Are Families Really Important?

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Bernard Gui said:

The effects of screens on families and individuals haven’t been brought up until now. I think their contribution to our dysfunction is vastly underestimated. 

I like the extensive access to information though many have developed a taste for the more voluminous false information we have made it easier to communicate. I suspect it is the communities that are used to replace real human connections that hurt the most, especially with how toxic anonymity encourages people to be. I know of two teens right now that would probably be well adjusted if their idiot mother did not let them spend all their non-school hours basking in toxic internet communities.

 

[USU78]

30 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I like the extensive access to information though many have developed a taste for the more voluminous false information we have made it easier to communicate. I suspect it is the communities that are used to replace real human connections that hurt the most, especially with how toxic anonymity encourages people to be. I know of two teens right now that would probably be well adjusted if their idiot mother did not let them spend all their non-school hours basking in toxic internet communities.

Indeed.  There is at least one precedent:

 

Quote

 

33 Which ^aJared came forth with his brother and their families, with some others and their families, from the great tower, at the time the Lord ^bconfounded the language of the people, and swore in his wrath that they should be scattered upon all the ^cface of the earth; and according to the word of the Lord the people were scattered.

34 And the ^abrother of Jared being a large and mighty man, and a man highly favored of the Lord, Jared, his brother, said unto him: Cry unto the Lord, that he will not confound us that we may not ^bunderstand our words.

 

Atomization of a society is a terrible thing, and the loss of underlying shared understandings of the names of things, including actions and processes, is the best way I can think of for making that happen.

[Bernard Gui]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

I like the extensive access to information though many have developed a taste for the more voluminous false information we have made it easier to communicate. I suspect it is the communities that are used to replace real human connections that hurt the most, especially with how toxic anonymity encourages people to be. I know of two teens right now that would probably be well adjusted if their idiot mother did not let them spend all their non-school hours basking in toxic internet communities.

 

As public school teachers, Sister Gui (kindergarten) and I (music and Spanish) have witnessed the detrimental effects in our students as dependency on screens has increased. For example, she has little kids who refuse to play with toys or other kids and sit on the floor crying for they screens. As grandparents, we see our adult children struggle with their kids against the tide, some more successful than others. Just today we were talking with our daughter Bellalindissima about her 13y.o. son's dependency on screens and lack of interest in anything or anyone else. It's not good.

I recommend Lukianoff and Haidt's The Coddling of the American Mind for some excellent discussion on this. 

https://www.amazon.com/Coddling-American-Mind-Intentions-Generation-ebook/dp/B076NVFT5P/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=Cj0KCQjwvdXpBRCoARIsAMJSKqKCxzfgd0nRKV9m16VD6VI8CW3bIDG0WsEXCAzABVMwGYvlFaG3UZkaAlf6EALw_wcB&hvadid=241907333466&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9052871&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=12132277601445480057&hvtargid=kwd-266857353578&hydadcr=22594_10348222&keywords=the+coddling+of+the+american+mind&qid=1563822331&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Edited July 22, 2019 by Bernard Gui

[The Nehor]

20 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

As public school teachers, Sister Gui (kindergarten) and I (music and Spanish) have witnessed the detrimental effects in our students as dependency on screens has increased. For example, she has little kids who refuse to play with toys or other kids and sit on the floor crying for they screens. As grandparents, we see our adult children struggle with their kids against the tide, some more successful than others. Just today we were talking with our daughter Bellalindissima about her 13y.o. son's dependency on screens and lack of interest in anything or anyone else. It's not good.

I recommend Lukianoff and Haidt's The Coddling of the American Mind for some excellent discussion on this. 

https://www.amazon.com/Coddling-American-Mind-Intentions-Generation-ebook/dp/B076NVFT5P/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=Cj0KCQjwvdXpBRCoARIsAMJSKqKCxzfgd0nRKV9m16VD6VI8CW3bIDG0WsEXCAzABVMwGYvlFaG3UZkaAlf6EALw_wcB&hvadid=241907333466&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9052871&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=12132277601445480057&hvtargid=kwd-266857353578&hydadcr=22594_10348222&keywords=the+coddling+of+the+american+mind&qid=1563822331&s=gateway&sr=8-1

I do not doubt it. I have watched my nieces and nephews and am glad that my siblings and their spouses limit screen time. One family are outdoor adventurers and ironically get tons of free stuff due to sister in law’s Instagram account and her tons of followers because her family is very photogenic (the best looking of my brothers by far and the kids take after both of them in being very good looking). Another brother’s family is more into reading and museums and things like that though they also love to swim.

I felt a little bad when I was babysitting my 9 month old niece. Normally I am good with kids and I was trying to get her to go to bed. I could distract her with taking her outside to the ocean but the second we went back into the bedroom she got angry. I tried music from her favorite playlist my brother made but no luck. Finally I started showing videos of herself on my phone and she was enthralled and laughed endlessly. Then nodded off.

Ironically I am probably more screen addicted then the younger members of my extended family. I watched way too much TV and played way too many video games as a kid and even into my twenties I had a hard time focusing on anything if there was a TV on in the room (problem on my mission). Not sure if that caused my ADHD or if it was a structural coping mechanism for it. Now I have a TV but I refuse to use it for anything except streaming to avoid channel surfing waste and only play games in small doses.

It is both amusing and horrifying to watch kids that can not even talk navigate YouTube or Netflix on a phone. Parents who just leave the child with a screen for hours on hours are probably doing a huge disservice. I do find that kids, even the ones who spend too much time in front of a screen, still prefer real experiences over fake ones. The taste of reality is better. When I had two of my nieces over I had a hard time enticing them away from Netflix until I offered to let them play with my sugar gliders and then they were throwing the tablets to the side.

I mean no offense to your teaching profession but I can see why the kids would prefer screen time to school. I read novels through most of my school career to alleviate the boredom of the classroom. While I appreciate time on a phone is not as healthy as classtime I sometimes wonder if the fun disruptive kids or the ones who daydream or look out the window watching birds are not the saner children then the ones who can sit still and pay rapt attention.

I do hope developments in VR will alter the way we use technology to make it more integrated into reality so they complement each other but it could easily make things worse.

 

[Bernard Gui]

19 hours ago, The Nehor said:

I mean no offense to your teaching profession but I can see why the kids would prefer screen time to school. I read novels through most of my school career to alleviate the boredom of the classroom. While I appreciate time on a phone is not as healthy as classtime I sometimes wonder if the fun disruptive kids or the ones who daydream or look out the window watching birds are not the saner children then the ones who can sit still and pay rapt attention.

So, at the beginning of one school year, I prepared a demo for the students. I bought a used folding phone at Goodwill and secretly gave it to an orchestra student I could trust. I instructed him to set off the ringer on his phone at a certain time I would indicate.

As I was going over the rules and class procedures with the students on the first day of class, I came to the part about phones. I said there would be no phones allowed. Period. At that moment my henchman secretly set off his phone ringer. After the gales of laughter subsided, I walked over to him and demanded he give me his phone (he reluctantly gave me the beater phone). I took it back to my podium, reached for a hammer in my bag, and proceeded to demolish the phone. Then I opened the outside door and threw the remains into the parking lot. 

"Don't ever let that happen in my class again!" I told the student. Shocked silence, and then, "Did Mr. J really do that?" and other terrified comments. Eventually the henchman and I broke out laughing. But the point was made. No phones that year.

No kindergartner could ever be bored in Sister Gui's class, but getting some of them to break down and actually play with the toys and the other kids is like cutting off a dog’s tail an inch at a time.

Edited July 23, 2019 by Bernard Gui

[The Nehor]

6 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

So, at the beginning of one school year, I prepared a demo for the students. I bought a used folding phone at Goodwill and secretly gave it to an orchestra student I could trust. I instructed him to set off the ringer on his phone at a certain time I would indicate.

As I was going over the rules and class procedures with the students on the first day of class, I came to the part about phones. I said there would be no phones allowed. Period. At that moment my henchman secretly set off his phone ringer. After the gales of laughter subsided, I walked over to him and demanded he give me his phone (he reluctantly gave me the beater phone). I took it back to my podium and reached for a hammer in my bag and proceeded to demolish the phone. Then I opened the outside door and threw the remains into the parking lot. 

"Don't ever let that happen in my class again!" I told the student. Shocked silence, and then, "Did Mr. J really do that?" and other terrified comments. Eventually the henchman and I broke out laughing. But the point was made. No phones that year.

No kindergartner could ever be bored in Sister Gui's class, but getting some of them to break down and actually play with the toys and the other kids is like cutting off the tail of a dog an inch at a time.

I like the cut of your jib.

[poptart]

21 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

As public school teachers, Sister Gui (kindergarten) and I (music and Spanish) have witnessed the detrimental effects in our students as dependency on screens has increased. For example, she has little kids who refuse to play with toys or other kids and sit on the floor crying for they screens. As grandparents, we see our adult children struggle with their kids against the tide, some more successful than others. Just today we were talking with our daughter Bellalindissima about her 13y.o. son's dependency on screens and lack of interest in anything or anyone else. It's not good.

I recommend Lukianoff and Haidt's The Coddling of the American Mind for some excellent discussion on this. 

https://www.amazon.com/Coddling-American-Mind-Intentions-Generation-ebook/dp/B076NVFT5P/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=Cj0KCQjwvdXpBRCoARIsAMJSKqKCxzfgd0nRKV9m16VD6VI8CW3bIDG0WsEXCAzABVMwGYvlFaG3UZkaAlf6EALw_wcB&hvadid=241907333466&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9052871&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=12132277601445480057&hvtargid=kwd-266857353578&hydadcr=22594_10348222&keywords=the+coddling+of+the+american+mind&qid=1563822331&s=gateway&sr=8-1

I'll toss this out there, when I go to the temple here for the festivals it's almost the opposite with those kids, very attentative and focused.  One of the more suprising things that's happened was meeting one of moms distant cousins from Maui, guy was doing an anime presentation of some sorts and his daughter was doing a hula demo the next day.  Even in Tacoma i'd go to the Tacoma Buddhist temple for Obon, again same thing.  Meanwhile my fathers side of the family's kids are about as disfunctional as the children you're describing.  Cannot figure out for the life of me why parents here have these issues with their kids.  Not saying one is better but geez for a people as blessed as Americans have been since the 50s how a people could manage to end up like this blows my mind.

16 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

So, at the beginning of one school year, I prepared a demo for the students. I bought a used folding phone at Goodwill and secretly gave it to an orchestra student I could trust. I instructed him to set off the ringer on his phone at a certain time I would indicate.

As I was going over the rules and class procedures with the students on the first day of class, I came to the part about phones. I said there would be no phones allowed. Period. At that moment my henchman secretly set off his phone ringer. After the gales of laughter subsided, I walked over to him and demanded he give me his phone (he reluctantly gave me the beater phone). I took it back to my podium, reached for a hammer in my bag, and proceeded to demolish the phone. Then I opened the outside door and threw the remains into the parking lot. 

"Don't ever let that happen in my class again!" I told the student. Shocked silence, and then, "Did Mr. J really do that?" and other terrified comments. Eventually the henchman and I broke out laughing. But the point was made. No phones that year.

No kindergartner could ever be bored in Sister Gui's class, but getting some of them to break down and actually play with the toys and the other kids is like cutting off a dog’s tail an inch at a time.

*slowly claps