grandkids glued to devices

What about people who constantly read their devices out in restaurants?
My husband and I frequently see parents with their children and they're all on their devices!!! How sad.

Kartush - what a great post . It seems like there's a lot of criticism about devices and how much time young people spend of them at the expense of their time with their GPs - but how many on here ask them about their world or make any effort to get to know what games they're playing or Youtubers they're following? It has to work both ways, surely, if we want the youngsters the be interested in the things we're interested in outside of screens? Time enough for everything, imo.

SirChenjin

I agree we can’t just dismiss everything out of hand, my own children had game boys, and before that, that tennis game you played on the television.

I think there are two points which are cause for concern, one is the length of time some children spend on their screens, and the meltdown which follows when you take it away, and secondly, the absolute mindless rubbish on YouTube, which seems to be so fascinating to my young granddaughters

I absolutely agree about the amount of time that young people spend on screens - but mindless rubbish? Wasn't Pong mindless? Or the photo stories in Jackie and Blue Jeans that I devoured in my youth for hours on end? Or rock n roll, which caused hysteria amongst young and old (for different reasons!)? Each generation has its own mindless rubbish and we generally emerge unscathed

SirChenjin

Mindless? Jackie? How could you!

Sorry! I meant the social commentary by Jackie on the relationship angst experienced by young people in the 80s (aka how to dump the two timing b*****d who's just snogged Michelle in the year below)

Lucky for us we had Cathy and Clare help us through those traumatic years

Exactly - and how grateful were our parents that we spent so little time poring over C&C's problem pages and pinning posters of Simon Le Bon to our walls but instead were keen to spend time with them and our GPs, gardening, discussing current affairs, ruminating on cyclic weather patterns....

Okay, okay point taken! I shall embrace YouTube, and before you know it, I’ll be able to put a bow in my hair in fifty different ways, delight in the fact that a random girl in America has 5000 lip glosses and watch a boring family doing boring things, in dreadful whiny voices

Seriously, you made me laugh!

I feel your pain Sara - love it!!

My 12 year old watches Youtube channels of an adult man (Dan TDM I think is his name- so called because he's boring as hell, perhaps?) playing Minecraft. This chap is a multimillionaire apparently and watched by millions . My 19 year old daughter, an intelligent young woman at university, watches something called Love Island. After one too many conversations with me when I've reminded her that these programmes are scientifically proven to destroy brain cells and that she's actually better than that, she has now banned me from the living room while it's on.

I have a description in an airbnb, wifi disconnected at midnight.

m 6 have done this to them grandson pracitcally told me he didnt have any option. He has since, his dad took it from him but he still didn't talk to me. he just sat in the chair and was in a bad mood. I was told not to speak to him and not told anything.

Oh that reminds me of Spanky, SirChengin He babbles on about Minecraft. Now that is an odd game. Never quite got the hang of that one.

Neither have I Minnie. The only positive I can take from it is that it seems to have fostered a love of design in him and he's talking about being an architect when he grows up, so I'm holding onto that thought for dear life...

I can't understand the fascination for watching people watching stuff and commenting on it.

Maybe its kind of like gogglebox for teens.

No, me neither - but I don't get Gogglebox either. I don't think I'm quite what the reality TV/YT makers had in mind for their programmes

Have my router on a timer - goes off at meal times and a couple of hours before bedtime when they stay over. They just accept that how it is at Nanas.
Get them to go for a walk or to the Park as we have to walk the dog twice a day. They're 9, 11 & 13.