Posted on 03/19/2015 6:34:17 AM PDT by HomerBohn
There is the mistaken impression that computers represent the future and that everyone, especially the very young, should become computer savvy as soon as possible. According to this view, failure to expose children to high technology handicaps their ability to function in the real world.
However, in the real world, addiction to the omnipresent small screens can be an actual handicap. Discouraging overexposure to technology might actually be an advantage in today’s hyper-connected world.
Such views are not those of overprotective parents unfamiliar with these technologies. Even the most enthusiastic promoters of computer gadgetry can be seen discouraging the very products they produce. The most notable case was Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who claimed he did not let his teenage children have iPads and limited their tech consumption at home.
When the iPad exploded into market in 2010, Jobs’ daughters Erin and Eve were not part of the market. The late Steve Jobs and wife Laurene Powell deliberately regulated their children’s exposure to the new products and its culture.
What did the young Jobs girls do instead of texting and surfing the Web? Apparently, they did the things normal children do.
Biographer Walter Isaacson reports the family had dinner together every night where they would discuss books, history and other non-technical things. The iPad, iPhone and other devices had no place at their table. And the children did not seem particularly disturbed by the fact.
Jobs, who died in October 2011, thought that limiting his daughters’ computer use would help his children develop a love for creative expression. He did not want them whiling away their time on games and useless programs. Paradoxically, Jobs enthusiastically filled the world with gadgets that transformed the way most people listen to music, entertain themselves and communicate. However, what he marketed to other families, he did not necessarily want for his own.
Apparently Jobs was not alone.
It appears that a growing number of high-tech executives take measures to limit the amount of exposure their children have to the technology they produce, design and market. These concerned parents cite the new technology’s overwhelming attraction and addiction as factors in their decisions.
One example of this trend is found at a Silicon Valley elementary school. According to a 2011 New York Times story on the trend, many engineers and executives from high profile tech companies like Apple, eBay, Google, Hewlett-Packard, and Yahoo send their children to a Waldorf elementary school in Los Altos, California, where television viewing is discouraged and electronic devices are banned. They claim such radical educational measures are necessary to ensure their children develop all their talents without unnecessary distractions.
Such “radical” measures are really not that radical. In fact, parents need not send their children to expensive private schools to allow their own children the same privileges as their counterparts in Los Altos.
All parents need to do is let their children be children. Children need to grow up being children with all the interacting, creativity and spontaneity that has always been part of a healthy childhood. They need to do things like play games, eat together as a family and solve problems together.
The real radicals are those who allow their children to be electronically sequestered and tethered to their little devices and thus never encountering the real world. If there is any doubt about this, all one needs to do is ask the experts. Steve Jobs would agree.
Don't ask your parents; consult your hand-held plaything.
Because he was a father?
Would a bartender limit their kid’s exposure to mixed drinks?
If you have something about Apple or Steve a Jobs, be sure to ping Swordmaker ... :-) ...
Ah, much like the king pin dealer never smokes the weeds.
The division of the family is the exact opposite of what Jobs did. I mean, what is the difference between a prostitute paying a pimp and a spouse spending more time making Wal Mart rich than taking care of children or spouse?.. and making the children pay respect to the pimp and his devices too!
I realize we cannot be “isolationists”, but lately globalism has greatly disrespected us in its witch hunt against borders and heterosexual norms.
Interesting
oh bee ess
Trying to make this narcissistic jerk a saint.
Considered as a device, television is a marvel. The way it was used after WWII—to carry mostly brainless programming interrupted by commercials, to an audience plopped for hours each day on their couches—is one of the most destructive uses of technology of all time.
“Would a bartender limit their kid’s exposure to mixed drinks?”
Best answer.
Trying to make this narcissistic jerk a saint.*
I love it! I just got my first eye phone a few months ago.....the final hold out! LOL
My point being for kids it would be good to get a break from the damn things. I find it useful but I am not addicted to it. When I am at the store around people I still acknowledge others. How rude people are to store clerks with their device attached to their head. More Jerks.... I know this sentiment is considered old fasioned but there is nothing old fashioned about Brotherhood of Man. That is our goal here, Man.
oh bee less
Trying to make him a sociopathic demon is no better.
Nobody says Steve Jobs was a saint. Just interesting that he recognized the potential for inappropriate use and guided his kids away from it - just as many of us do (I’m an iOS app developer, and indeed do keep my kids away from tablets most of the time, encouraging reading physical books an playing with physical toys, saving “screen time” for special occasions and dire need for “where’s this kid’s pause button??!?”). Not much different from a car mechanic not letting the kid drive early without direct supervision, or a winemaker not letting a kid imbibe intoxicants before due time. There’s a place for computers/tablets & apps, but hands-on and productive is generally better than virtual and distracting.
It's ridiculous what a large percentage of people in any given setting are staring hypnotized at a gizmo.
Yep. I was having a conversation w/ my brother the other day and lamenting about how few people can seem to just sit contently without some sort of electronic distraction.
People have lost the ability to simply sit still, think, and reflect because of this constant FOMA (fear of missing out) brought on by their social tech devices.
My teenage daughter is limited to 1 hour of computer time, in the family room, each day. She’s not allowed to bring her phone to school, nor to bed with her at night. It’s also a “dumb phone” that just makes calls and sends/receives texts. No data plan. Remarkably, she’s survived.
My son is not yet 10, and often laments how his friends at school all have iPhones, so why can’t he too? I say, because real life is much more interesting than what’s on a 4” screen.
But my own dear Chosen One can’t sit for more than 3 minutes without some sort of tech distraction. If heaven forbid the device is charging, then the TV or radio needs to be on. “Something, anything, just put it on!” I don’t understand it.
When I have to go out of town on business, most times I drive. 4, 6, 8 hour road trips. The majority of them I drive in total silence, no radio, nothing. Just pondering. Man gets a lot of thinking done like that.
As a free market believer I have change my stance on isolationism over the last few years. I am all for it now. Seal the border, bring all troops home, and stop all foreign aid.
More of a Steve Jobs thing than Apple. Same could be said for anybody seeking some balance in using technology.
It basically won Kennedy the election. If he hadn’t won and died, maybe we wouldn’t have to deal with LBJ’s destructive influence.
I like quiet and solitude. I have to be doing something; building models, jigsaw puzzles, reading, playing board war games but I find noise more and more irritating. I consider my tinnitus my internal white noise machine. And I am a technical illustrator by trade.
Indeed, but globalists loooove the gays. To them, we need to put a burka to sell for them.
Very much in harmony with my own experiences. I own a small IT business. My kids never had video games, computer games, Nintendo, Wii, Xbox, or any of it. They were allowed to use the Internet to research, to learn about things, but mostly they used these magic blocks called “books.” No iPods or iPads or cellphones until they were well into high school (and then, other than a basic cellphone for emergency communications, they could buy the other stuff on their own limited budgets). We didn’t even have cable when they were younger. They got 30 minutes a day of broadcast TV.
That sort of thing, combined with the fact that we homeschooled them through elementary school, did make them - and us - stick out a little bit. Our friends would kiddingly accuse us of child abuse - and some of the neighbors not so kiddingly.
But they turned out okay.
We are becoming the “Borg”.
So connected that it is difficult for outside stimuli to get our attention.
We feel uncomfortable and isolated when we are not connected.
We look upon those that resist the technology that connects us as fighting the inevitable.
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