Silicon Valley Parents
The tech insiders of Silicon Valley are sending their children to no-tech schools, banning screens at home and even banning their nannies from using their own phones while on duty.
What do they know that we don’t?
What we do know is that tech organisations are monetising our children’s attention. And we are letting our children hand it over. The price they pay is their time (i.e. their childhood) and potentially their wellbeing and development too.
Silicon Valley Nannies Are Phone Police for Kids
This article explains, “Childcare contracts now demand that nannies hide phones, tablets, computers and TVs from their charges.”
“Silicon Valley parents are increasingly obsessed with keeping their children away from screens. Even a little screen time can be so deeply addictive, some parents believe, that it’s best if a child neither touches nor sees any of these glittering rectangles. These particular parents, after all, deeply understand their allure.”
A Dark Consensus About Screens & Kids Begins To Emerge In Silicon Valley
Read the New York Times article here
NB a number of articles on NY Times are free to read, after which there is a paywall.
This piece includes a comment by Athena Chavarria, who works for Mark Zuckerberg, about how phones are “wreaking havoc on our children.”
More of the same in The Guardian (2015)
Tablets out, imagination in: the schools that shun technology
Parents working in Silicon Valley are sending their children to a school where there’s not a computer in sight – and they’re not alone
Read more in this New York Times' article, "Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent," on how tech executives set limits on their own children's tech use, or don’t give them smartphones until ages of 14 to 16.
Silicon Valley Parents Are Pulling The Plug
The tech moguls who invented social media have banned their children from it.
According to this 2018 article in the Independent.ie
“It wasn’t just Steve Jobs who admitted ‘we limit how much technology our kids use at home.’ Microsoft founder Bill Gates ‘didn't let his children have them until they were 14, while Mark Zuckerberg implored his baby daughter to ‘stop and smell the flowers’ in an open letter to her which he released last year - one that made no mention of Facebook or even the internet.’
The article really is worth reading in full.
Why Tech Execs Don't Rush to Get Their Children Smartphones
In this 2016 article on Huffpost, which is also worth reading in full, says:
“Tech exec parents… see through the false promise that smartphones bring the family closer.
High-tech parents also don't provide their younger children smartphones because they understand the devices promote a life focused on digital entertainment at the expense of academic success.”
And later in the article,
“Be the strong, wise parent your child needs: Are you unsure if you can set limits on your child's tech use? Don't be, as kids need our help. Authoritative parenting — which describes being highly engaged and setting strong expectations/limits with children — produces the best emotional health and academic outcomes. To practice authoritative parenting means not letting kids disappear to their smartphones at the expense of family and school. Of course, preteens and teens will resist limits on smartphones, as they don't have the brain development/judgment to fully understand why such limits are in their best interests. You can respond by being gentle but firm in your limit setting. Also, reach out to parents in your network to encourage them to be on the same page.”
A final thought...
Bill Gates was a boy scout who didn’t use a computer till he was 13. Steve Jobs was happy tinkering around fixing things and only started to use a computer when he was 12.