5 comments

[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 20.6 ms ] thread
Title correction: The Hidden Dopamine Trap
Spot on. Giving kids a smartphone and unsupervised access to algorithm driven content is child abuse, though sadly a legal form of it. Also, model the behavior you want to see, so put your own phone down around kids and let them see you pursue interests other than scrolling on a small rectangle.

If you need kids distracted for a while, at least take take the time to thoughtfully pick out some books or physical media like DVDs they can enjoy ad-free with dedicated offline media players, or give them a mechanical puzzle, or a yo-yo, or legos, or paper and crayons.

what I love is the people on this very site who will downvote you and call you a bad parent for fighting this tooth and nail with your own kids.

I have never sat my kids down with some stupid YouTube channel like CoComelon -- or any YouTube channel for that matter -- yet I am at the mercy of the same strong market forces that make that style of content popular. As a result I have the same issues with emotional disregulation related to screen time with one of my children (the other two handle it mostly OK).

So now, just like everything else it seems, the parents are left alone to try and fight this battle with trillion dollar corporations all by themselves. Yes, some parents have given up and willfully handed their kids' future to these sociopaths. But I assure you there are millions of us who are left in a David vs Goliath fight with no end in sight.

This article goes from pretty agreeable content to 'vaccines did it' so fast I have whiplash. Please tell me I'm reading this wrong.

> Key implications:

> 2. After the DPT vaccine entered the population, neurological and behavioral issues rippled through society. In the 1950s, “minimal brain damage“ [MBD] was coined, with hyperactivity as its defining characteristic. MBD symptoms overlap significantly with encephalitis, DPT injuries, and autism. Eventually, they found it could be “treated” with stimulants, and the disorder was renamed ADHD.

> 3. I suspect something similar is happening with screens—their dopamine-releasing nature is being used to counteract behavioral disturbances in vaccine-injured children. Many parents lacking bandwidth to handle misbehaving children are forced to provide addictive technology, transforming children into lifelong users.