Just yesterday I was doing a consultation call and explaining the depth and granularity of our analytics to a client and she responded, "That seems like it should be illegal." And what more could we say than that it was the common industry practice?
Great essay, and not just because I caught the allusion to Plato’s Cave. (Chesterton did too, I bet. Familiarity with Plato is obligatory for us U of Cers.)
Just last night I was talking with my son and his friend Ronnie. They are both Zoomers, and they were full-on “kids these days” about Gen Alpha (it was pretty funny), because of the iPads. And I agree, those iPads are terrible. But I was arguing that the iPads have come about because of a different cultural loss: teenaged babysitters.
When I was a middle-schooler in the late seventies, it was normal for girls (and some guys) to do a lot of babysitting. We were so excited to have the responsibility, and a bit of cash, starting at about age 12. I loved babysitting and had a ton of clients until I started dating a few years later. The kids and I played games, went to the park, went on bike rides in the nature reserve, read books, explored, ate treats we weren’t allowed otherwise, and, if the kids were good, watched the Dukes of Hazzard. It was glorious.
But nowadays, teenagers have to build their college resumes and deal with academic pressures, so there are no babysitters anymore, or they’re totally unaffordable. (Apparently the going rate for a babysitter in DC is $40 per hour, according to Ronnie’s girlfriend, who is a preschool teacher and knows whereof she speaks.)
So if parents want to enjoy something as simple and normal as a nice grownup conversation during a dinner out, they need those iPads so they can catch a moment’s peace, and time together. They are making the best of a bad situation, but everyone suffers. Middle-school babysitters are far superior to iPads, in my opinion, but I’m not sure how we can ever go back.
I have noticed the difficulty of getting babysitters, which is quite troublesome!
I think the difficulty of finding babysitters has less to do with academics (most 13 year olds are not thinking of their resumes and their parents only are if they're from the Right Kind of Family, I think) and more to do with the sense of protection Gen Xers and Millennials have over their children. Like they don't trust other people with their children and so they never think about asking the neighborhood kid. And so babysitting just isn't a viable job for most preteens and teenagers because the demand is so low.
I’ve never been that concerned about screen time per se, but like you I do find it creepy when young kids vanish into a weird bubble of non-contact, especially one that’s watching them.
Though ironically we moved to digital in part to avoid a different kind of intrusion: ads. For years, with our Netflix and Amazon subscriptions, we never saw an ad, and neither did our kids. I guess that’s ending, too, though. I gave Jeff eyes on my TV watching for nothing!
Yeah, the reintroduction of ads is going to be very annoying. I'm not looking forward to that!
I do think screen time is not such a big deal, in a general way. I do think holing up by yourself to stare at a screen is of a very different quality, though, than collectively watching a movie or whatever.
Just yesterday I was doing a consultation call and explaining the depth and granularity of our analytics to a client and she responded, "That seems like it should be illegal." And what more could we say than that it was the common industry practice?
Great essay, and not just because I caught the allusion to Plato’s Cave. (Chesterton did too, I bet. Familiarity with Plato is obligatory for us U of Cers.)
Just last night I was talking with my son and his friend Ronnie. They are both Zoomers, and they were full-on “kids these days” about Gen Alpha (it was pretty funny), because of the iPads. And I agree, those iPads are terrible. But I was arguing that the iPads have come about because of a different cultural loss: teenaged babysitters.
When I was a middle-schooler in the late seventies, it was normal for girls (and some guys) to do a lot of babysitting. We were so excited to have the responsibility, and a bit of cash, starting at about age 12. I loved babysitting and had a ton of clients until I started dating a few years later. The kids and I played games, went to the park, went on bike rides in the nature reserve, read books, explored, ate treats we weren’t allowed otherwise, and, if the kids were good, watched the Dukes of Hazzard. It was glorious.
But nowadays, teenagers have to build their college resumes and deal with academic pressures, so there are no babysitters anymore, or they’re totally unaffordable. (Apparently the going rate for a babysitter in DC is $40 per hour, according to Ronnie’s girlfriend, who is a preschool teacher and knows whereof she speaks.)
So if parents want to enjoy something as simple and normal as a nice grownup conversation during a dinner out, they need those iPads so they can catch a moment’s peace, and time together. They are making the best of a bad situation, but everyone suffers. Middle-school babysitters are far superior to iPads, in my opinion, but I’m not sure how we can ever go back.
I have noticed the difficulty of getting babysitters, which is quite troublesome!
I think the difficulty of finding babysitters has less to do with academics (most 13 year olds are not thinking of their resumes and their parents only are if they're from the Right Kind of Family, I think) and more to do with the sense of protection Gen Xers and Millennials have over their children. Like they don't trust other people with their children and so they never think about asking the neighborhood kid. And so babysitting just isn't a viable job for most preteens and teenagers because the demand is so low.
I’ve never been that concerned about screen time per se, but like you I do find it creepy when young kids vanish into a weird bubble of non-contact, especially one that’s watching them.
Though ironically we moved to digital in part to avoid a different kind of intrusion: ads. For years, with our Netflix and Amazon subscriptions, we never saw an ad, and neither did our kids. I guess that’s ending, too, though. I gave Jeff eyes on my TV watching for nothing!
Yeah, the reintroduction of ads is going to be very annoying. I'm not looking forward to that!
I do think screen time is not such a big deal, in a general way. I do think holing up by yourself to stare at a screen is of a very different quality, though, than collectively watching a movie or whatever.