends, but also tbh I watched soaps with mum and some of those story lines would not pass my parental filters these days 🤣

Very glad my two are mostly fresh air junkies and bookworms !

We used to take books for our ds to look at and a lot of restaurants had colouring for kids to do so he did that.

But when he was 7 he got a Nintendo DS and we went on holiday to Italy and I remember a waiter being very judgey that he was playing on it while we waited for our meal one evening.

I don't think TV is as bad as social media as it's not mindless scrolling and it's not addictive in the same way.

So it is more of a UK/Anglosphere thing? I don't think it is as the EU has been talking of measures to cut down kids' use of social media. But it's interesting he was so disapproving!

Very different. With books and colouring books, your brain calms down, your imagination is activated and you are actively engaged. An Ipad game feeds you constant dopamine , your brain is overstimulated and at the same time passively absorbing what's on the screen. So...

One age is not more deserving than another.
How about the parents of 16/17 year olds police their child and the parents of the young children police theirs?
16/17 year olds are still vulnerable and need protection, they are very much at risk of harm from social media.

You have got to be joking

💯 completely agree

Yes I recall watching wildly inappropriate things on TV and being exposed to sexual content and jokes from a very early age. Fortunately I always enjoyed reading anyway and would prefer books over watching something. But back then, reading was also demonised because parents thought it was bad for your eyes! My mum actually tried to control my reading. Literally every generation has parenting guilt trips that turned out to be nothing.

I do fully agree that screentime is harmful for children who have underlying factors such as SEN, abuse, neglect etc. There's a concept of "social surrogacy" where neglected children try to find comfort in virtual spaces, which of course, can turn dark fast. But that comes back to fundamental parenting flaws and not devices or social media in itself.