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[PA Comic] Monday, June 30, 2014 - Quantification
Dog
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[PA Comic] Monday, June 30, 2014 - Quantification
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It's because everyone who isn't a prat would call him Nathan instead.
If you're not an angel, demon or a mermaid your name, as used in conversations, should not end with "-iel"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Dan or Danny.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Angels only.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Gabriel?
Mermaid
Gabe
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Not all screens are equal. Watching 2 hours of documentaries about, for example, WWII is far better than a Honey Boo Boo marathon. 4 hours building something in Minecraft is far better than 4 hours playing Candy Crush. The time spent on a device is analogous to any other medium: what matters is the content. Policing time spent on any activity is worthless in comparison to monitoring the actual content of the activity.
If a kid goes outside for 3 hours and gets exercise, does it matter how? Well if it's beating the crap out of another kid, stealing from the corner store and running from the owner, then sure. Extreme examples? Of course, it's the easiest way to illustrate the point.
The common factor is that a parent needs to be involved in the kids activities, in their life.
To paraphrase and butcher Bill Rose, from Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan #40:
And at this point you will often hear the refrains "Well I can't watch them all the time" or "I'm so exhausted from work" "What about time to myself?" Look, you decided to have the kid. It's a self-inflicted job you have now, and if you are choosing to abdicate responsibility for doing it, just be honest and say so. "I don't care enough to put in the effort required." Fine. And when your kid is playing something they shouldn't, watching something they shouldn't, doing something they shouldn't, you will know where the blame lies. You.
It seems to be common now that kids are given devices to occupy them in lieu of parenting. So yes, limiting based on screen time is bad. It's sloppy parenting, it's measuring the wrong metric, it's uninvolved abdication of responsibility based on the least effort required.
The right thing to do? Monitor what they watch, be involved in what they do. The medium is irrelevant.
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It's not necessarily depending on why and how much and lots of other stuff mentioned by Pedro.
The joke here is that Gabe is bad in social situations.
There was also a PAX Q&A (on PA:TS, I think?) where he answered roughly the same thing
What frustrates me is less the "limiting to ensure a well rounded experience" or "limiting because this specific situation warrants it" and more this attitude that some other parents seem to have that "screen time" is inherently evil. It's rock and roll all over again.
Pins!
I don't really understand what quantifies as "addicted to technology" EVERYTHING is essentially technology.
Addicted to eating cooked and disease-free food.
Addicted to showering and bathing.
Addicted to books.
Addicted to bicycles.
Addicted to grammar.
Why do newer technologies and ways of life get shunned as being "unhealthy" and "bad" just because they are new and diverge from the traditional? There is no objective standard for the methodology of society and personal human actions (as long as you aren't hurting anyone). I'm sure people from 200+ years ago would see us all as coddled babies pampered and addicted to all this newfangled tekmologies.
Gabriel's real life counterpart also knows this, where he differentiates between a cold medium like watching tv and a hot medium like Minecraft building.
Gabriel the cartoon man yells at people during parties and embarrasses his cartoon wife in a way that we all internally sympathize with and admire/are-amused-by.
The important thing is not limiting "screen time," but introducing enjoyable activities for your child. What if Nathan starts "playing" outside with the wrong group of kids and eventually shoots up his school (and lets face it with parents like that the kid is probably already a ticking time bomb)? Bet a couple of extra hours in front of the TV would start to look really good.
My Daughter is 2 and already likes playing around on phones and hitting buttons when I play video games, but she also loves running around outside and playing with the neighborhood kids. If she grows up to want to play videogames then that's fine as long as she gets her homework done and keeps her grades up. My wife and I will expose her to different things, but only to give her options and keep her well rounded. Of course that's because we're good parents that take an interest in our child and aren't predisposed to blaming society for our fuckups.
Saying a kid is going to become a violent criminal because his parents limit the amount of time he spends on video games/the internet is just about exactly as silly as thinking a kid is going to turn into a violent criminal because he spends too much time on video games/the internet.
That's his point.
Depends on how old the kid is and how long (45 minutes a day as stated in the comic is quite bad), limited screen time is bad compared to no screen at all, and not so bad compared to no limit. The younger the kid, the longer the exposure, the more dramatic the consequences.
Would be nice if it was backed up by science, but the scientific literature says otherwise: content is irrelevant it doesn't make a significant difference, even watching tv and playing videogames has mostly the same consequences. It's being in exposed to a screen or not that make a difference.
This french neuroscientist, Michel Desmurget, wrote a book compiling what science knows and says about being exposed to tv, turns out there is a scientific consensus and decades of data to back it up. There's not as much data about videogames because it's less studied but what we know points to pretty much the same effects as tv. The younger the kid, the longer the exposure, the more dramatic the consequences.
The book on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/TV-lobotomie-Michel-Desmurget/dp/2290038059/
Motherfucking screens on everything.
I really don't think it was.
I'm calling bullshit on the bolded part until you post the actual study that says a passive activity like watching tv has the same effect overall as a participative activity like video games.
There are plenty of other things kids can do that don't involve their eyes glazing over in front of a LCD screen.
I dunno that I've ever had my eyes glaze over in front of an LCD screen except at work or in school.
Not everyone's got that kind of scratch.
And sure some uses of screens are better than others but how do you monitor that stuff? It is one thing to say oh it is fine if you do abc activity on the iPad but not xyz. and another matter to enforce it especially if xyz activity is fine sometimes and xyz activity is a touch or two away and when xyz activity can easily be brought to any room in the house with these devices.
I think the problem for me as a parent is the iPad's parental controls haven't caught up with the rest of the technology.
As a parent I want the ability to see what what programs my kid has been or is using. I want to be able to easily limit and turn on and off what programs they can use from my own device. Or to place time limits on various programs. Or to easily turn on/off Internet access. Etc. Etc. We need better screen activity management tools for parents.
Yes I too feel Ninjago is fine but not for 8 hours. And that my kid using his device to make a creative YouTube video is a more constructive use... And time spent doing that wouldn't be as limited as watching Ninjago. When my kids are on screens with friends I tend to relax my limits too. Or if it is a rainy day etc. But we need better to help monitor and manage this.
And even then I think limiting overall screen time is important because the world is run on real human interaction and physical activity is important for your physical and mental and emotional well being.
I mean chances are its not going to be perfect and you're going to screw up pretty bad in some areas.
Either way, as far as my opinion goes. I think the only problem I have with too much screen time is that it might interfere with a child's social and physical development.
Like all things, I think a good balance is necessary.
The Kindle Fire family definitely seem to have the most robust parental control features right now.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
The video that Quix linked to says precisely that the content matters. Mr Rogers causes no increase, PowerPuff Girls causes a noticeable increase and Violence causes a huge increase. So yes, content matters greatly.
The only things I was allowed to watch as a child were the news during the Falklands War (so I just dated myself there) and Sesame Street. The latter is credited with me being able to read at a younger age, and being at a higher level than other kids when I started school.
I would imagine that given the context of the video Quix linked, what matters most is the pace of the game when it comes to video games. Something like Minecraft or Project Spark where you have to construct things forces you to slow down and think, so the pace is a lot slower than something like an FPS or even Fruit Ninja and Candy Crush.
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Mermaid or stripper only.