Digital Age Descendants S1E5

Are the gadgets we use parental assistants or babysitters?

Are we using the digital age gadgets such as Apple devices, Android devices, voice assistants etc.., as babysitters?

My father was a very forward thinking person, I was about 8 or 9 years old when he decided to buy a computer to be used by the family.  He thought of the computer was a tool to be used as such. I used the computer to play video games and as I got older used it to write papers and eventually using what I would consider the beginnings of the internet so to speak.  There were other people I knew that had computers, as a teenager, there were these things called BBS or Bulletin Board Systems controlled by sysops or System Operators, you network administrators today. This was a sudo intranet so to speak, all the systems were in and around the area I lived in.  To some people this was the internet, though not what we consider Internet today.

 When I was growing up I didn’t have the gadgets we have today but my family did have a computer.  I think of the iPad as a consumption device, but also as an educational tool. My daughter uses hers to sketch on, my sons use it for drilling on math problems.  They all use it for a consumption device   

When me and my family travel with the kids it can be challenging.  I firmly believe that because of the gadgets my kids have they must be constantly entertained.  So, when travelling I allow my children to have their electronics to and from when we travel long distances such as our annual camping trip.  I let them know that they can have their iPads when we are traveling to the camp site usually in Oregon and then again when we head back home to Northern California.  When we are at the location for camping their electronics are mine for the entire time we are camping, no exceptions, When we are camping they ride their bikes, read or some other activity.  At our latest trip they read, rode their bikes, and went fishing and were fishing for hours along with swimming. It was awesome.

So, in my answer to the question above, yes we as parents do use the iPad, iPhone, tablet to entertain our kids.  There is no excuse for it, my reasoning for doing it is because we my wife and I both work away from the house and have to run various errands to make the household work, whether it be getting my daughter to whatever function she has or getting my sons to whatever function they have.  

So it is a bit frustrating to come up with ideas and the time to spend with my kids along with all that today’s parents have to do.

An article i read at https://www.parenting.com/activities/family-time/ipad-modern-day-babysitter/

Stated that 41% used the devices to entertain at restaurants, and 55% used it while traveling.


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