Do you worry about the effect of social media etc on our children?

[Janni]

We hosted a sleepover for our 11-year-old son's birthday. We all settled down to watch a film together after dinner and the boys agreed on one, but almost from the start, some of the boys were playing games on their mobiles and one even got out his Ipad and started downloading an alternative! DH and I kept asking the boys if they wanted us to switch off or change the film but they said 'no', it was fine - they just wanted to be able to play on their phones at the same time. With regard to the boy with the ipad, I had to ask him to put it away as he was starting to download 'Get him to the Greek', which I thought was pretty inappropriate for a 10/11 year old. What really struck me was that if you give your youngster free range over an ipad etc you've basically given up any control over what they watch. It also means that other parents who would prefer to exercise some censorship can't really do so because kids can show each other anything on their handheld devices. To top it off, I had to confiscate two ipads during the night because the boys were watching stuff under the covers.

Has anyone else had similar experiences? How do other parents manage the new social media so that it doesn't completely take their children over?

Luckily for us we are too poor to afford an ipad. DD has a mobile phone for emergencies but since she has lost it that isn't much use.
Our girl is 9.8 and we live in Belgium, I think there is less pressure here but I would be really cross if the situation you described happened at our house.

My son is only 19 months but I imagine by the time he's 11, there will be even more.

Before there were iPads there were GameBoys. And after iPads go there will be something even 'better'.

And, I am not actually sure there is any difference between showing someone something on an iPad and sneaking your dad's Lads Mag to behind a house somewhere and sharing it with your friends, except, of course, it's much easier to do with an iPad!

As for how to manage it, parents need to limit their use, learn to say no to their children, which I think a lot of parents don't do. I don't think I'd let my 11 year old, if I had one, take his iPad just any old where (not that I think you're house is dangerous!). For one thing, they are expensive, for another, if you're going to someone's house, you don't bring your own entertainment!

There are things you can do to restrict a child's use of an iPad - there are 'safe browser' apps you can download (and disable Safari) and you can restrict movies, tv programmer etc that can be downloaded by their ratings and ban downloading music with explicit content - and protect the settings with a passcode.

You might want to find out whether your son's friends parents have decided to allow them unrestricted access or simply don't know how to stop it.

Yes, DH and I really do.

Obviously you can't avoid this stuff altogether (at least not without losing some social 'status') but we want to live a simpler life.

For example we've agreed to disconnect the telly, we hardly watch live stuff, and just use it to play wii and watch DVDs (this is legal if we inform tv licence company). Also if we move to a bigger place one day, we will have the tv in the second downstairs room so it's no longer the focus of the main room.

I highly recommend Toxic Childhood by Sue Palmer, it's not as scaremongery as I expected, it just spells out the disadvantages and has practical (ie non extreme) suggestions to help.

An iPad presents much more risk to the emotional well being to a child over a magazine. I'm not sure many men have them lying around the house and certainly not violent, gang rape or fetish type porn.

Its just plain old bad manners, nothing to do with technology.

Thanks for your replies. SixtyFootDoll - I'm not sure it is just a question of bad manners. There just seemed to be this restlessness, as if they couldn't settle down to anything, even watching a film that they'd chosen, without wanting to be on other screens at the same time! This is a new bunch of children, I didn't know them. My son has recently changed schools and part of the reason for agreeing to the sleepover was to help cement new friendships. My son has an ipod and that's it, so his eyes were out on stalks at the blackberries, ipads, iphones etc that these 10/11 year olds were playing with. But they didn't seem to me to be very happy children. There was a sort of restless precociousness about them. For example, my son tried to get a game of monopoly going and it descended into chaos within 10 mins with 'he's cheating' and 'this is boring' etc.

Certainly won't be agreeing to any more sleepovers with this bunch!

Oh don't say that Janni - your DS needs every opportunity to make friends. Unfortunately this is just the way teens are now. You can do what you can to keep your own DS from getting overreliant on these things, but his friends will be who they are IYSWIM!

My DH was in the States for work recently and he described bars just like that, with people sitting around multi tasking on their multiple multimedia gizmos.. and nobody really chatting..

But these are kids! I don't know how far you can go, really and I recognise you are keen to help your son establish new friendships, but at least take the opportunity to speak to your son about this.

How about a hike or some similar outdoor activity for next time?

I have to admit the scene you describe fills me with dread.

Yes, I worry a lot, Janni. It seems clear that children's attention spans are being eroded by constant switches of information, soundbites etc. My attention span is worse than it ever was and I don't exactly blame FB, messageboards etc for this, but it certainly doesn't help. Short, sharp nuggets of info don't help develop concentration skills, and application skills (I mean as in "applying yourself" to a sustainted task; nothing to do with computer applications!).

As an adult I have the choice whether or not to wreck my head but peer pressure and the normalisation of screens being on all day, with phones to fill in any quiet moments, signals ... well, maybe not the downfall of society, but it would need to be a clever child to be able to deal with all the constant info properly.

I have a 10-year-old FB friend and she uploads new "posing" pics of herself almost daily - serious face, or tongue out to the side, looking up ... worryingly narcissistic imo.

I know this probably sounds po-faced and scaremongering, but I just don't feel it's worth taking the risk with my DC, so I limit their TV as much as I possibly can ... they're 5, 3 and baby, and probably see about 30 mins-1 hr per week [sic].

Personal bugbear! But I think this really is the transition generation, and another 10 or 15 years will show quite clearly the detrimental effect of too much screen time.

Oops, sustained, not sustainted ... can't even spell now!

Yes 'Mamsnet' - next birthday it will be something active. Can be a challenge in the depths of January! Good post, ScarlettCrossbones, you've articulated a lot of my concerns.

WRT the attention span, 'the shallows' by Nicholas Carr is good reading (I won a signed copy on MN :o)

Thanks Freud, I'll order it!

I cannot believe an 11 year old child has an ipad, not to mention the fact he takes it to other people's houses! What is the world coming to?!

I've only just got a blackberry but all the 10/11 year olds had them or iphones. It's nuts!

Yes - I worry a lot. DD is nearly 4, and I have this vain hope that this might all be over by the time she's 10, but it won't, will it.

I can't believe 10 year olds are being given ipads. What won't parents do? Do they really not care?

"The Brain that Changes Itself" by Norman Doidge (on neuroplasticity) also has some good stuff on the risks.

Sixty Foot Doll - the thing is that the technology facilitates the bad manners, the smaller attention spans and the constant expectation of something faster/more exciting etc. Norman Dodge explains it quite well (he has a chapter on why net porn is more addictive than ordinary porn, for example).

Have you read the studyIs Google Making Us Stupid? Quite interesting stuff.

vesela - unfortunately, it's escalating. The challenges I'm facing with my 11 year old in this area are far greater than those I faced only 3.5 years ago with his older brother. Both boys keep telling me I'm the strictest mum they know because 1) I don't let them play 18-rated PS3 games 2) they don't have TV/computers in their bedrooms 3) I head them off to bed at 9.30 on weeknights, which means they might have a chance of being asleep shortly after 10. Now, I don't think those are unreasonable actions, but they've been to lots of other kids' houses and ours seems to be unusual in this regard.