Not to mention the iPad was only on the market for a year and a half before Jobs passed, in which there was no time for real educational software with traction to make it into schools.

He was talking about a future he was aiming for. I know it's hard to remember the tech optimism we still had heading into 2010, but most people still viewed things as getting better at that time. When Jobs announced the iPad, the iPhone had been on the market for 2.5 years and we basically only saw the conveniences of how cool it was to be able to check Facebook on the go with a cool futuristic touchscreen experience.

It's really easy to see how misguided Jobs was with 15 years of hindsight.

> We also limit access to sugary foods and other things that can be damaging in excess.

Maybe you do, but not everybody does. 19.7% of American kids are obese. The hypocrisy is that tech executives promote and lobby for excessive use of their products (even manufacturing addiction), but know better for their kids.

If the fact that these CEOs responsible for propagating disruptive technologies - CEOs exposed to the effects every day, have unprecedented insights (internal analytics) and the best staff around them to assess the tech's potential positive and negative consequences - DO NOT want to their own to partake in it even though advertising it to anyone else, then - if that tells you nothing - you are just plain ignorant or vested in their companies.

Is this the same Jobs that famously denied paternity of his daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, and was only forced to accept her as his daughter when a US federal court forced a DNA test on him proving she was in fact his daughter?

Yeah, something tells me we shouldn't be taking advice regarding children from this man.

Its a luxury that affluent people have to limit these things. When you're at your limit after a long day of work and still have stuff to do at home the kid gets the phone, iPad, or whatever while parents do the needed to run the household. Wonder why obesity is such a problem for poorer families. Convenience.

Yes, tech companies are liable for pushing this technology that they know to be addictive.

There is no apologist revisionist history for billionaires that are actively making the world a worse place. People act like Jobs was some kind of hero. Dude was a snake. Made some damn good products, but you don't achieve that level of wealth by being a kind person.

Tobacco executives probably prevented their children from smoking, especially as evidence emerged. That's just parenting.

It doesn't forgive them for lobbying ferociously against any regulation of marketing to children.

It seems wise to be wary of a salesman who won’t let his family use the product they sell. This seems very common in the modern tech industry.

For a random individual plucked out of general population, you would be correct. Three is hardly anything. However, for individuals that effectively determine what actual average is to a population ( by shaping tech that shapes said population at the very least ), it does not seem hasty. It may be a proxy, but it is not hasty.

To be fair to the Forest, both of those did and do occur! But they were vastly overwhelmed by "entertainment" - similar to the printing press and other mass-media opportunities.

The Internet allows you to get every classical work of philosophy or theology online immediately both in the original language or in translation. You can find videos discussion many of them in-depth. Someone in Nepal with an Internet connection can get an education that would rival the best universities of the 1800s, if they want.

Or you can watch cat videos.

Yeah Sam Altman's kids will use chatbots but here's the difference, your kids no matter the amount of money you're willing to spend will never ever get to use the chatbots Sam Altman's kids will have access to to build their legacy.

How much of that was actual spending—and if so, where did the money end up?—and how much of that was just fraud?

I am only on FB for a group I admin that is useful and helps people. its more like forum hosting for me.

Almost all my friends have stopped posted. The only social thing I see from most people is wishing people happy birthday.

No but they are experts in engineering their garbage to cause maximum damage.

Parents do not have to be "experts in chilhood development" to know what is best for their children. Especially experts in their fields like the manufacturing of alcohol, guns or other products universallly considered dangerous.

They are experts in their products.

No, they employ those.

In Zuck's case especially, in order to use what we know about childhood development and education to get kids addicted early.

Do they need to be? If I was a billionaire surrounded by the most educated and competent people in the world I wouldn't even spare a thought for the "Whole words are better than phonics" crowd.

No need for the leading question/bait when you know what they’re saying. No one said they’re experts on childhood development, they’re saying “it’s telling they won’t even let their kids use these services when they swear it’s safe for our kids to do so.”

No - but they could hire full-time panels of such experts, and never miss the money.

More to the point - if the CEO of DogFoodCo won't let his own family pets eat any of his company's flagship products, then maybe smart dog owners should follow his example?

Are you certain about that being "good"?

It is not just about what you can access.

The biggest problem is you get conditioned to instant and constant dopamine hits, which works directly against a lot of the things one is supposed to learn in school.

Kids learn the A-Z in record speed in 1st grade. But they don't learn to concentrate or that learning things can sometimes be challenging and the value of perseverance and that understanding eventually comes.

So in later grades they pay for learning the A-Z too fast through the iPad. Because they didn't learn how to learn.

The net effect in Norwegian classrooms over past 5 years of iPad education seems to be negative and it is not about what kids are exposed to. It is about not learning to concentrate.

I was nodding along until the third point. As a parent it can be really hard to deny your kids to smartphone/tablets when other parents don’t care and all their friends play Roblox, use WhatsApp to communicate, or watch YouTube.

Your kid will be the odd one out, missing some shared culture, left out of conversation or meetups they arrange in IM, etc.

The government should absolutely forbid social media and addictive games to kids under 16, otherwise it’s very hard as a parent to escape these little addiction machines and you can only try to limit damage.

Of course, we have to find a way that is not damaging privacy at the same time.

(If you don’t have kids or have kids that are under ~10, you do probably not know what the pressure is like… yet.)

3. When your net worth is measured in billions you have other opportunities in your parenting not necessarily afforded equally to every other parental unit.

You've fallen for the false framing. "companies have free reign to engineer as much addiction as they want" and "government enacts universal age verification surveillance" are not the only two options.

Also a good reason for why one shouldn’t have one’s child raised through the policies of people who don’t want kids. If they don’t have any skin in the game…

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The key message that poster before tried to convey was that they themselves do not believe into their own products, not that rich kids are privileged royal kings today. This ties into e. g. Facebook trying to addict people into using it - infinite scrolling as an example. The latter can be quite a problem on youtube or people using smartphones while riding in a subway, jumping from pointless video to pointless video - this is quite addictive.

>Almost no one wants to be the childless crank that shows up at a PTA or school board meeting demanding that tech be removed from the daily lives of the children.

I had never even realized.

As a bonus I now also see cranks proposing to raise other peoples children in some kind of sweatshop calling it education and schools. As if that was ever the goal.

In many places it's the teachers who move around all day while the students remain.