
Dad takes son to Mongolia to get him off his phone - pseudolus
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50830944
======
nugget
As soon as I finished this article I immediately thought of a thread from last
week, "Focus has become more valuable than IQ"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21906727](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21906727)

Watching energetic young kids run around, I can see how tempting it is to give
them an interactive device which consumes their attention and makes them
easier to handle. But phones seem designed to encourage the shortest possible
attention spans and rabid multi-tasking, the opposite of deep focus. So what
do you do? Is it as simple as banning phones, if you're willing to give them
the needed attention? What about friends' phones and the Internet in general?
What if they fall in love with web programming at the age of 8? You want them
to be familiar with technology and ideally to be able to drift between multi-
tasking and deep focus. I haven't read much on how to achieve this from a
practical parenting perspective, though.

~~~
nstart
As much as I am wary of being negative towards children's behaviours that
don't match my own, focus related criticism is something that I feel is really
valid. I've watched children below the age of 13 Snapchat and watched any
number of children aged 2 and above using YouTube. The same behavior shows up
where before a video has finished, the children are reaching out to tap to
another one. I try not to judge but I do cringe when I see 2 year olds
spending 1 minute on a baby rhymes video, then reaching forward, tapping to
another one while the first still has 15 minutes to go, and then doing that
again and again and again. The older children swiping without fully watching
even a Snapchat video is equally bothersome for me. I'm seeing swipes and taps
happen in the range of 2 to 3 seconds.

This behaviour is not unique to children though. I watch adults at the
hospital using Facebook and it's the same. It's almost like they just want to
swipe rather than look at the content for real.

I have no idea what the long term effects of this behaviour are. Perhaps it's
nothing and I'm fretting over it needlessly. But I've experienced it myself
and it took behaviour similar to rehab to come out of it and be able to slowly
enjoy content again. And it always feels easy to slip back into. It's
terrifying.

~~~
lazyasciiart
Doesn't sound qualitatively different from the way people have read a
newspaper for decades - title, first paragraph, move on.

~~~
nstart
It isn't qualitatively different. I appreciate the term there. Quantitatively
however, the abundance of information and the way networks choose to
constantly show new content (that is more likely to appeal to you too) makes
for a very different scenario from decades ago.

Pick up the news paper, and it's the same thing you have to browse/skim
through. Pick up the phone and it's tens of new items every few minutes.

------
ctdonath
If you already have an inclination to travel to Mongolia, this makes for an
interesting "last straw" to justify going. I like the relative desolation of
the American Midwest, in part because of the no-tech/no-connectivity of large
swaths; any excuse to go there is appreciated.

Once that hurdle is cleared, going to such an extreme for disconnecting helps
hammer home the point to the kid: cellular connectivity isn't just a few feet
of separation from phone, or a few miles outside cell service, it's far enough
that disconnection is absolute & profound - you can drive (not just walk) for
_days_ and still not get a connection.

The real horror is a society so deeply dependent on something they use so
intimately yet so completely fail to understand. Getting kids "back to the
Earth" is very important, full & complete disconnect from "technology" so they
can grasp their own ability to live & thrive without it. Clarke: "any
sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"; we're
there, and while the benefits are good, the psychological dependency & mystery
isn't. Go somewhere distant from technology, forage/hunt food, make a meal
over an open fire, and sleep under the stars - so vital for a child's
psychological well-being.

[ETA: "Midwest" referring to roughly the boundary between central plains and
Rocky Mountains.]

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Where do you draw the line on technology? Are you hunting and foraging with
your own hand made weapons? Is the tent you sleep in composed of furs?
Technology is all around us, no matter how far you move or hide, and it seems
arbitrary to draw the line at "cell phone bad", then argue that you need to
get kids to go "back to the Earth". That's idealistic romanticism, and unless
you're running around in leather skins with a wooden bow and hand woven
string, it's all pretending that one can survive without the trappings of
modern life.

~~~
rpedela
I know people who are unable to navigate without their phones. If they spent
some time in the wilderness, they would start to learn, intuitively, which
direction is north, south, etc. They would learn how to read a map, including
topo maps. They would start to learn how to create a mental map of their
surroundings or at least remember where they had been. They would start
learning what do when lost. All very helpful if the internet is down, their
phone dies, or they get caught up in a natural disaster back in civilization.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
That seems like two different use cases. While that helps you to tell
direction, it doesn't help you navigate to 9134 Grocer Place, which is what I
think most people use Google Maps for, and for which a topo map would be less
than useless. Do you know people who Google Maps their way camping?

~~~
rpedela
> Do you know people who Google Maps their way camping?

Yes. Google Maps has pretty good coverage of popular trails and topography and
can be used if you have signal.

> it doesn't help you navigate to 9134 Grocer Place

It absolutely can if you have some familiarity with the area and no signal. If
from previous experience, you generally know where Grocer Place is then
finding 9134 just takes patience. You don't even need to have necessarily been
to that specific street before if you have a mental map of the area.

> a topo map would be less than useless

For finding a street address, true. But knowing how to read a topo map helps
someone learn how to read and navigate natural landmarks which can be helpful
in a natural disaster scenario or in a city if they are lost and no signal. I
invite you to spend some time orienteering, I think you'll start to understand
where I am coming from.

~~~
rckoepke
>You don't even need to have necessarily been to that specific street before
if you have a mental map of the area.

I, for one, am not going to waste my mental energy making a mental map of
Houston. The city PROPER has an area of 670 mi^2, which is equivalent to
fifteen San Francisco's. The metropolitan area is over 200 San Francisco's. I
regularly drive 40 miles to get from one side of the city to another, for
whatever particular errand I need to run that day. The Houston metro area is
officially over 10,000 square miles - that's larger than (pick one): Rhode
Island, Delaware, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, Vermont, or Maryland.

I'm not building a "mental map" of an area larger than the entire state of
Massachusetts. Saying it's on par with the total area of the country of
Switzerland would not be much of an exaggeration.

Maybe the city was different before cell phones. Maybe each neighborhood
either had everything you needed or you just went without. Now, because
GPS/Google Maps exist, the highest quality businesses pop up in super random
spots around the city, and you'll never be able to have a clue how to get to
them all without Google Maps.

"Back in the day" you didn't live in an integrated metropolis the size of
Switzerland. But we do now...so the tools we need to enable that are now
legitimately "needed" and non-optional. This very well may be hazardous to our
health, but its not really an option.

------
nkrisc
> But he also says getting to know his dad was worth it, especially the time
> they spent off the road in their tents or yurts just cooking and bonding.

> "I was surprised that when he's away from a work environment and family that
> he acts maybe closer my age," he says.

> Similarly, Mr Clarke was surprised to learn how mature his son was when they
> weren't confined to their typical father-son parenting dynamic.

This was what I took away as the most important part from this. It's
definitely a surreal moment the first time you experience your parents as real
people, peers even, and no longer as only a parent. I remember when I first
experienced that with my own dad. Finding the opportunity to facilitate a
moment like this is something special. I'm looking forward to whatever that
might be with my own son one day, likely many years from now.

------
uoaei
I regularly retell a story where I was waiting in line with a woman at the DMV
who used a smartphone as a pacifier for her toddler. The kid had a full-blown
meltdown when she had to take the phone to make a call. This is the kind of
behavior we are putting in our children when we take the easy tech-enabled
route.

Similar points can be made about the ubiquity of surveillance tech: giving up
key personal rights in the name of "convenience".

~~~
skrebbel
You're reading too much into it. Kids have full blown meltdowns over nothing
_all the time_.

Your story might just as well have been about candy.

~~~
uoaei
I left context out for the sake of brevity, but since you are addressing its
absence:

The entire time I was there (and remember, this is the DMV, so it was a while)
the kid was glued to the phone. There is a difference between engaging with a
smartphone and being engrossed by one. This case was certainly the latter.
Yes, again, toddler worldviews have limited scope and the thing in front of
them is usually the most important thing ever, but even so this child was
clearly addicted.

~~~
XorNot
No you're still misreading that - because you could be talking about my nephew
holding a torch or a toy truck.

------
tvanantwerp
His son's reaction reminds me of the first time I quit social media. I
remember just walking about, living my life, and then a thought would occur--a
clever remark or an interested photo I could take. And then I had to grapple
with _not_ sharing that thought with anyone. The thought would just linger in
my head for a bit, then disappear, and there would be no record of it at all.
That's been default for 99.9999% of human existence, and in a few short years
of social media usage, it became a strange and foreign sensation.

I'm glad I went through that to readjust and see just how much my mind had
been warped. I use social media much less than I used to and I'm happier for
it.

~~~
shantly
That goes for passing, trivial questions, too. One pops in your head now, you
_itch_ until you answer it, because you _can_ answer it. Pre-ubiquitous-web,
fewer such thoughts reached the level of conscious awareness and they were
rarely actionable, so, if not important, maybe you ask the people you're with
("hey, who was that guy in that one movie?") and if no-one knew or had the
relevant coffee-table trivia book handy (so, most of the time), it went
unanswered and the thought just went away. No itch.

I also find I burn a lot of time on meta-media (best-lists and such) and low-
value reading ( _cough_ ) because there's a ton of it available at the command
of a whim, where before one had to spend real time seeking out or paying for
that sort of thing (magazines and such). It's a pretty serious indictment of
my Web activity that I wouldn't pay any money at all for most of it, if the
choice were to pay or not to have it (Internet service doesn't count—I pay for
it for the few things for which it actually is very useful, not for those).

Actually that word might best describe what we've done with this new
environment: we've given vastly more power to whims. The Age of the Whim.

~~~
Doxin
Sometimes I kinda miss just idly pondering a question and having to come up
with plausible answers yourself. Of course I have the option to not look up
answers -- which I often don't -- but then you still mis out on idly pondering
with a group of people. Someone will have their cellphone out before you
finish stating the question.

------
shaneprrlt
> "While his father has climbed Everest twice, Khobe had never climbed a
> mountain so he had to practise that, too."

This dude has climbed Everest, twice?! I'm starting to think this family would
have gone on a vacation to Mongolia regardless of whether there was cell
service.

------
carapace
> "Oh my God, that was terrible! I can't be left with my brain like that!"

> "I had never before that experienced a weekend without my phone,
> essentially," Khobe told the BBC. "It was very weird for me."

> "What am I going to do, look at the stars and twiddle my thumbs?"

Holy fucking shit this poor kid!

What are we doing to ourselves?

~~~
icebraining
Yeah, if he's so bored, why can't he do drugs and have unprotected sex like
the teenagers of his parents' generation?

~~~
carapace
I had three responses, take your pick:

A.) At least those activities take place in meat-space.

B.) Because those are the only options, right? Phone or delinquency?

C.) You think that's it? The parents are druggies who had unwanted children
and so they are content to let the phone raise them? The 60's did it?

------
softwaredoug
I’ve always been skeptical of “screen time addiction”. In most cases I’ve seen
someone addicted to screentime, there’s an underlying issue that’s the real
cause. Like a messy divorce causing kids to lose themselves in World of
Warcraft, or my own example of picking up coding to “hide” in my own world due
to a traumatic childhood. Other cases, I’ll see more normal people binge games
or screentime, but usually they pull themselves out and do fewer IRL screen
activities after that binge. They don’t lose themselves like I did as a kid
trying to escape something.

~~~
rhezab
I have a similar experience. But it's still super helpful for me to first
break the content addiction part so that I have the mental space to try and
confront the underlying problems...

~~~
vorpalhex
Right but tools vs solutions. The tool is a screen timer, but the solution is
to resolve the underlying problem.

~~~
rhezab
Yup. Screen timer is a tool to do help break my addiction, which is the first
step of the solution (because without doing that first step, I don't think I'd
have the mental capacity to deal with the underlying problem).

------
ericol
Just these days I was discussing this matter with my partner. I have 3
daughters - one of the yet a teenager, the other 2 over 20 years now - from a
previous marriage. We were talking about the issue of eventually having to
give a phone to our 6 yo daughters. Here are just a couple of things I know
think I could had done.

Handling a phone to a kid shouldn't be an "all or nothing" predicament. Just
as you don't let kids drive 24 hs after the learned how to. There's should be
a concrete set of rules that could - and should - be enforced: First a
foremost, a notice or similar from the school due to incorrect usage of the
apparatus (Say, in the middle of a class) would led to confiscation of the
phone. Same for using it whenever the family is gathered on special and not-
so-special occasions (Say, watching a movie together). this last rule should
apply also to parents, thought.

Of importance as well should be not usage at all of the phone after a certain
time in the day (say, 20:00).

I think the most important thing is to let the kid know that the phone is a
"lended" item and not something that belongs to them.

~~~
TedDoesntTalk
> one of the yet a teenager

My teen also wanted to be a yeta. That's where I put my foot down. "You can be
a gay cross-dressing jew, I'm good with dat. But NOW WAY YOU GONNA BE A YETA."
I says.

------
coldtea
> _Khobe admits that at the time he was angry that he had to go, and miserable
> because without Snapchat or Instagram, he had no idea what his friends back
> home were up to._

Who cares what "his friends back home were up to" to that extend?

He could catch up with them when he's back, it's not like they'll have some
groundbreaking change in their lives and he'll blink and miss it. Are they
even close friends or just people he watches their selfies and shots of
brunches on FB?

------
grawprog
Not to sound callous, but I have trouble understanding crippling device
addiction in general. I grew up constantly on a computer, I'm still on it
regularly, I'm a pretty heavy phone user, but I have no problem without these
things and I do other things. If i'm with people, I don't fuck around on my
phone, I don't feel any sense of missing out or loss when I can't be on it. I
do other things that don't involve phones or computers at all.

I just tend to look at them as tools that just happen to be handy for a shit
ton of things. It sucks when I cant use them, but it's really not the end of
the world and i've probably had more screen time than some of these kids or
even teenagers have been alive for.

~~~
lallysingh
If you focus on apps designed to live on dopamine feedback, and on users who
hit adolescence with that in hand, I think a reasonable case can be made for
an addiction.

~~~
alexis_fr
It’s the « People are boring » effect, compared to even a Youtube video which
is a compacted speech that constantly catches your attention.

However, relationships are also broken, and we should do something about it as
much as decrease phone usage. I’m not sure which way is the causation here,
but countless times I have told my needs to people/relatives (I need to avoid
being constantly put down as a man, specifically, I have cleaned my room and I
have a six-figure job after all) and people are wired to reject that idea and
claim men as a class don’t deserve to be told positive things. I retreat to my
phone by despair, not because the phone is interesting. More recently I have
found far-right friends, but again, it’s just because they respect me, not
because it’s awesome: It’s a palliative, not a solution.

It’s discussed in the book « The boy crisis » of Warren Farrell (former
president of NOW, the National Organization for Women), but hey, people claim
he is « controversial » so no-one’s gonna take it into account.

Men — need — some — love. Or they’ll find it elsewhere.

~~~
lallysingh
What group of assholes believes that? It's sexist bullshit.

If you're surrounded by that, it's got to be incredibly unhappy. Some thoughts
(unsolicited, I recognize):

\- to make space in your life for better people, start deprecating the toxic
ones.

\- there are lots of positive groups of men. Not always, but places to look:
Dojos, Freemasons, sports groups (not necessarily very athletic groups,
either).

\- some independent fun helps. A motorcycle is fun.

\- or start bodybuilding to get some of these assholes to fear you a bit.
People compliment those that they fear.

Unsolicited, given, but HTH.

~~~
monoideism
> What group of assholes believes that? It's sexist bullshit.

Yet fairly typical in modern Western society. I can’t count the number of
times people have open insulted and/or discounted “males” and particularly
“white males” in my presence. “Oh, but you’re different”. I have no idea how
to even respond to that.

I can’t even imagine people doing the same to women or minority males 25 years
ago without (justifiably) being excluded from polite society (it _was_
happening to gay people back then, and I’m very glad those days are pretty
much over, or at least much better).

~~~
icebraining
I'm curious, since it doesn't match my experience: where in Western society
have you lived, if you'd be OK with sharing?

~~~
monoideism
Ok, to be fair, the “many times” is counting online interactions (including
w/fellow devs). So it was misleading in that sense. I should have mentioned
it. But it’s also happened in life with coworkers (several times) and even
with my own family (a big source of discord). I can even tell you the context
of some of the recent interactions: discounting political candidates because
they’re “just another white male”. Probably, you will argue that’s not an
insult, but can you imagine someone saying they weren’t hiring a woman because
she’s “just another woman”.

And it’s usually in the form of “men” and “white men” and not “white males”
although people have used those terms, too, in front of me.

As I’m sure you know, this is in the US. I’ve lived overseas in several
European countries and never gotten anything like this. It’s also a recent
phenomenon, within the past 5 years or so.

But the fact that you asked that question has made me reflect on how I made
that assertion (in an exaggerated/misleading manner, since the “many” includes
online interactions). If I could, I’d edit it. I’ll be more careful in the
future when discussing this.

~~~
icebraining
> As I’m sure you know, this is in the US. I’ve lived overseas in several
> European countries and never gotten anything like this.

Well, I suspected it, since my experience in Europe, but it's not like I lived
in more than a few countries here, so I was curious. I have to admit it does
rile me up a bit when people generalize the US as "the West" :)

I do wonder why that hasn't seem to have crossed the pond significantly.

~~~
monoideism
Fair enough. I’ll be more careful about “Western Society”. It’s been over 10
years since I last lived in Europe (France, at that time), and I’ve not been
back since (except for a 2-month stay in Turkey), so I’m not entirely use how
much of this identity politics has permeated European society.

I think it’s only a matter of time before it crosses over to Britain, and then
possibly on to Germany and/or Scandinavia. I can’t see France or Spain moving
in this direction any time soon.

------
davidw
I daydream about spending, say, a month in a cabin in the mountains with my
kids, but... I couldn't work without an internet connection myself.

------
wave100
If you're in the States and looking for something closer to home, I go on
camping trips up in the Adirondacks fairly often. The cell coverage is either
nonexistent or voice-only, and it's a beautiful area.

There are a few good backcountry campsites I've found that do have 4G -
working remotely out of a tent is definitely an experience.

------
bryanrasmussen
I do have the problem with my daughter that I have to make sure she is almost
always on some sort of project, outside, with a friend or something or she is
back on the computer playing Roblox, but I haven't considered going to
Mongolia yet, so far the local amusement parks seem to suffice in even the
most dire situation.

------
s0rce
You don't have to go nearly that far. Even within a dense urban area, I can go
up the hill 10 minutes from my house in the Oakland hills and the various
small valleys in the hills have no cell service.

Now I have a Delorme Inreach satellite messenger so I can stay connected, its
cost prohibitive to use excessively, however.

------
fredley
This kind of thing always reminds me of the 'Doctors' entry in the
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

[https://sites.google.com/site/h2g2theguide/Index/d/694485](https://sites.google.com/site/h2g2theguide/Index/d/694485)

~~~
jacquesm
As well as:

[https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Crisis_Inducer](https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Crisis_Inducer)

------
johnnycab
I thought this was a related or a supplementary story for the BBC programme
shown across 6 episodes in March-April 2019, titled: Race Across The World. It
featured a father-son team bonding over their experiences whilst travelling
from London to Singapore on a budget of £2,000, without directly using modern
technology or flights to reach their intended destination and competing with
other teams.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002tvs](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002tvs)

Spoiler alert:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_Across_the_World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_Across_the_World)

------
theNJR
I do a five day food and technology fast every year [0]. It's an instructive
experience to go without these two dependancies. If I have kids it is
something I'd want them to partake in when they are the right age, but these
extreme measures can't be the only action taken throughout the year.

[0][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21921462](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21921462)

~~~
hinkley
I use the tools at hand and if those tools are electronic I have no
compunction about using them.

My ex pronounced that by day 3 of an international trip I'd be crawling up the
walls wanting to check my email. Turned out I wasn't the one crawling up the
walls on day 3... I abstained day 4 just to prove the point, and caved in the
middle of day 5. And honestly, it wasn't that satisfying.

------
exabrial
I like the opening quote about being on a motorcycle and being completely
distraction free. A number of years ago I rode a couple thousand miles to key
West from my home town in ks. That was one of the most incredible things I've
ever done. I had to ride through a tropical depression, heat, cold, but mainly
I just got to listen and look at scenery. I'll do it again someday!

------
Zenst
You can't help but feel that the Dad has some attention deficit issues that
need addressing, let alone having to approach issues in such an indirect way
instead of directly.

Though that whole aspect that this made the news, does somewhat fuel my
initial thoughts about this.

------
plumeria
I wonder if this will still be possible in/after this new decade (when we get
all these satellite-based ISPs, ie. SpaceX, Project Kuiper, Apple).

------
joshstrange
> "Oh my God, that was terrible! I can't be left with my brain like that!"

> "I had never before that experienced a weekend without my phone,
> essentially," Khobe told the BBC. "It was very weird for me."

I cannot take this article seriously at all. From the title, to the premise,
to idea you have to go to Mongolia to get your kid to put down their phone and
interact with you. You can go literally anywhere or nowhere (stay home) and
have the exact same experience.

We can absolutely celebrate a father/son camping trip but the idea this is
what parents have to do to pull their kids away from their phones is both
false and clickbaity as hell.

> "When you're in a group of people and you're supposed to have social
> interaction time, but everyone's on their phone, that's when I've tried to
> change my habits," he says.

> "It's rude to not give people your undivided attention."

That's true, it is rude to not give people your undivided attention also if
everyone in your "friend" group is on their phones the whole time and not
paying attention then you might want to look for better friends...

~~~
xwowsersx
I don't think the article suggested this is what parents _have_ to do, but
maybe I missed it.

I agree that this is a bit "extra", but you obviously haven't experienced what
it's like for someone to have a crippling addiction to their smartphone.

This dad feeling like he had to do something extreme is probably not ill-
founded. Sometimes people have to pull out all the stops to accomplish
something, especially when dealing with an addict (that's what interventions
are). Staying at home could have worked, but much harder when you have to
trust and rely on the son using his phone responsibly. The dad just avoided
all the pitfalls by doing something extreme. Agreed that it's extra, but I
think you're dismissing this hastily.

~~~
DougN7
Agree completely. I personally know an otherwise normal healthy teenage girl
that cries and can’t sleep at night from anxiety if she doesn’t have her
phone. I think there are many more people like this than we realize.

~~~
xwowsersx
Yeah. I myself dismissed concerns that people have expressed because I tend to
be suspicious of alarmism. But there is a real problem, a real addiction.
Sure, it might not be the same as a chemical addiction to alcohol or
something, but that doesn't make it any less real. I've seen firsthand how
relationships have been destroyed, in large part, due to smartphone addiction.

------
agumonkey
make him visit baotou toxic lake on the way

------
Faction
If all parents would have that kind of money...

------
CivBase
A part of me wants to respond to this article with a simple "OK Boomer"
because it's easy to see people using this story as justification for a weak
"technology bad" argument. However... there really people who are hopelessly
addicted to social media. They are a minority, but they exist.

I think of social media the same way I think about alcohol. It can be great at
times and in moderation, but it's highly addictive and can absolutely ruin you
if you're not careful. The big difference is we don't let minors drink alcohol
without supervision.

------
trianglem
This may be politically incorrect but I think parents should be able to take a
page out of the Asian parents handbook and corporally punish their kids. I
find a certain amount of fear in very specific cases works to get kids to
focus initially until it becomes a part of their daily routine.

~~~
bobthepanda
Much more effective would be to follow the Asian method of channeling that
energy into something requiring a lot of practice and focus, like martial arts
or an instrument, and bonus points if it looks good on a college application.

(If they don’t like the current thing you’re focusing them on though, consider
switching lest they dislike you for the rest of their lives.)

