A father to a 2-year-old here. We have a very strict “no screen” policy. If she watches something, it is with her mother, and it is generally a short clip of a kid doing some kind of activity with a caregiver. It is less than a few minutes a day tops and never every day.

I am super anxious about the smartphones and similar as well. I am not sure how my child is going to handle the peer pressure to get one, and how will we (as parents) be able to manage her wanting of a smartphone. I think I will follow a similar pattern to my childhood and will allow access to the internet only through a computer for a while, and there will have several restrictions to what she can access, maybe except for group-based online games, which we will screen who she is playing with and what is going on.

Jonathan Haidt is proposing a return to a "play-based childhood"¹, and I am very positive about that approach. However, I am not sure if we will be able to get a buy-in for “no screens, no phones” policy with her school(s) and the parents of her schoolmates. That is to be seen. But these policies would probably affect the schools we will be choosing.

1 - If interested, check After Babel.

This is a great reminder regarding class: the rich do not die in the wars. They can only lose a bit of money.

I mean, who doesn’t think the dynamics of the society and power structures of the system and the injustice of it all during their showers? I personally find myself thinking about these, almost exclusively, on my showers. Is it an age thing, maybe?