When Steve Jobs was still alive and running Apple, he forbade his children to work too long on the iPad. Why? The New York Times journalist Nick Bilton, during one of his interviews with Steve Jobs, asked him a question: do his children love the iPad. “They don’t use it. We limit the time that children spend at home on new technologies,” he replied.
The journalist met the answer to his question with stunned silence. For some reason, it seemed to him that Jobs’s house was filled with giant touch screens, and he gave out iPads to guests instead of sweets. But everything turned out not even close.
In general, most Silicon Valley tech executives and venture capitalists limit their children’s screen time, whether it’s computers, smartphones, or tablets. The Jobs family even had a ban on the use of gadgets at night and on weekends. Other «gurus» from the world of technology do the same.
This is somewhat strange. After all, most parents take a different approach by allowing their children to spend their days and nights online. But it seems that the CEOs of IT giants know something that other laymen do not.
Chris Anderson, a former Wired editor who is now the chief executive of 3D Robotics, has imposed restrictions on the use of gadgets by his family members. He even configured the devices in such a way that each of them could be activated for no more than a couple of hours a day.
“My children accuse me and my wife of being fascists who are too concerned with technology. They say that none of their friends have such restrictions in their family,” he says.
Anderson has five children, ranging from 5 to 17 years old, and restrictions apply to each of them.
“That’s because I see the dangers of over-indulging in the internet like no one else. I have seen the problems I myself have faced, and I do not want my children to have the same problems, ”he explains.
By the “dangers” of the Internet, Anderson and parents who agree with him mean harmful content (pornography, scenes of bullying other children) and the fact that if children use gadgets too often, they soon become dependent on them.
Some go even further. Alex Constantinople, director of the OutCast Agency, says his youngest five-year-old son doesn’t use gadgets at all during the workweek. His other two children, who are between 10 and 13 years old, can use tablets and PCs in the house for no more than 30 minutes a day.
Evan Williams, founder of Blogger and Twitter, says their two sons also have similar restrictions. There are hundreds of paper books in their house, and each child can read as many as they like. But with tablets and smartphones everything is more difficult — they can use them for no more than an hour a day.
Research shows that children under the age of ten are particularly receptive to new technologies, and get addicted to them like drugs. So Steve Jobs was right: researchers say kids shouldn’t be allowed to use tablets for more than 30 minutes a day, or smartphones for more than two hours a day. For 10-14-year-old children, the use of a PC is allowed, but only for solving school tasks.
Strictly speaking, the fashion for IT bans is creeping into American homes more and more often. Some parents prohibit their children from using social networks for teenagers (for example, Snapchat). This allows them not to worry about what their children post on the Internet: after all, rash posts left in childhood can harm their authors in adulthood.
Scientists say that the age at which restrictions on the use of technology can be lifted is 14 years. Although Anderson even forbids his 16-year-old children from using «screens» in the bedroom. Any, including the TV screen. Dick Costolo, chief executive of Twitter, only allows his teens to use gadgets in the living room. They are not allowed to bring them into the bedroom.
What to do with your children?
Well, Steve Jobs, for example, had a habit of having dinner with his children and would always discuss books, history, progress, even politics with them. But at the same time, none of them had the right to take out the iPhone during a conversation with their father. As a result, his children grew up independent of the Internet. Are you ready for such restrictions?