
 Taiwan is right to ban iPads for kids - bemmu
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/03/intl_opinion/taiwan-ipads-kids/
======
veidr
This same topic came up on HN 3 years ago, and I took some shit for saying
that I thought 2-year-olds shouldn't be playing with iPads[1] without having
any kids of my own.

Fast-forward to now, I have a 2-year-old and an 8-month-old, and with the
benefit of experience all I can say is _Yep, I was right as hell._ Tiny
children generally shouldn't use iPads, nor should they watch TV.

I wouldn't support a law like this, but at the same time it is astounding how
often I see toddlers plopped down in front of an iPad or TV set for hours, as
if the mere fact that it makes them easier to deal with means it's an
appropriate thing to do.

Giving 2-year-olds a quarter of a Valium will do that, too; doesn't mean we
should.

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3693886](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3693886)

~~~
facepalm
Does that mean you have tried giving your kids an iPad and found that it has
detrimental effect? Or how else has having kids given you more insights into
the issue?

~~~
yawz
Nobody sane would experiment on their kids that way so I assume it's a
rhetorical question. iPads and TVs are results of lazy parenting, especially
at early ages. Kids should develop playing with parents, siblings, friends and
on their own. At a later stage, banning is probably bad but I believe exposure
to electronics and their content should be controlled by parents.

When you start to have kids, you notice your social circle is full of other
parents (on the one hand your friends are around the same age so they're
having kids and on the other hand you tend to be with people having kids -
usually the same age). You can clearly see the differences in kids getting
(uncontrolled) exposure to electronics at various ages and their reaction to
being deprived of them etc. So you certainly develop some awareness and some
idea about their effects.

~~~
yawz
I certainly agree that it also depends on the children. However, let's not
forget that the original post is about 0-to-2-year-olds. I've a 4 year old and
we control his exposure to TV and tablets. I'm against banning it for many
reasons but controlling the amount of exposure and the content seems
important.

------
ronnier
I agree and I don't agree.

My 5 year old, while at a basic level, starting playing pieces of "In the Hall
of the Mountain King" on our keyboard, unprovoked. I asked where she learned
this song and she said the iPad. She plays a piano DDR type of game on the
iPad and this is one of the songs.

I thought that was kind of neat.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRpzxKsSEZg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRpzxKsSEZg)

~~~
unicornporn
My first reaction is also: that is cool. When I think about it I come up with
this: a human could also easily have taught her that. Learning things by
yourself isn't always a bad thing of course. But, by using the iPad way she
missed out on social interaction.

~~~
colechristensen
Self-directed learning at a young age – the ability to explore and discover –
is a top level skill for succeeding in the world they'll grow up in. Tablets
and the like make this a lot easier than ever before for certain things.

Overspending time looking at a screen is real easy though.

~~~
unicornporn
I'd be happy to see kids actually explore and discover not only their games,
but also the machines that the game runs on. That's mainly why oppose giving
tablets and phones to kids.

This is very relevant: [http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-
use-co...](http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-
computers/)

------
riffraff
I think the article fails to put emphasis on the difference between <2 years
old ("toddlers") and > 2 years old ("kids").

The taiwanese regulation seems to be along the lines of "don't let toddlers in
front of a screen for hours while you do other things", which honestly seems
like a good suggestion.

~~~
smtddr
Yup, I think a lot of commenters here are taking this literally at face value.
I got 2 kids of my own and I get the "vibe", or direction/intent, Taiwan's
lawmakers are going for. They know they can't enforce it; they're just trying
to suggest _" Look, don't just plop your baby/toddler in front of a Youtube
Playlist of 200+ Dora-the-explorer & Barney episodes all day. It's not good
for adults and it certainly isn't good for a new developing mind. Yes, we know
there are educational apps 'n all that... but you know and we know that's what
most of you are sedating your kids with on those glowing glossy screens. Let
them look around and process their environment & interact with real humans in
the room. Dora & Barney are great, but not replacements for real flesh & blood
human interaction and the real world environment around them."_.

Of course, depending on your social-economic level, this is __far__ easier to
do for some parents than others. I'm lucky with my flexible high-earning
techjob my wife only works 2 days a week. We have a great deal more time to
actually go outside and walk around in nice parks with the kids. Very
different from the parents that work crazy hours, _SIX_ days a week and barely
have time to sleep before having to go back to work - not to talk of having
time with their kids.

______

Pre-emptive: At about this time, in previous similar discussions, someone on
HN will say: _" Well, why did they have kids if they can't take care of
them?"_ I think this thread handles it well -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8177756](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8177756)

------
matthewmacleod
Bit of a stupid fucking article in my opinion.

I can accept that excessive use of entertainment devices is probably not great
for young kids. Excessive use is the key though, and there's not nearly enough
research to quantify that to the degree required for legislation.

I'm very skeptical of blatantly unenforceable nanny-statism like this. Doubly
so where it involves parenting decisions that aren't conclusively detrimental.
But cheerleading for it is even worse!

~~~
noir-york
Even if the research were inconclusive, surely being cautious and interacting
with children instead of handing them off to a digital nanny is just common
sense.

As for railing against the nanny-state - give it a rest. Most people are not
experts in everything and expert advice, say, from the AAP, should be heeded.

~~~
foiboitoi
Don't appeal to "common sense."

Red meat being bad for you was common sense. Fatty foods being bad for you was
common sense. Asbestos being safe was common sense. Hell I saw a guy eat it to
prove it was such.

Bright colored Snakes being dangerous is common sense. Something like this
isn't common sense. It's parenting by government via criminalization. That's
crazy. And we're not even talking about real child abuse.

~~~
moonchrome
While I don't agree with nanny state regulating this, I don't think your
comparison is valid.

Fatty foods were a part of our diet and then the experts at time said they
were unhealthy and provided evidence - still the burden of proof was on them.

Children were (successfully) raised for generations without digital devices -
you need to actually prove it's a benefit otherwise it's wise to avoid it just
on being conservative.

~~~
foiboitoi
Honesty I'd be more conservative/concerned as a parent with the chemicals in
the plastic that they're holding. Behaviour is intuitively easier to regulate
and understand than substance exposure.

------
batou
I've got to agree with this. I've got three children aged 2, 8 and 11 and
there's nothing worse than a cult following of stampy longnose to shake off.

The big problem I find is that the education system, at least here in the UK,
is very focussed on pushing technology on children who are very young as a
solution for everything. Everything else suffers for this.

~~~
matthewmacleod
You agree, in that you think the UK should ban parents from allowing kids
under 2 from using these devices?

I totally agree that it's wise to manage kids' access to these devices, but
legislation is an aggressively poor approach.

~~~
spacemanmatt
Given what I have seen, I think 2 is too young to start them on screens.

------
prof_hobart
>A child's brain develops rapidly during these first years, and young children
learn best by interacting with people, not screens

Whilst probably true in isolation, this is rather a false dichotomy. You could
equally say that kids learn better by interacting with people than with cuddly
toys, so we shouldn't let kids have them either.

Having a child watch TV,or play with a doll or an iPad, doesn't mean you will
now stop talking to your children, and parents aren't going to be spending
every single waking second talking to their kids.

So the question that should be asked is whether TVs and iPads are better or
worse for kids than the other things that they could be doing during the times
that the parents isn't going to be actively interacting with them - things
like playing with their dolls, crawling around the house, listening to music,
sitting and staring out the window etc.

And I'm guessing that the answer to that question is that they aren't
intrinsically particularly better or worse than any of those other things, and
that the problem comes when you let any one activity be the default way of
keeping the kids quiet.

Of course there are parents who replace any actual human interaction with 18
hours of TV a day. But the problem there isn't really the TV. If you took that
away, it probably wouldn't be replaced with human interaction. They'd just
find some other way to keep the kids quiet that didn't give them much
stimulation either.

------
tim333
The main evidence in the article that ipads are bad is:

>The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the most influential body to have
released such guidelines, recommends that "television and other entertainment
media should be avoided for infants and children under age two."

So they're an influential body but I'd be curious to see the actual evidence.
I mean if you worked for the AAP would you say sure go ahead and give them
iPads, risking subsequently being found to have caused harm or say oh no be
carful and thus cover your arse. They are almost bound to recommend caution as
a default.

------
dimitar
Growing up we definitely couldn't play on the streets, since cars were
everywhere, sports and entertainment were far away and expensive and schools
we a toxic social environment.

Computers got relatively cheap (we didn't own the latest and greatest) and
provided quite a lot of fun. I'd probably do much worse if I avoided them.

Maybe concerned parents would do better if they lobbied communities to provide
better environments for children - more opportunities for fun, safer and less
controlling.

~~~
tempodox
These thoughts are all valid, but they don't apply to you as an under-two-
years-old. The brain development that takes place in early childhood is as
once-in-a-lifetime as it gets. If you miss or destroy something here, you ruin
people for life.

Better environments for children would be a universal plus either way.

------
facepalm
Doctors opinions don't necessarily reflect scientific research. Please link to
relevant research. There were some links in the article, but I find some of it
inconclusive. The old problem of cause and effect.

In general the whole discussion seems silly because there is such a wide range
of things you can do with a computer or an iPad. Surely it makes at least a
little difference how you use the device? Just as it makes a difference what
kind of books you are reading?

At least in terms of agility/movement/obesity, spending too much time reading
books should have the same effect as time in front of computers. Yet I rarely
see calls to limit reading time for kids?

------
simonh
It's justa click-baity controversy piece. To paraphrase - "On the one had the
legislation is weakly drafted and too vague to provide any useful guidance or
actuly enforceable rules, but on the other this is wonderful and hurrah for
Taiwan's Nany State!"

The article's opinion is a contradictory, muddle headed and esentialy
pointless as the law. Whatever your opinion on appropriate screen time for
children, the law and the article aren't actualy any help whatsoever.

------
mjklin
I knew about the AAP guidelines. But we decided to put on Daniel Tiger during
mealtimes for my daughter from ten months old. It is a good distraction while
we get some food into her.

Furthermore, children under two interact primarily with their parents. They do
not really play with other kids at all, even if you take them to a playground.
So if AAP says "young children learn best by interacting with people", they
are talking about parents for under-twos.

At some points in the day, my wife and my daughter are just sick of looking at
each other. So a little TV provides a welcome break. Yes, we try to limit it.
But giving a blanket statement like "no TV under two" and making you feel bad
when you cave in does not seem to help the situation.

Also, what happens when 4-year-old Jimmy is happily watching his two hours
allowed of TV, and 14-month-old Bobby wants to watch too? Do you banish Bobby
from the living room because it might hurt his brain?

One suspects the AAP recommendations are made knowing they will not be heeded.
Like the eight glasses of water a day thing, it's one of those things adults
tell each other "oh, you know they say..." If AAP were living on this planet
with the rest of us, they would give more nuanced recommendations, just as
USDA has had to do over the years with rec's on food.

------
wilsonfiifi
I think the most important part of the article IMO is

>..."made screen time a shared experience".

Sitting with them and singing along to Barney and interacting with them when
they try to mimic a dance is a more balanced approach to the whole TV and kids
debate.

------
guard-of-terra
As article states it's not going to affect anything.

