Yahoo Lifestyle Millennials Are Sharing Why They're Fed Up With "Tablet Kids," And I Couldn't Agree More
On the always discussion-filled subreddit r/Millennials, Reddit user u/AceTygraQueen has had enough of dealing with younger people having their eyes glued to their devices at all times:
"For the love of God, DON'T RAISE ANYMORE iPAD BABIES! Seriously. You are basically setting them up to be f*cking zombies. Signed, An elder millennial (born in '82)."
Safe to say, this topic blew up, and now everyone is discussing how frustrating and out of hand people who refuse to limit their screen time are:
1."As GenZ are entering the workforce, I never thought I'd have to show an intern how to use the start menu or basic file navigation. I still wonder how they passed college."
2."And parents and kids pull the usual, 'What if I need to reach my kid? You can't do that!' as if they've been personally offended. Dude, kids got messages from their parents all the time in the '90s when necessary. Your kid will be fine."
3."Schools around me are starting to ban smartphones during the school day."
4."It starts with the parents. My kid, a one year old, sees us on our phones and will try to grab them to play with. Not only do we have to ban her from grabbing them, but we also have to discipline ourselves not to use them in front of her."
5."This is the biggest thing. I think most parents are aware enough to realize it's not good to give a small child an iPad or a phone to entertain them, and they might even try to restrict it as much as possible, but much of that effort is wasted if the kid sees them sitting on their phone all the time themselves. They're modeling the behavior that the child will eventually perform themselves. That's the blind spot that people aren't seeing. Past generations grew up watching their parents read the newspaper in the morning, working in the yard at night, and reading a book before bed. But now they're watching their parents scroll on Instagram and...cough... Reddit."
6."We need to really work hard on the boundaries between digital and nondigital lives. We need to remember online isn't physically real and is more a world of thought...and it's important to still be in reality."
7."In the past, if you wanted quiet time, you'd send the kids outside to play and tell them to get home when the street lights came on. These are the same kind of parents who give kids an iPad to play with now because they want quiet time instead of interacting with their kids. They're not the kind of people looking for advice for self-improvement. Kids talking too much in the car? iPad. Kids disturbing your conference call? iPad. Kids just making too much noise being kids? iPad. Those parents aren't going to look at what you or OP say and instantly change."
8."Being bored and how to entertain yourself without screens is a dying skill. Like when was the last time these kids sat there quietly, zoned out, and daydreamed?"
9."I visited my brother once. We had lunch at the table at home, each child had their own tablet (eight and three) watching kids YouTube, and both the parents were watching shows on their own phones. I just sat there and ate my food without my phone, amazed. His kids, but wow."
10."I’m dealing with the first wave of college graduates born post-2000, and holy sh*t; it’s so bad. I’ve never met people who are so anti-social."
11."I guess they’re using their phones for school work now. I read a statistic that said more than half of essays are handed in from students phones now rather than a laptop. I can’t imagine writing a full essay with citations from my phone, that’s crazy to me."
12."For some reason, people will not allow kids to experience boredom anymore. They can’t sit at a restaurant or in a waiting room without having a phone or an iPad in front of them. Meanwhile, I am shocked because I would never hand a toddler my thousand-dollar phone or iPad. Play tic tac toe or color in a kids’ menu or something. Jeez."
13."I'm a teacher, so I'm dealing firsthand with the initial wave of iPad babies in high school. It can be disturbing how stunted some of these kids are. And how helpless they are at doing anything that doesn’t involve instant gratification. But I will say I don’t think screen time is inherently bad. I was after all raised on way too much Gameboy. In my opinion, short-form games and videos are the underlying problem. Young brains need to be taught to focus on what’s in front of them and think creatively and abstractly about the things they find interesting. If you’re endlessly swiping through short videos, you’re not developing these intangible skills."
14."Kids not raised on digital devices will have an enormous advantage over most kids who are. Apart from academics, my kid’s time is spent on piano and martial arts — two wonderful things to be hooked on. I’ll let him start playing long-form video games when he's a bit older, as I also find those valuable for development (I grew up on RPGs myself)."
15."The iPad is not the problem. Treating it like it's a pacifier is the problem. There's a reason we're supposed to wean babies off pacifiers."
16."When I worked in schools a few years ago, even six-to-eight-year-olds had such poor fine motor skills that they struggled to color or tie their shoes. Millennial parents think that letting their children finger smash at an iPad is teaching them computers when it really is hindering their physical skills. I’ve heard from other teachers that many kids are increasingly hopeless in gym class, like they can’t do basic movements or won’t try."
17."Behind every kid with an iPad addiction is a parent with an iPhone addiction."
18."Schools absolutely made it worse, significantly. They don't teach how to use computers; they teach how to get used by them."
19."As a college professor, this is true. College students today are computer illiterate. They cannot open a file. They cannot navigate an OS. The amount of adults I’ve had to explain how to save a PDF and then find the actual file they just saved is staggering. Chromebooks and phone apps taught them how to use everything inside a specific app, but using actual computer programs or even basic shit like MS Word seems beyond them."
20."I was an upper elementary school teacher for ten years. I’m now retraining for another career. The kids who had screen time at home were significantly more distracted, worse behaved, and had poorer self-control than those who had none. They were generally less intelligent, too. My husband and I have decided to prolong the screen time battle with our kids as long as possible. Yes, our kids annoy us sometimes. Yes, we tell them to play in their rooms or the backyard (we realize we are fortunate to have this) for entire afternoons. They make noise and messes and sometimes get splinters and cuts. But they return from their independent play with flushed cheeks and are exhilarated about what they did. My kids built an amusement park for snails and caterpillars in our sandbox the other day. It was awesome."
21."I hate iPad babies, but I do feel like they are a natural consequence of how the economy is. Nowadays, two parents have to work full-time to make ends meet barely. Then, the parents must come home and do all the tasks of caring for the household, and they must have no cheap 'third spaces' to take kids. So eventually, the cheapest thing to do is put an iPad in front of them so the parents can finally rest and not feel like they are living paycheck to paycheck, don't have a village to support them and maybe progressing some."
22."I hate hearing their stupid little videos everywhere I go. I 100% judge iPad kid parents every time, especially if I can hear the garbage audio. Socialize your kid a better way, you’re creating a zombie smh."
23."'But it's so hard to control them. I need a way to distract them. They'll be out of control otherwise.' Okay, so what did every parent ever do before they existed? It's just LAZY parenting, and yeah, they'll be out of control now without it. You taught them to be physically unable to be bored or without constant stimuli, and now they freak the fuck out when they have to entertain themselves because they don't know how to! They act like without an iPad, it's physically impossible to raise a child when they're the ones doing it to themselves."
24."Even sadder, these iPad kids do not know how to play outside. They have no imagination. I have seen it first-hand with my sisters taking away their kids' tablets on the weekends for a few hours and making them play outside. The kids pick up sticks and look bored/angry. My sisters, at least, are trying to restrict the iPad time with their kids. My brother lets the iPad and Nintendo Switch raise his kid; his kid is the worst behaved out of all the youngsters. I am certain having no love or attention from your parent is going create a very dysfunctional adult, and it breaks my heart."
25."My nephew literally cannot concentrate on anything that isn't a screen. I blame his father, who is no longer in the picture. His father played video games 24/7, clearly addicted, and roped his son in. It's tough to hang out with Daddy when Daddy does nothing but play games. Definitely a bad example for a five-year-old."
26."Tons of research and data to show all of the negative mental and emotional damage being done to kids due to electronics and screens. At this point, nobody should be able to play the 'But I didn’t know' card. I see it as secondhand smoke used to be. I get the same reaction when I see a parent give their kid a phone or tablet at the grocery or at a restaurant that I do when I see parents smoking inside a car with kids in the backseat."
27.And finally, "It's usually the insecure or bad parents who insist that only other parents can give them feedback. The good parents understand that their children will still impact the lives of those around them (their teachers, neighbors, friends, and family), doubly so if they aren't raised right. While some childless people can give unrealistic, idealistic, or useless advice, they know what to filter out and what's valuable to listen to. Because they're open to learning and doing better."
What do you think? Is this upcoming generation of kids any different than the previous ones when it comes to technology addiction? Comment below!
