"Don't give your kids a phone or a tablet, it's bad for them"

I've recently begun self paced study in Peterson Academy. Part of the interest has swung me over to some of the other resources that Jordan moderates or contributes to. This are my recent post comments to Dr Jordan B Peterson "Daily Wire +" segment regarding the advice to "don't give your kids devices" || (responding to) this is a massive decision | had to move to the computer for the edits. Two thumbs can be a challenge on the input.

When it comes to children and any kind of technology supervision is a must. It is not a set and forget thing.

Understanding how technology works and the impact of sensitisation is important and should be available as education for the masses.

For some basic client awareness | accessibility features already exist inplatforms like iOS which can limit volume and blue light exposure, screen time hours restraint, and encourage users to hold their phone at a certain distance with visual long-term health in mind.

These are great implementations yet the development and implementation of accessibility features that take over parental responsibility is considered by the the industry leaders to be an overreach and one that may result in further fuel against human design and it’s goals. To get it done and get on with life.

When you choose to provide a smartphone or tablet to your child, you are enabling an sensory immersive gateway to knowledge, connectivity across vast distances, music books, film radio and television. Products like iPhone and iPad really do offer democracy in education.

The integration of Layer 7 - The big apps and big finance and their impact however is a misstep when the user interface experience is geared towards using feedback loops to keep the user intrinsicially seeking (... more) up time. The bioligical markers like cortisol, adrenaline and serotonin can now directly attributable to the addictive components that the device’s bright screens and vivid colours and bells and whistles combined can achieve when an applications development shows no regard for the end user safety.

Children are highly adaptive learning machines. With developing or immature brains they are naturally more susceptible to this than say, kids like me who grew up with betamax and walkman and used hardback encylopedias and word of mouth for knowledge.

(I'm just going to say it outright). Devices should not be used as a distraction or pacifier. Kids require prosody, engagement and play. We've known this as far back as Socrates, but more recently, B.F Skinner and Piaget, Dr Richard Schwartz (Internal Family Systems) and now Stephen Porges PhD The Pocket Guide To Polyvagal Theory. Prosody and Play are what makes us safe.

An iPhone or an iPad is not one thing but a myriad as above, a supercomputer at the fingertips. However they are but tools and should not be left unsupervised - especially in the current state of third-party application delivery.

They should not be left unsupervised in the hands of our kids. There is a reason why you have to be a certain age to drive or handle a firearm. In this age, information is the weapon and our children are allowed all to often to have unfettered access to bias and heavily manipulated forms of shorthand information.

Google nor Samsung nor Huawei, nor Oppo nor Apple control the application stack of the third parties that drive the reinforcement loop - the drip feed that keep kids and adults engaged and ultimately sensitised if parents use an iPhone instead of a pacifier in todays market.

Children aren't alone, most adults have excessive usage patterns and using accessibility features to track how many times you unlock in one day is a very insightful way to find out where your time vanishes.

Back on the topic of the threat, regarding information security, there’s generations of cross site tracking and data scraping from unregulated 3rd parties. Massive considerations when you look at where law enforcement and insurers carve their opinions of indivuduals from. More with respect to that in future works herein.

Service providers like YouTube and TikTok and Instagram would do well by their paediatric and late teen cohorts to reduce sensitisation by reducing or hard limits (reduce duty cycle on swiping and search) - and to enforce accessibility features that limit blue light and it’s reinforcing elements or part in the above where the OS system settings arent already defaulted or selected to be doing so.

In short, it’s taken the whole village - so in turn it’s going to take the whole village to get the status quo where it belongs for the sake of all cohorts and their health.

But right now, in the grand scheme of things; we are talking about a parental question and decision - i.e how much one on one learning or play time are you sacrificing by shoving a device in front of your child everytime there’s an issue? For children (a fact that most adults seem to forget in the rigours of life) - play is learning. It is how the world's boundary is formed, it is how we establish relationships, societal structure, it is how we cope with stressor and it is how we tell the world something is wrong. Via play.

So in the end addressing the dangers of devices in the real world comes down to what kind of function you want to provide your child; who you want their audience to be (if any) and who you want them to be able to come into contact with.

Companies like Apple have a legacy that is evident | one centred aroundcustomer feedback, client impact statements and user data that has shaped their platforms design since inception.

Using screen time limits, contact limits and general check in supervision reaps wonders when it comes to client education. As a parent I can tell you it takes but one glance at settings under Screen Time (in the case of Apple iOS) to see the applications and rate upon which your kids are using to reach an informed decision about what to do next.

These apps, the layer 7 | this should give you a clear indication where the scrutiny should be pointed to. The platform makers are largely agnostic here. Apple leads the charge when it comes to client support in design of UX and accesisblty features. But they should not be the exception.

That’s really all I have to say.

Starting out young in the journey to knowledge and faith and scientific understanding has never been easier and that’s why it’s important thatthe third-party platforms lift their act and help mend fabric of our society a.k.a.these paediatric presentations where parental supervision and play issubstituted with a smart device.

It's certainly not all doom and gloom. One just has to remmeber when to lock it down and touch grass. Prosody and play. We all need it, and the world benefits when it is core part of community.

get after it.

Cathery | I am an independent Actor, Writer, Voiceover and have aspirations in systems architecture. My opinions are my own, and are not endorsed by any brands that I mention in my written work. Thank you for stopping by my corner of the internet. More to come.