This is just so sad, and really something to consider when giving kids access to phones..

It's a quick minute and half video:

 

I behave the exact same way if you take my phone away! 

Seriously though, with a baby, I'd be even more concerned about the impact of the phone's electro-magnetic field on a young, developing brain. I still don't believe we have full answers on that aspect... we'll probably find out eventually that it has caused an uptick in various cancers of the head and throat. It wouldn't surprise me. Kids walk around with phones practically glued to their heads.

1 minute ago, Mrs. Peel said:

I behave the exact same way if you take my phone away! 

Seriously though, with a baby, I'd be even more concerned about the impact of the phone's electro-magnetic field on a young, developing brain. I still don't believe we have full answers on that aspect... we'll probably find out eventually that it has caused an uptick in various cancers of the head and throat. It wouldn't surprise me. Kids walk around with phones practically glued to their heads.

Eye sight 

28 minutes ago, Mrs. Peel said:

Seriously though, with a baby, I'd be even more concerned about the impact of the phone's electro-magnetic field on a young, developing brain. I still don't believe we have full answers on that aspect... we'll probably find out eventually that it has caused an uptick in various cancers of the head and throat.

Actually, some of the comments to that video expressed the same concerns. Not to mention the "programming", where the child develops responses to the stimulus on the phone, and doesn't develop problem solving skills or critical thinking skills.

 

Huge issue that we are aware of, trying to control with our two girls.  This is why we did not even let her watch anything until she was 2. 

Unfortunately way to easy to use ipad as a babysitter.

27 minutes ago, Maksim said:

Unfortunately way to easy to use ipad as a babysitter.

Sadly, that's way, way , way too common today and I believe will have HUGE negative effects on the kids in their futures.

10 minutes ago, Sniper22 said:

Sadly, that's way, way , way too common today and I believe will have HUGE negative effects on the kids in their futures.

AHA...

On one hand there are great uses for electronic learning.  Unfortunately lots of bad uses of it as well. 

teaching the kid to cry when he doesn't get his way too.

My girlfriend is like that with her daughter. Granted, she is six... but it is one of those things that aggravates the hell out of me.

She will watch the same stuff over and over and over again (YouTube). She does watch drawing videos, which I see as productive... as she likes to draw. There are skits that kids do, which I know where it is from, but she has no clue... and proceeds to watch it again and again. “Bye, Felicia,” is only funny when Ice-Cube did it... not when an eight year old white girl says it, who obviously never saw the movie.

It is funny watching her walk around with the phone (my girlfriend’s old one... only works on WiFi). Could be dead, and she will act like she is important and getting calls/texts all the time. Don’t really mind that, but it does fuel how upset she gets when she is being a brat and the phone is taken away. Was a tablet before that.

teaching the kid to cry when he doesn't get his way too.

That is my biggest issue with it.

Close second is ok for them to raise their voice when they don’t get their way, but when you react to it, you are being mean.

F***ing kids... [emoji107] Just go out and get a job already. [emoji1787]

i see no humor there.

we hide our ipads to limit the kids access, control their viewing as much as we can (grandparents job to spoil i guess)
I am having a way bigger problem with my younger then older with the tv.

my sister is 9years younger then myself and the biggest difference i see between our generations is she grew up on the phone and they werent a thing untill i was in hs. i was in my 20s when i got a smartphone after a buddy used theirs to find me a fan clutch in stock at an auto parts when i broke down in Carlisle Pa, and it was like sseeing the future

there is definitely a huge gap between the always on dopamine fueled instant gratification cell phone generations and those that came before.

i was in my 20s when i got a smartphone after a buddy used theirs to find me a fan clutch in stock at an auto parts when i broke down in Carlisle Pa, and it was like seeing the future.

Fan clutch? WTF? You’re doing it wrong, it’s for looking at porn.

13 minutes ago, Handyman said:

 

Fan clutch? WTF? You’re doing it wrong, it’s for looking at porn.

 

this is your fault now

 

The video really isn't enough to judge jack shit. You take a toy away from a baby, it' gets pissed. Infants don't have broad emotional range, it's pretty much hunger, rage, and asleep for the first while. It's a poor demonstration of "addicted". Especially without knowing the software on the phone. An infant isn't going to be addicted to keep up with the joneses on facebook.  

From a physical development standpoint, tablets/phones are a mixed bag. The touch and gesture UIs make use of motions that fit right in with gross motor skill development, but focusing on the 2d display is not a great plan for proper development of visual processing in the brain. It needs depth and movement in all 3 axis to develop properly. 

Based on what I have learned in the past about brain development and cognition, I'm not that concerned about screen time other than being lazy and letting it replace a variety of stimulus. I also try to steer the kid towards less awful and more useful stuff.

Contrary to a lot of the un-researched concern industry, my kid and his peers for the most part seem to saturate and need breaks form it. Some do not. I suspect the differentiation in those two groups would align with other general rates of addictive behavior. 

I suspect the biggest problem is when the kids develop enough language skills they can start using the internet to avoid learning things and abdicate that process to search engines and such.  Adults willingly abandon that skill, but at least they had some of it at some point. Kids that never did?  It's also tricky to not do essentially the same thing by proxy and just repeat everything the computer tells you.