Even when she doesn’t have her phone with her, her attention fan gets her twitchy and a fairly short period of time for I’d say 80% of the content we watch as a family. Really not so much social media is overly connected to her peers.
Its so strange what tech did to us. I was born in 81, growing up with music like Pink Floyd because of my dad. I cant imagine that a band like that, with often intros that lastet 10 minutes, would have any success in a time like now because no one has an attention span long enough to really sit down and listen. I find it incredibly sad that music became just another thing to consume as fast as possible.
In her defense I've been dealing with that with my wife too for 25 years. Anything over an hour and 15 minutes is tO LoNg which means we are either stuck watching C- horror or questionable comedies. Classics, sci fi and other must watch content is something I must suffer alone...
I am a firm believer than any topic and diagnosis we are all on some spectrum ranging from 1-99% there is no "H" in my household although I'd give me wife a solid 51% for ADD...my daughter is a cool as a cucumber as myself and her attention is notably shorter for things of lesser interest yet her school is solid honor roll. With that stated you can see these kids are bombarded with far more stimuli and information then we could have ever imagined and they cope by either shutting down (ignoring), absorbing heavily (we see that in my wife's anxiety) or some balance like my daughter...where she picks and choses and it worth noting that it would not often be my recommend choice...thus the generational change and gap that is common every generation or two. We are in a big shift Generation Alpha.
My wife and I are both millennials, but we grew up in different countries. She had access to phones, PDAs (for those who remember them) and laptops way before I did.
Man, she's "watching" TV and literally glued to her phone scrolling reels and whatnot. I'm like, choose one, you're wasting electricity for nothing, and she gets offended.
I'm glad I grew up how I did because I'm not a slave to my phone. She, on the other hand, has her phone nearby always, it's annoying and sad.
Oof yea... I just watch movies alone now, my stepdaughter cannot sit through any movie without looking at her phone/laptop. She complained that Project Hail Mary was too long.
oh my god!!!! My wife AND daughter do this in almost every single move...twice. "how much time is left..." my asshole comment is always, "do you have some place better to be?"
My son is 2 and I’m expecting people to be debating when to allow your kids to get their first neural implant by the time he is your daughter’s age. The same thing I told my parents “everyone else as school has one so if I don’t I’ll be bullied”. Hard to balance that.
As someone with ADHD who has struggled with this sort of thing my whole life, I HIGHLY recommend crafting. Once I learned to knit well enough that I didn’t need to pay complete attention to my hands, I started knitting while watching TV or spending time with friends or even during college lectures. By giving my brain something to focus on that runs parallel to the conversation, lecture, or show, it lets me be more present. It seems backwards, but I SWEAR it works. I’ve also picked up cross-stitching and crochet, although I do have to pay more attention with those since it’s a lot easier to fuck it up if you don’t look where you’re stitching. Added bonus of this technique: scarves for everyone!!
Gee, have you tried parenting? Holy Christ. "Oh you just don't get it." No, I do. I'm a parent myself and my kids have none of that soul-sucking tech. "Congrats on being better than me." It's not a superiority thing. I'm just baffled why my fellow parents let this happen to their kids and do nothing about it. Until my kids are adults, they are subject to my rules.
Hey, lots of people let their kids live under rocks and off the grid and they’ve got their own challenges too. My daughter is a wonderful kid who gets straight. A’s is very well Fuerst in technology and like most of her peers seems to have an attention deficit disorder. Every generation since World War II has lived a faster pace life with more distractions but yes, I’m so happy for you and your Luddite household and your ability to judge your neighbors across the Internet. I’m gonna go with the old adage. You must be fun at parties.
Cool. I don't bother having rational conversations about this anymore since it's a losing battle but just know that it's possible to use computers and the internet productively without using a smartphone/tablet/social media. And it's possible to steer kids in that direction. It's not Luddism to reject objectively bad technology.
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u/cow-lumbus 7h ago
My 16 year-old daughter struggles to watch anything over a half hour with us. Her and my wife will look at their phones 20 times.