Advice on avoiding the hedonic treadmill of endless content?
I have a specific ask at the end, but any and all musings on this topic are invited.
Lately it's become apparent that the endless fire hose of content and subsequent extinction of boredom is one of the most insidious shifts of modern life. While social media and the internet have accelerated this, upon further reflection I realize this battle to hijack our time and attention is something basically all of us were born into (and an even steeper climb for those of us blessed with ADHD).
These reflections have been borne out of a desire to protect my toddler's curiosity and passion for life outside a black mirror for as long as I can reasonably manage.
The issue as I see it is not the existence of content beyond what one could ever consume (books have been that way for centuries). It's the evaporation of friction. One click and you're on an infinite loop, optimized and engineered to keep you there.
I used to think this was a symptom of the smartphone & tik-tok era. However, looking back at my own childhood TV habits, cable TV was the precursor: dozens of channels that never went dark and 24/7 news cycles that bred fear and never stopped churning.
The ask: How have you set up an environment for your kids (or yourself!) to delay the hedonic content treadmill as long as is reasonably possible?
The goal is to avoid a smartphone until we can't. I'm not anti-screen. There are loads of great educational TV and movies, I just want to introduce them slowly and with intention. But unfortunately now every TV front-end is ad-stuffed and every streaming app is basically a recommendation engine in disguise.
How do you share content with your kids without letting the algorithm worm its way inside their brain? How do you give them access to the collective wisdom of mankind in the internet without turning it into a slot machine?
Context: Father of kids under 5. They do not have phones yet. These things have worked well so far.
Media Player:
My daughter has full control over her television for an hour a day after preschool to unwind. She does this through the player that I made her containing mostly PBS shows and such. There is friction here, as it has no ability to infinitely play. Most of the episodes are like 8 minutes and she has to pick a different one by getting up and picking a new one. In practice, she usually watches two or three and goes to play with her dollhouse.
Games:
She is allowed to play games on a tablet almost exclusively when we are in boring long meetings. Think DMV or various lawyery meetings and even then it is only after a while. PBS Kids Games seems pretty decent. The tablet has had everything removed and side loaded the games app so she can't stumble on other stuff.
Books:
She is onto chapter books by now, currently her favorite is the Princess In Black series. She takes those with us when we go places and staves off boredom that way because she understands that the tablet isn't an option for quite a while.
Board Games:
We have games that we can play as a family or alone. Dominoes are used to make up their own particular games pretty often despite us not really trying to make that happen. The family games are still quite short at this point so we try to play one while preparing dinner.
Well done setting up the box for your kids.
There's a new trend of using the internet as a babysitter. What folks may not realize is if parents teach them to read independently very early on like yourselves, they get a ton of free babysitting time from books.
Any tips or resources for this? My kid just turned 1 so we're not doing much more than singing the ABCs right now, but I do want to be as proactive as I can.
Read to them constantly. Obviously any single parent's results are anecdotal but we read to the kids every night for quite a long time and nearly every day. Ask them to point out words that they know. Use your finger on the page to show them which part you are reading. Ask them to sound stuff out. Give them all of the tools you can.
Okay good, we're trending in the right direction then because he's constantly bringing us books to read to him, and one does not simply deny that request.
It's just tough finding the balance between knowing when to teach him things and just letting go of expectations and allowing him to be a kid. I know he's only 1yr, but these are the anxieties I've brought with me into parenthood lol.
My son just turned 1 too, and I love how he picks out books and slaps them down next to me! Even if I'm rereading the same book 5x in a row, it warms my heart. Banana Bop is probably one of his favorites, and then a picture book we made of his favorite people with a page for each member of the family.
How?? My almost-one-year-old just wants to destroy and eat books. So far three board books are completely done with another two damaged beyond being able to pass them on. Reading is a battle of trying to keep her interested without her getting frustrated that she can't rip out the pages. About the only way we can manage it is if she's not even looking at the book, just climbing and playing nearby. Which doesn't feel any different to just monologuing at her, when all the talking advice is about engaging and leaving space for responses, so that doesn't seem like a good thing?
And this is where the "one parent is an anecdote" thing comes in. I have no idea. That is a problem we just didn't have.
I guess for now just focus on crib times? I wish I had good advice. We definitely lost a few books between the kids but not many.
Maybe just wait...?
I think it's important for children to move, especially girls, a lot, more than anyone thinks is reasonable (including myself!)
I don't think you can force joy on anyone, so the more you try I think you are more likely to foster resentment against both sitting still and reading.
May I suggest baking flat cookies and write/draw eatable books with frosting? More as comedic release for you as patent(s) but also to get to talk about letters/words, maybe?
If you tell her stories when she is still or otherwise able to listen you could try to stop sometimes and see if she asks for more, then you can pick up a book and continue reading from it, this might get her interested in books and start to form an understanding of where stories come from? I don't know, just guesstimating!
Congratulations on keeping them alive for the entirety of their first solar revolution!!
Mine learned to read while we played Pokemon Yellow together. As you know, there is a TON of repetition in ye Olde pokemon games. Do all the voices, narrate every attack, speak every item highlighted.
There's no one way to do it, but the main task is to convey that the English language is made of words, consisting of letters that make sounds. Finger placed over each word karaoke style on every board book even when read a million times: if they want to edit the story to say something else, cool, get a sticky note and change the way the story sounds by changing the symbols on the page. (Sorcery!)
We didn't do phonics, but Tildes recently had a very animated discussion on it, that I can't now find. Gist is, don't wait for school to teach reading, which you're already doing great on.
This is awesome. Thanks for sharing that link. I'll definitely be setting that up for my family.
If my post is not terribly useful just DM me questions and I can try to help out! I wrote that on the fly a few months after it was made.
Will do, thank you. Though I've never come across a project I couldn't crack my knuckles and brute my way through 🙂 I think it's cool that you wrote it to begin with.
For yourself: everyone's brain is different, and there's really a drastically large spectrum of experiences with all the things you want to avoid, so I'm sure realistically there's no one right answer. But for me, the only real way to avoid The Treadmill is through some level of self-discipline. Others may have had great experiences with app X which blocks you from opening InstaBook and limits your TikTube time to 17 minutes per day and so on. But I find for my brain that if I try and outsource responsibility for avoiding these services, then exactly that happens – I feel I have outsourced the responsibility, and I end up finding ways around it (and on modern devices, there are COUNTLESS ways around blocking almost any platform if you're even remotely tech-savvy) and falling back into the same old cycle. I've tried limiting my phone to certain apps, I've tried blocking websites, none of it ever sticks in a meaningful way.
Two things that to some extent do work for me: self-discipline, and positive reinforcement. I think what made a difference for me was having a concrete, blanket, heavily internalised rule about which platforms are terrible for me, rather than just trying to avoid individual ones and ending up replacing them with something else equally bad. For instance, I tried really hard to stop using Instagram, and ended up just scrolling through Reddit all day instead. But once I decided that anything with an algorithmic feed is essentially demonic and the utter bane of my existence and wellbeing, following that rule made things easier for me – because instead of just jumping from one algorithmic platform to another in order to obey my own rule, I just "escaped" this limitation by spending time on non-algorithmic platforms instead. Still bad? Maybe. Better? Absolutely!
And the positive reinforcement one is something I'm still working on, but having a system where I earn points for doing things each day that I feel I want to do more but tend not to (like reading 1 page of a book, or getting up before a certain time in the morning), and rewarding myself by spending these points on nice things that I enjoy but want to do a little less (like eating chocolate, or eating out) seems to work well for my brain. I don't like using an app for this, I prefer a physical whiteboard or similar to make it feel more tangible and visible. And if you can do it with a partner or someone else, I think the shared accountability helps in sticking to it.
As for the kids, I am very interested in this topic for the potential future, but I can't advise with any experience! I'd love to hear what other people have experienced in terms of not giving them their own devices or letting them use anything internet-related unsupervised, because that's definitely an approach I'd potentially like to take if the time ever comes.
I can't speak to the kid issue, but here are a few tricks that work for me:
For me, that meant replacing my "morning news scroll" with listening to music while I wake up and get ready for the day.
In the evening, while I watch TV, I put a paper journal and a fountain pen in my lap. Sometimes I doodle, and sometimes I take notes about whatever comes into my mind. Other times, the journal and pen just sit in my lap, but it nicely occupies the fidgety space that once belonged to my phone.
If your job allows it, turn the internet on only when you need it for a specific task. I have a relaxing playlist (music being helpful, again) that lasts about thirty-five minutes. I put that on, take care of my internet tasks for the morning (email, notifications, downloading files, etc) and then before playlist is over, I switch my laptop to airplane mode and focus in on my work. I turn the faucet back on if needed for work, of course, but I try to live with my computer in airplane mode unless there's a reason not to.
For me, overuse of the internet was a flashing red sign that my daily life wasn't sufficiently engaging. I had free time, but I wasn't using it very well. So I began working on my health (cooking, exercising) and that has been great. (I lost 40 pounds!) My partner and I go out to happy hour with our neighbors. I volunteer at a nonprofit. We attend an event or two every month (sports, happy hours, book clubs) even when we're skeptical we'll enjoy them, because the whole point is engaging with the real world and experiencing new things.
This is probably the least important thing I've done, but it's become a fun hobby for me, so I'll mention it. I've exchanged streaming music for an MP3 player and purchasing entire albums. I've gotten into physical media and DVDs, and my partner is building a Jellyfin server to catalog our growing collection of music, movies, and TV shows. I use a dumbphone around town, not because it keeps me offline, but because I enjoy the retro aesthetic. I even picked up a standalone digital camera and alarm clock.
I'm not hardcore about avoiding new tech. Sometimes I pay for a month of streaming to watch a show I want to see. I take my old smartphone with me if I need maps or apps.
The most difficult concept for me to grasp was that breaking my bad habits with technology could not be solved with more or different technology. I had to look elsewhere for answers.
Anyway, I hope something in here is helpful!
I really relate to your 3rd point: get a life!
The other day I really felt in my body how watching streams and tv-series or listening to podcast or even music with lyrics drains my social battery (hence the concept of "parasocial relationships"), I still can't really brake away from it but having experienced that feeling is a good stepping stone (I hope!).
I'm also leaning more and more into wanting a dumb phone...
The dumb phone has been fun! It scratches that itch of "I want to be able to make calls and get texts if there's an emergency" while also walking through the world untethered and unbothered. I feel very light and very free.
But it gets tricky when you're traveling and need on-the-go maps, or when you need an app to access something like tickets to a show. I keep my old smartphone for those days, just as a practicality.
My current thought process is to carry 3 phones...
I would bring 2 & 3 with me on purpose, but 1 daily.
I dream of getting into the state of leaving 1 at home on the counter, 2 in a desk drawer and burn/recycle/give away 3.
We'll see! Many plans!!
Anyway, you inspired me, thx <3
There's a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy technique called Behavior Chain Interruption Strategy (BCIS)
https://linksaba.com/how-to-use-behavior-chain-interruption-strategy-bcis/
A sort of "nip it in the bud" but going even further back. Example, I can't put down the phone because I've already picked up the phone, so I gotta go earlier and interrupt the chain.
@ali mentioned an app that adds pauses. The Bean app by Hank Green can add additional friction of "are you sure you want to interrupt this cute bean making a scarf?" Logging out of Reddit and having to see the default page. Disabling auto-logins on the browser for certain sites that demand logins to view algorithmic content. Intentionally not using UBlock origin and having to suffer YouTube ads.
I remember in the dial-up days, sometimes it doesn't connect and I leave the desk to go play or read or draw. I need to do more of that. See if I can leave Tildes alone for the next 6 hours. (Place your bets! Chronic addict vs Good Advice, which will prevail!)
That sounds useful for me as an adult.
Disclaimer, I know about it but have not had specific therapy for it. I might ask my executive functioning OT about it for comments or if they know something else I can read up. But yeah it sort of make sense if I could find the earliest trigger to stop.
This is a constant battle. Often soon after you get off one treadmill you find yourself on another.
Here are some tricks I’ve learned:
I found that youtube, netflix, etc… are constantly trying to get you to watch the next thing. This is bad for kids who already struggle with impulse control. Just use a frontend that doesnt suggest the next thing. Also added benefit is you have to pre select what they will see and this will generally up the quality of content you allow the kids to view.
I found instagram, reddit, and YouTube would occasionally suck me into a doom scroll session. I discovered that if i delete the app and then just use the PWA the experience often has tons of friction and bugs. This gets frustrating and makes me not want to scroll anymore. It’s surprisingly more effective for me than app time limits. On a side note, on iOS, you can still set app time limits for PWAs.
Other than this just being good parenting it really will ensure the quality of what they watch is much better. This also prevents the kids from getting sucked into the algorithm since you are there.
I bought my son loads of those kids encyclopedia books (science, animals, vehicles, etc…). The kiddo can “doom scroll” their encyclopedias to their heart’s content and im absolutely fine with it. No worries of algorithms and becoming a dopamine junky. Also they have loads of well presented and informative information, pictures, diagrams, etc…. For example, my kid asked me about crystals and i quickly grabbed the science encyclopedia and flipped to the mineral section and wham tons of info and interesting things without all the distractions of the web.
+1 for letting kids doomscroll with an encyclopedia.
I would add National Geographic magazines: my old library had decades' worth and it was such a gold mine for maps, wildlife photography, long essays that I wouldn't otherwise read. I don't subscribe anymore, and my modest collection got donated before the big moves .... Can't vouch for the modern ones being of the same quality.
3 is especially important with younger children. Do not put on a channel and make assumptions. It's okay to put the same 3 well worn videos on loop instead if you have a dire need to shower or cook or something.
I also find daunting the task of protecting kids from the fire hose of content (I don't have my own kids yet, but we're trying).
What I do which works for myself is to download whichever content I want and access it through Kodi. having a bunch of video files is I think the sweet spot of reliable/easy to launch and also not too enticing. I have a list in my phone of IRL-friends recomendation for books, media, channel, and youtubers do collabs often enough that I don't have a problem discovering enough new content.
you can torrent movies and series, and download youtube videos. yes it is piracy, but no pay-for streaming service provides what I want: a service that doesn't push you to use the service more.
And I love the fact that downloaded content are curated by you. You are the sole algorithm already makes it much less harmful. The platforms had our trust and goodwill for a while, and they lost it, so I don't feel bad taking my ball and going home.
(Asterisk: I still subscribe Dropout.tv for creative and diverse content, easy to subscribe and unsubscribe, stable pricing, and having warning timestamps for common phobias in the description)
I'm always curious whether self described Kodi users began with XBMC. Was that you too?
I was hopeful that I could use Kodi like a Jellyfin server across devices for my 2 year old but I'm not totally sure that it behaves like that. That said, Kodi is the most beautiful of the bunch when it comes to media player software.
Do you use it on a single device or multiple?
Nope, never used XBMC, started using Kodi 3 or 4 years ago when I wanted a streamlined way to access my media library (for the wife, she's an apple ecosystem lady and therefore cann't handle things like folder structure) on the TV.
My media library lives on an SD card in my phone (no backup, I can always download again). If we want to have something, I get it within a few days. Then I check that kodi labels it correctly.
Watching stuff on my TV (using a docked steamdeck) is as easy as having kodi open on both my phone and the steamdeck (I had to enable a setting once on my phone to share its library) while the phone is in wifi access hotspot (we don't have a wifi box). I have to keep Kodi open on my phone while sharing it's library, which I view as a feature as it forces me to be fully present.
I've tried Jellyfin but somehow found it less intuitive to me, kodi works for the way I use it (heavily manual).
Eventually, I'll set up a small server so my wife can watch stuff without me.
(To be honest, I also sometime use stremio for stuff I don't really know I'll want to watch to the end, it's easier as no full download needed, but it sometimes bugs and buffers)
Funny, Kodi only works for my wife when I'm in the room as well ;). I've found NAS access to be a bit finnicky, and for me, that's how I'd like to set up access for my daughter and wife. Here's hoping it works as, like you, Jellyfin isn't as easy on the eyes.
Sorry I don't have any advice on kids, but for myself, I use the app https://one-sec.app/ which interrupts the automatic opening, and the endless scrolling.
It's the best way that helped me with my screentime reduction
There is something disturbing about an app that presents itself as this one does being available only as a subscription. (Which is neither here nor there, I realise.)
I use Lock Me Out on Android that is much cheaper and has no subscription. It is not exactly the same thing, but it helps me a lot. I remember the free-tier being quite useful already but I purchased it long ago so I am not sure.
I use screenzen instead, but I can restrict websites as well as apps. And I can get a sense of time how I waste on these apps.
I don't really use discipline, but rather self awareness and mitigation. So I identify my triggers (boredom, stress, etc) and place my vice behind an obstacle of some sort. For example, I put some chips and snacks in a cardboard box on top of the fridge. It is there when I really want it, but since it is out of view, it less likely to trigger my brain desire to snack.
It does have a lifetime purchase option. The price has increased significantly since I bought it though...
I'm still torn on subscriptions, since I understand that constant updates cost time, and unless your market can grow very large, you'll get to a point where you would either work for free or abandon the product
A big thing that helped me was getting my RSS feeds figured out so i'm more aware when content I actually care about exists.
No "oh better check 15 websites", just one stop "nothing new, cool", back to whatever.
Doesn't stop me on slow days from scrolling for new content when I probably should be more productive, but at the very least it's a more conscious decision rather than going for one thing and then just settling into another.
I second the recommendation to learn how to use RSS. it is trully liberating to know I can easely check for new content from many different source, easily subscribe, easily unsubscribe.
makes it so much easier to stop logging into youtube or reddit when you can still be alerted about new stuff from the few channel or subs you cann't leave!
For kids:
The Montessorri-inspired Lovevery toy kits with analog toys is a great way to start. With a subscription it's a ton of toys, but realistically, I thin swapping out screens with toys in a competitive way demands a lot of toy selection. Wooden Brio trains, dolls, building blocks of various kinds (just wooden ones, Magna-Tiles, K'Nex, Lego, Duplo - there's good selection.
I think playing with, reading with (and for) kids, listening to music with them, dancing with them and so on is imperative for avoiding the screen.
Of course that's way, way more demanding on the parent than just putting a black screen in front of a little face. Kids playing on their own is extremely demanding, the younger they are, the harder it is. It takes a lot of teaching and interaction from parents, and peers where that's possible.
I also just want to agree so much with what's being said about the attention-cycle being a huge change that really is not healthy. Being bored, being alone with your thoughts, just looking out the window and so on is important for development.
How in the world are we meant to function in the adult world if we don't know how to be bored?
Disclaimer
I failed this task spectacularly in my patenting, I still have things to sayI think the "dangerous" quality of modern media is the moving and on screen presentation (compared to books, drawings, plays, concerts, etc).
While I think games are less hurtful since they also require doing I disagree with the premise that there is "moving on screen media" that is exclusively useful for us as humans. (Sure, there is less hurtful "moving on screen media" like educational games and videos, but only in comparison with TikTok and friends.)
As our children learn from us I think the only truly viable thing to do is to just not have screens with "moving" media on them present in the childs home life.
It also helps if you manage to use your phone intentionally, preferably as close to an old fixed landline phone with an answering machine as you can. This would mean having a place for the phone that you go to to talk on the phone and check your messages on.
Obviously this is a really high bar to set for oneself and others in the household.
It would require you to be able to entertain yourself without your phone while you are with your child, which is "easy" when they are with you all the time but gets harder the older they get.
Which brings me to a related issue: toys!
I think toys are hurtful. Let me explain... I think sending children off to play with toys while we do boring household/life things like cooking, cleaning, washing, planting, exercising, fixing is bad for children, us and our relationships.
In an ideal world we would have time and energy to have the children with us at all times when we live our lives doing life stuff.
Obviously we all need different amounts if alone time, and obviously we have better and worse days, and obviously children should have the luxury to play when they want to (that's a qualitative difference between children and adults: the responsibilities!).
I'm "just" saying that I wish I had almost zero shiny toys in my home when my daughter was young and that I would not have taught her to play with toys rather than play with pots & pans in the kitchen while I was cooking.
Ooooh that's a hot take! You mean, don't buy toys that are specifically manufactured for entertainment, but just have regular life things that kids are free to explore and make use of? Or more the attitude surrounding toys as something to send the kids off by themselves as being harmful?
Example, what if I were a child who has no interest in your pots and pans while cooking, and I want to go play with sheets of blank paper instead by myself? And what are the limits for your endurance with my destroying/losing household objects during play?
Mostly it's the second thing: to force the separation of adult and children's lives. Children have to learn to be away from their adults and while it is useful later I think we push them into a separate-away-from-adults-life too early.
And yes, I think we push them rather than that they draw themselves away.
But obviously the shine of the shiny toys helps create the yearning to go play with them rather than do whatever else is available. And if we don't go with them to enjoy playing with them (both refering to the children and toys) it becomes an away movement. It also looks to me like shiny toys (and moving media) are used as a bribe-y thing "No, I have to do X, but why don't you go and play with Y" instead of inviting the young person(s) to do things together (and plan for them to take longer, and adapt to everyones skill level and experience)
Depending on the reason it would require different "solutions"...
I'm not saying adults and children should do everything together all the time. I'm "just" saying that there are a lot of ways to be (and play) together without toys and that toys help create the unnecessary divide between people if different ages that we live in now.
This is both an economic but also patience related question that everyone has to figure out for themselves. Personally I have quite a lot of patience and economic room (not because I'm wealthy but since I own very little of value and dont value stuff that highly anyway).
I admit that in our current world it is hard to make room for children like I'm describing here, but it is still something I wish I had thought more about before becoming a parent.
I agree, instead of what goes for toys nowadays, I highly recommend real stuff, adopted for kids: https://craftherway.com/diy-busy-board-for-toddlers/
Also, do not give them fake power tools, get them real manual ones. E.g. instead of kids vacuum go with a small broom and a dust pan. And use them for real. Made a mess? Hold the pan.
I like the thoughtfulness you've put into this, and the very relationship-centered approach you have. I do think if parents were patient and contentious and welcoming of their children, and value their time together as much as you do, we would see a lot fewer troubled souls in society.
My only reservation is that, while this manner of parenting would have been a dream come true for some children (such as my sibling), as an introverted person I would super not have wanted this for myself as a child :) However, it might no longer be possible to tease out the cause and affect: perhaps I was solitary as a young child because my parents spent extremely little time with me to begin with.
Well, I do believe I wrote "in an ideal world" somewhere in there :)
I just want to make sure to point out that I don't intend to lay the responsibility of this herculean task solely on the parents.
This would be a societal endeavour where parents have more support and there would be more adults per child.
As for your example about yourself as an introvert, I sure can relate. As far back as I remember I never felt understood by my parents and would take most chances to get away from them. This is a difficult situation but I don't think "toys" add any significant positives to it. I assume it needs more varied adults and knowledge about, and acknowledgement of, intro-/extroversion and neurodivergence.
I can see being able to play with paper at the kitchen table and allowed to drop in and out of the cooking the rest of the people are engaged in would help without being coaxed.
Like everyone should expect to have a place & "function" but not required to use that space is the feel I try create for people around me. It is not always easy (especially handling preexisting relationships).
It's a fantastic vision to work towards, and honestly it's what our children deserve. :)
My kid is 2 years and four months old. He does not have access to a phone or a tablet. I don't expect to give him either any time soon. As far as I understand, that does a lot of the work for me. He watches some television with me, and sometimes he "steals" my phone only for me to quickly take it back. I'm sure this will get more complicated later on, but I expect simply not owning screen devices to do a lot of the heavy lifting for my son.
It is simply not true that you must give your kid a phone or a tablet. And if you do, strong parental controls are a possibility. People in tech-oriented forums will say that is useless because they are (and were) extremely competetent at programming and other digital things. They can easily circumvent restrictions. Your young kids probably don't.
I have ADHD and use self blocking programs. Lock Me Out on Android and Cold Turkey on Windows saved my life. On Linux I used Delayed Admin which is far from ideal but works as advertised. The way I use Linux is antithetical to self blocking.
Yes, I know anything can be circumvented. My answer to that is that I am ignorant enough for that barrier to keep me out. I can also circumvent the circumvention sometimes, by messing with the settings or explicitly blocking means of circumvention.
When I talk about this, people often say "how about some self control? Why don't you put some effort into it?". Well, I don't have self control (ADHD) and finding tools to assist me is effort.
The relief I get from more or less blocking everything for 6, 12, or 48 hours is magnificent.
I have lots of experience with self blocking. Feel free to make questions!
I have two daughters at 6 and 9 and have similar concerns. We don't follow specific screen time rules as such, as I think it is more important to be on top on what is actually on the screen. The best decision we made was to ban YouTube from every device. Especially shorts was clearly doing something very wrong to them with hyper fast content and ability to quickly switch to a new video.
TV is generally more allowed than tablets. Yes it is both screens, but I think there is a substantial difference in sitting in your own bubble with fingers on the screen, and sitting on the couch together with siblings or parents. The public Danish TV channel has plenty of good programs for kids where they can watch whatever they fancy. Then there is the usual stuff like Bluey or Disney/Pixar movies.
In terms of tablet use I tend to encourage playing games over passive video watching. They have Minecraft and Apple Arcade, which gives plenty of casual games without ads or micro-transactions.
Can't say the intention always works, but we try to set end times for anything involving a screen, but offer the alternative that they can do as long as they like (within reason with time for dinner or bed). Play board games as long as they feel like, read books or comicbooks, or even play on the Nintendo Switch. They also have free reign over their Apple Music profile, and they apparently can spend a great deal of time just making playlists. And while it isn't always possible to hold that promise, we try to always say yes if they want to do any of these activities with us. It does say something that they generally stop all these activities on their own, whereas the screen is the only thing we have to actually pull them away from.
My main priority is trying to always show an interesting in what kind of content they are drawn to, and for the most part disallow any screen use behind closed doors. I hope that can foster an open and transparent environment when they later explore the internet as a whole and can feel comfortable sharing what they encounter, rather than sitting alone in their room getting sucked into whatever.
Answering for just myself. The biggest breakthrough I had was understanding that my brain and hands needed to be (willingly) occupied. The most "delayed" I have been was when I worked out, did puzzles (this was a big thing), and I didn't worry as much about time efficiency. It's okay if things take a long time-- if I have to walk, if something is manual-- because I kept my life white-spaced enough to support it. Bread baking was also a helpful hobby for me as it's very scheduled.
Some time in the last 3+ years I accepted that I wasn't missing anything of value, didn't care, and felt actively terrible trying to care. Disconnecting (no Reddit account, no Instagram) came with some drawbacks but I'm happy with my choices. I still do look at forum sites nowadays, but I also look at it with much less care than I used to have. No need to respond really.
emptiness is the enemy
A big motivator is intentionality. Being empty gives room for all the demons inside to stay active, and keeping within the status quo just gives the stimulation slop the power to win
Often, things start with making things easy. They shouldn't be. There ought to be some friction and no content on demand. Downloading is preferable. Otherwise, streaming is fine as long as it has inbuilt matters of breaks, such as advertisements, content pagination, or no dedicated recommendation feed.
Secondly, the power of being in a specific state of doing something switches something with the mind. It is inherently relaxing to just see tons of funny gifs and little jokes, but it is an absolutely different thing when you get open the Wikipedia app to search for information after having chatted on your SNS app. It has the bonus of allowing the app to be directly targeted by app limits and focus mode. It is better to be doing than seeing.
Odd as this one is, I remember a specific note of Japanese train workers actively uttering their current actions. At first, I presumed others liking the practice to just be overt Japanophilism, but doing it myself, there's more of a buffer for you to directly think "why am I doing this" and also to catch the attention of others. It also gets you focused on the specific mindset of the thing you're doing, irreverent of your mental thoughts and confirming your actions conscientiously.
If you want to not get them totally out of the modern world, but want respectable limits. E-ink screens are a decent investment if you have disposable cash for kid devices. Better for the eyes, far less stimulating, and will still have internet access. Android e-ink devices are available, and most non-android e-readers will at least have a web browser(and also encourage reading)
No infinite scrolling apps or streaming services. I read the web in my browser, only paginated websites. I pirate all media and view it from a jellyfin server.
Like you said, screens aren’t inherently bad for you, but the content can be. Avoiding addicting media is a matter of self discipline. After replacing my bad habits with good habits, I don’t feel tempted by reddit, instagram, etc. because I want to preserve the happier life I’ve worked for. The same way I’m not tempted to stuff myself with chocolate cake because I know it’ll make me feel sick.
I struggled with this a lot, and will always to some extent, so you're not alone in this quandary.
One key thing that helped me break the cycle to start with was to have a very basic understanding of dopamine mechanisms and how they severely impact my phone usage and productivity throughout the day.
To keep it very simple, your brain always adapts to how much dopamine it's receiving. If you overload it with dopamine early in the day (by phone scrolling or what have you), it will close off dopamine receptors to account for the extra stimulation, which makes you lethargic for the rest of the day because now you can't get a dopamine spike again until your dopamine receptors reset (which happens after you sleep).
Thus the very broad solution for me is simple: leave the more stimulating activities for the end of the day.
It sounds like torture if you're not used to it, but here's the thing, your brain adapts throughout the day like I mentioned earlier. Thus, if you start the day with the more boring tasks and then slowly reward yourself with the more dopamine-heavy tasks, not only do you legitimately feel better when you get your dopamine reward (the spikes always hit), you also feel more motivated to get your work done to get to said reward.
This means that your internet browsing can actually turn into something fun again, not just something you mindlessly do because your brain is so overstimulated it can't give you a rush anymore.
As a side benefit, as you leave your dopamine-heavy tasks for the end of the day, you start to realize that you don't even feel the need for all that dopamine anymore, which reduces your cravings for content and thus the time you spent on overstimulating your brain. You end up with a more normal dopamine base level, which ends up helping you even more throughout the day because now other tasks feel even less boring because your brain isn't so starved.
Of course the crux of the issue next was how to achieve this? And here is where I'll get to your actual question at the end of the post.
First you need to identify the source of your overstimulation. In my case it was my phone, since my PC is basically just for work, but I know you can also do all this with a PC. Then you need to set guardrails around it to prevent you from accessing it earlier than you intend.
Don't sleep next to your phone anymore. Set it somewhere else before you go to bed. Preferably another room. Go back to using a regular alarm clock if you need an alarm. This prevents you from picking up your phone first thing in the morning. This is a massive pitfall that people tend to fall into. If you start your day by looking at your phone, you have already made the day twice as hard on yourself. If I could only give one easy recommendation to anyone, it would absolutely be this one, because I it really does compound as you stick to it.
Focus on doing all the early day tasks before you pick up your phone. Have a physical task list if that helps you. Just concentrate on not picking up your phone. Remind yourself that the longer you wait to pick up your phone, the better it will feel when you do actually pick it up. Also constantly remind yourself that no, you do not need to be online 24/7. Try to set things to do without your phone so you keep yourself busy.
For when you actually do use your phone, set app timers. I can't stress enough how absolutely vital these are. You might think "oh I'll just circumvent the app timer" but in my experience, for example after setting reddit to 1 hour per day, I find that that extra friction is enough to stop me from using the app entirely once the timer runs out. I have had reddit limited to 1 hour per day for almost a year now and often don't even reach that hour anymore.
Lastly, feed your mind, mind your feeds (Youtube video on the insidiousness of recommendation algorithms).
One thing I realized after a year of attempting to distance myself from doom scrolling is that automated, algorithm-based feeds are terrible for you. Sure, they might present you with an endless stream of content that broadly fits your interests, but have you ever actually thought about how many videos you legitimately wanted to see? For example videos that expanded your knowledge or motivated you to do things? There might have been some, but wasn't there a lot of filler in between you don't even remember anymore?
What about music? Do actually find yourself consistently happy with the recommendations streaming services like spotify and youtube give you? And movies? Is netflix or whatever other streaming app you use actually providing you with a fulfilling movie experience?
After thinking on the subject I realized that mindlessly consuming all this content was kind of removing my very personality from my life. My video recommendations weren't things I found, they were things a machine decided for me. The music I was listening to was no longer music I looked for, it was music a machine selected for me. It made me look back on the past, when I would build my own mp3 collection with only the music I legitimately loved and I always had a blast listening to it, or when youtube was still very young and I religiously followed my subscriptions feed and was hyped for every new video. Why should I lose that?
Like actually think about it. Your time on Earth is limited, do you really want to spend a big chunk of it on mindless entertainment? I'm not saying you can't indulge yourself ever, but to do that every moment your using your phone? It really frightened me how much time I had wasted essentially just escaping reality, which only made the the escape from that cycle worse because the more it went on the more I realized I had very little to do outside of my phone.
So now, I try to limit how much I am exposed to algorithm-based home feeds. Youtube videos? I go directly to my subscriptions tab. I installed an extension that not only removes the home tab it also removes all recommendations (you can also accomplish this on mobile with Revanced or Newpipe, and on an android TV with Smart Tube.). I will only see the content I explicitly signed up to see. Music? I am back to listening only to my mp3 library. No more streaming services. Movies? I'll either ask friends for recommendations or search for something online, no mindlessly browsing streaming app catalogues.
And there's more you can do with RSS feeds for stuff like news, reddit, etc.
I can't stress enough how much happier this one change has made me. It feels like I'm once again in control of what I watch and has given me back some of that happiness I had when I was younger and loved to discover the internet. Heck, building an mp3 library, categorizing songs the way I want to, is in itself a new fun activitiy I now have in my life. And it's all tailor made for me by me!
Yes, it is more friction, but why is that a bad thing? Why do we need everything to be 100% frictionless if it's only going to make us feel guilty with ourselves? It's okay to spend time curating what you consume! It's healthy!
To answer your last question, everything I said above also applies, but for kids specifically I'll also add that you should make full use of a phone's parental controls. I truly believe that as a parent you should have full access to your kid's phone to make sure they are utilizing it the way you want them to. But I don't mean this in stalker-ish kind of way. I mean that you should 100% discuss parental controls openly with your kids and explain to them that you can see what they do on their phone and that that is for their own protection. If they're old enough, explain to them the dangers of doom scrolling, algorithms, and recommendation feeds, and how you wish for them to have a healthy relationship with the internet landscape of today, which is why you set up these guardrails.
Then it's just a matter of actually parenting and keeping an eye out on the phone's activity and making sure the kids don't deviate too far from it. This might not be a perfect solution, and there will be blind spots when the kids are at school for example, but I promise using parental controls properly already puts you in the top 1% of parents who actually care for their children's digital well being.
Keeping this short, I just mention a pair of unrelated strategies (among others) that I use.
For myself: I exclusively use private browsing on my phone. No logins, no history, no bookmarks. And absolutely no social media apps installed. If I want to browse this site, I have to manually type in
tildes.netand then I can browse in read-only mode. If I want to post, I have to hit the login button and type my username and password. (Or go to my desktop, like I'm doing now, which does have history and logins.) If I wanted to check for replies, I have to remember my comment, go to the topic and find it unless I chose to log in. Basically, it adds friction and requires me to be more intentional with my browsing on my phone.For the kids: The family computer is in the living room, in the center of the house, with the screen visible to everyone. It's completely unfiltered, but there's no hiding anything on it. I do believe in giving the kids a healthy amount of privacy and space here, and avoid standing over their shoulder. But if one of us walks by and happens to catch something that looks or sounds inappropriate (or simply too egregiously inane), we can have a talk. Usually that just ends with us suggesting that it's time to go read a book, play the video game themselves instead of watching a video of someone else playing it, watch a show with actual production values, or even just for us all to go get out of the house and take a walk, etc.
It's not easy, and without totally eschewing modernity, I'm not sure it's possible. I do have a few rules for myself and my household where my son is growing up.
I let my kiddo watch youtube videos on the TV, but autoplay is off and shorts aren't an allowed. He's still too young to really operate the keyboard, so this hasn't been hard to enforce. As he grows, the smart devices will be locked down to communication tools, and anything that stuffs short-form videos into the users face one after another won't be available to him. I don't use services like those either for the same reason: mental/intellectual health.
I'm gonna try to steer him away from image or video based social media. Text based stuff is okay, provided it's safe. Long form video content is okay, provided it's appropriate and mostly educational or creative. Just hoping to avoid the pure distilled brainrot.
I think my best tool is showing him the joy in other things, like reading, playing in the dirt, gardening, racing rc cars, driving his power wheels, playing with the dog, drawing and painting, and gardening.
For myself it is about adding friction and building habits. A lot of it means only using smartphone for things I cannot do on computer as sw on smartphone is significantly worse on average and the form factor makes it too easy to randomly start using it at any time.
It is also helpful to have at least a very basic knowledge about psychology, marketing, probability and programming. Knowing at least in a very broad outline right away what the product likely means to achieve, how and why makes it easier to instinctively want to avoid it. As with marketing effectively no one is immune so it is best to be both aware and skeptical.
I made the comment here a while back about hidden costs of marketing for the end user and got a reply that of course it is the increased costs of goods you buy, I am not particularly convinced most people make that jump both when watching ads for money free services and when buying products. Then there are all the other costs in how mostly the internet but also physical spaces operate, mental overhead, likely poorer decisions making purchases on average, general availability of different goods and likely so much more. Sorry about not replying and then referencing it in a random topic
Doom scrolling is similar and consciously attempting to figure out the costs means being less likely to do it.
I think building the habit of consuming content consciously, having plenty of other options be it social interactions, hobbies or more active or slower media and having alternatives is essential. It is also worth avoiding smartphone as much as possible and using computer instead as it is less convenient alternative with more friction that requires more conscious decision to use.