![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
My two cents on the "kids and screentime" thing:
My family owned a PC since before I was born and I learned how to use a mouse at the age of two (playing Catz, if you're curious).
When I was 8, playing an hour of a video game per week was something I did. In between going outside to run/ride around, doing cartwheels and dancing in the apartment, playing with Legos and stuffed animals and all sorts of kits, reading books, painting and drawing and doing all sorts of weird crafts, and three dozen other hobbies I had.
By the time I was 18, my mother had either taken away my ability to do my hobbies (by literally getting rid of the stuff) or made it so painful to continue doing them (such as by constantly punishing me for doing them) that I stopped "by my own choice". So I stopped, and spent most of my free time in front of a screen.
The problem wasn't the screen. The problem was that my mother made it impossible for me to do anything else.
And if you're going to complain about kids spending too much time in front of a screen, I'm going to wonder if you, like my mother, are making it too hard for them to have any other hobbies.
My family owned a PC since before I was born and I learned how to use a mouse at the age of two (playing Catz, if you're curious).
When I was 8, playing an hour of a video game per week was something I did. In between going outside to run/ride around, doing cartwheels and dancing in the apartment, playing with Legos and stuffed animals and all sorts of kits, reading books, painting and drawing and doing all sorts of weird crafts, and three dozen other hobbies I had.
By the time I was 18, my mother had either taken away my ability to do my hobbies (by literally getting rid of the stuff) or made it so painful to continue doing them (such as by constantly punishing me for doing them) that I stopped "by my own choice". So I stopped, and spent most of my free time in front of a screen.
The problem wasn't the screen. The problem was that my mother made it impossible for me to do anything else.
And if you're going to complain about kids spending too much time in front of a screen, I'm going to wonder if you, like my mother, are making it too hard for them to have any other hobbies.