42% of Americans Under 8 Have Their Own Tablet (axios.com) 221
A reader shares an Axios report: A whopping 42% of children ages 0-8 have their own tablet device, up from less than 1% in 2011, according to Common Sense Media's newest national "Media Use by Kids" census. Families with young children are now more likely to have a subscription video service such as Netflix or Hulu (72%) than they are to have cable TV (65%). 10% of kids age 8 or under own a "smart" toy that connects to the internet and 9% have a voice-activated virtual assistant device available to them in the home, such as an Amazon Echo or Google Home.
A modern pacifier (Score:5, Funny)
Not too surprising. Just as the Boomers, were suck in front of the TV, Gen X were given Video Games, Menials have Cell Phones. It makes scene that today's kids have the newest technology to pacify them. We can tout bad parenting... But in truth having an outlet where the child is out of your hands for an hour or so, it overall beneficial. Kids before that technology were just beaten if they were too much of a problem... So having a kid, watch a movie on a tablet in terms of perspective is a good thing.
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I didn't spend my youth in front of a video games or TV along with most of the people I went to school with. It's more than generational but also location I grew up in a small mid-west town that didn't have cable until 1988.
I had a friend that wanted to do a long term study of outcomes for children that had access to technology in the early to mid 90s. He talked about it the entire time I worked with him from about 92-95. He thought that the kids in his classes that were more familiar with technology did be
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Well remember the key demographics of this Article is 8 and under.
So this is normally children who are in second grade or less. And not all kids are put in front of technology, they may be in an environment where they have other kids to play with, or a sitter and given more wholesome activities to be involved with, you could have a super parent who took care of you at the point of mental breakdown. But the point is, most parents need some sort or activity to keep a child relaxed as they recharge themselves
Re:A modern pacifier (Score:4, Informative)
Yep. Our 5 year old has my old tablet. But that doesn't mean he is glued to it 12 hours a day. He probably uses it about 1-2 hours a week such as on Saturday mornings when we just are not read to get up when he is. It is also very nice to load it with a few favorite movies for car trips. Even then he only watches maybe an hour or two's worth of movies/shows over 8 hours of driving.
Like many things, there can be responsible use or irresponsible misuse. I see nothing wrong with modest amounts of TV watching, but I am also not about to use it as a baby sitter.
Re:A modern pacifier (Score:4, Informative)
my ten year old older kid is always on youtube, but he can describe exactly how a car's powertrain works from the stuff he watches. Not like when i vegged out to stupid westerns in the 80's
Beatings? (Score:2)
Kids before that technology were just beaten if they were too much of a problem... So having a kid, watch a movie on a tablet in terms of perspective is a good thing.
Are you seriously arguing that access to tablets (or other electronic gadgets) is the reason children aren't being physically beaten? You have a very twisted view of the world my friend.
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Actually, before TV most kids were sent out to play if the weather was at all suitable (which included light rain). Or sent to their room to play if it wasn't.
One can argue that TV/Video Games/etc. are better than being sent to their room to play, but it's hard to argue that they're better than being sent outside to play. These days, though, its seen to be too dangerous. I'm not certain whether it *is* any more dangerous than it ever was, but it's definitely seen that way, and occasionally parent's have
Educational Apps/Streamed shows (Score:2)
Its generally better than TV, however. While kids might have Sesame Street to watch for an hour a day and the rest was regular brainless content, you can load up the tablet with a lot of educational apps to keep them "pacified" today other than just dumping them in front of Netflix. And even if it is Netflix, there are a lot of educational kids shows available on Netflix as well.
Re:A modern pacifier (Score:5, Insightful)
The kids on the the side that lost WWII were beaten as well.
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But they were told they were naturally superior: the German kids were told it was because of their race, the Japanese kids were told it was because of their culture.
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As opposed to Great Briton, France, The United States, Soviet Union, China...
Eugenics was a popular idea globally at the time. In the United States, children of poor people or criminals were sterilized at birth. We are still inflected with nationalism, where by virtue of or Race, culture, religion, or where we were born, we somehow are better then someone else.
Sadly enough the side that won WWII were guilty with their own crimes against humanity, as trying to exterminate inferiors was a popular notion of t
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maybe those kids were too dumb to realize they were risking life and limb to make others rich?
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1. Most kids under 8 will not be searching for Porn, at this age it doesn't really interest them the same way it does say a 12 year old.
2. Tablets are in general safer to browse then PC.
3. Kids under 8 mostly have very poor reading and writing skills, and will not be able to fill out an online form to sign up to particular sites.
As well just like TV, Video Games... The child still needs to be monitored not just blindly abandoned, but the parent doesn't need to be actively participating in the child's activi
Re:A modern pacifier (Score:4, Interesting)
1. You don't have to search for porn to find it.
2. This claim is based on what empirical data?
3. You don't have to fill out any forms to view a porn site.
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1) No, but it gets a lot harder to find it without searching for it. Just like all things.
2) Fewer targeted attacks against tablet OSes due to smaller market segment compared to Windows.
3) You sound like you know what you're talking about. Care to elaborate? Do porn sites not even have the bit about promising you're over 13 years old? Maybe the quick "Enter your birth date" page? Is is just hardcore porn on the index.htm page?
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1) You clearly have no kids if you think just because someone is 8 or under doesn't mean they won't search for something they've talked about.
2) Targeted what now? Wait you would let someone under 8 use a computer with an administrator account? You've just asserted that kids won't find porn, they sure as hell won't fill out phishing attempts or start downloading and installing software (especially not on a computer where they won't be capable of doing so). One thing they will definitely find before they get
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Most kids will go to their favorite site and play a game or watch a movie.
You can probably find porn if you are browsing message boards, and user generated content, but kids under 8 will not be into this stuff, Larger sites like You Tube will actually have filtering on by default.
However back to the key point, You don't just give them a tablet and leave the room, it still needs to be monitored. As an 8 year old may be searching for pictures of their favorite cartoon character and may reach some questionabl
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1. You don't have to search for porn to find it.
I cannot speak for others but my router has per device site whitelist. It's not insanely hard to set up, I get that the majority cannot do this and I've built ones for friends for $120, so I would think that more people would see this as an opportunity to make some fast cash.
2. This claim is based on what empirical data?
Cannot speak for the other person, but I do know that Amazon tablets can have a kid profile added and it limits what the built in browser can do. So maybe that?
3. You don't have to fill out any forms to view a porn site.
I think person was speaking in more general terms like trying to get into
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1. Most kids under 8 will not be searching for Porn, at this age it doesn't really interest them the same way it does say a 12 year old.
Hormones have existed since the dawn of time. And fine, replace 8-year old with 12-year old. Or 14-year old. What does it matter? Hardcore porn is still able to be accessed by a minor very easily, and ironically with the very tool given to them by their parents.
2. Tablets are in general safer to browse then PC.
I said porn, not virus. The infection is in the mind, not the PC.
3. Kids under 8 mostly have very poor reading and writing skills, and will not be able to fill out an online form to sign up to particular sites.
All it takes is a typo these days to accidentally stumble across hardcore porn. No sign-up necessary.
As well just like TV, Video Games... The child still needs to be monitored not just blindly abandoned, but the parent doesn't need to be actively participating in the child's activity for this time.
We're calling it a pacifier for a reason; so parents can assume someone or som
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3. Kids under 8 mostly have very poor reading and writing skills, and will not be able to fill out an online form to sign up to particular sites.
Wow. You've never looked at porn online. This is like finding a unicorn.
Re:A modern pacifier (Score:4, Informative)
My kids have an unfiltered but monitored Internet Connection. They also have a separate account than mine, on the PC (Windows) and laptop (Windows). They have no tablet or smart phone yet.
I have analyzed the data gathered from their gaming and website accessing for the last 6 months and found one occurrence of questionable data, which was an ad to a zombie game. In fact, it was an image containing "other games from us", split in 4, and one of the quarters had an image of a cartoon character shooting a cartoon zombie. The most likely reason for the "cleanliness" of their data is the fact that major data providers (Microsoft, Google) have become so good at establishing and reinforcing the information bubble that it effectively protects them from accessing questionable sources, namely they don't see them in "recommended" data (be it other games, Youtube videos, etc).
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On tablets and especially iPads, a few things that might help are...
1. Log into a gmail/google account with safe surfing or whatever they call it turned on. That helps protect them random searches from the Safari browser as well as youtube. Don't show/teach your kids where those settings are.
2. Don't let the kids ever play with these devices behind closed doors.
3. Tell the kids that if they see something gross, weird, bad,... or anything that makes them feel uncomfortable, to turn if off... and tell their p
We Are The Borg (Score:3)
Resistance was futile.
We Are DEVO (Score:3)
We are all DEVO. [youtube.com]
surprisingly low (Score:4, Informative)
Statistics not valid (Score:3, Informative)
It's the new second TV (Score:2)
In the 80's a sign of wealth was having multiple TV's. Main set in the living room and smaller sets for the kids and maybe in the bedroom.
This is the same thing except it's a tablet and not a TV
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Huh, hadn't thought of that. That probably explains why I still haven't installed the bedroom TV since we moved house, and that was three years ago. Guess, I'm getting a dual monitor setup after all for my gaming rig!
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Except that a tablet is not a sign of wealth. Entry level tablets are actually cheaper than many toys aimed at 8 yo kids. In fact, it is probably the cheapest way to keep them occupied.
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> Except that a tablet is not a sign of wealth. Entry level tablets are actually cheaper than many toys aimed at 8 yo kids.
Also too expensive. You clearly have no idea what it's like to actually be poor.
You just don't have it. It's not that you have it but you choose to squander it. You never had it to begin with.
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An entry-level tablet is less than $50. If live in a western country and can't afford to pay $50 for your kid, be it for a tablet or something else non essential, it means you are either at the level where your health is compromised or you have trouble keeping a budget.
A tablet is the cheapest screen device you can get. Can't afford a TV, get a tablet. The hard part is the internet connection. If you can find a free WiFi, that's great, otherwise, maybe you can find a deal with your neighbors/roommates or so
They play bejeweled/candy crush for 3 months ... (Score:2)
... then use it as an alarm-clock/potential WhatsApp/Facebook backup. ... That's what my daughter did with my old tablet anyway.
Cable TV is poor value for money (Score:3)
Families with young children are now more likely to have a subscription video service such as Netflix or Hulu (72%) than they are to have cable TV (65%).
That's because cable TV is shit value for the money. It's (generally) tied to a physical location, requires special hardware to record and view at a time convenient to you (which they charge extra for), has a huge amount of really crappy programming, they refuse to make ala-carte channel selection an option, their streaming options (generally) suck, and it's very expensive. $40/month gets you a very basic selection of channels with not a lot of interesting programming and no archive of content to watch.
In short:
Hard to time shift
Hard to location shift
Expensive
Crappy assortment of programming
Wall to wall advertisements
No archive of content to watch
Is it really any wonder people are dropping cable?
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Families with young children are now more likely to have a subscription video service such as Netflix or Hulu (72%) than they are to have cable TV (65%).
That's because cable TV is shit value for the money. It's (generally) tied to a physical location, requires special hardware to record and view at a time convenient to you (which they charge extra for), has a huge amount of really crappy programming, they refuse to make ala-carte channel selection an option, their streaming options (generally) suck, and it's very expensive. $40/month gets you a very basic selection of channels with not a lot of interesting programming and no archive of content to watch.
In short: Hard to time shift Hard to location shift Expensive Crappy assortment of programming Wall to wall advertisements No archive of content to watch
Is it really any wonder people are dropping cable?
Most of the big cable companies have phone apps now. Xfinity has been pushing advertisements for this on me for a while. They also seem to be working on the time shifting.
That said, most cable channels are terrible value for money.
Parents First (Score:5, Interesting)
Big deal (Score:4, Funny)
Big deal, I had a tablet when I was 8 years old (57 years ago) too. It had 64 pages of lined paper and I put it to good use. Now get off my lawn!
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Big deal, I had a tablet when I was 8 years old (57 years ago) too. It had 64 pages of lined paper and I put it to good use. Now get off my lawn!
I would have been impressed if you had said graph paper. Oh well.
Only 42% ? surprised. (Score:2)
Eye Sight, Destroyed. (Score:3)
Ruining their eyes before they are even 10!
There is a reason for the nearsightedness epidemic and it is mobile internet devices like tablets and cell phones.
In Seoul 96.5% of 19-year-old men are short-sighted.
The US is approaching that number.
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> Ruining their eyes before they are even 10!
That's funny.
I have been hearing this bullshit my entire life. I have been doing all the wrong things for my entire life. The only time my eyes ever became a problem is due to being treated for cancer. The treatment and resulting maintenance drugs gave me cataracts.
Although once those were blasted away, all is good.
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Not directly.
It might be due to lack of natural light [wikipedia.org], though.
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Actually that South Korean stat was from before the age of tablets and phones. All the studies I read said they stayed inside too much and studied too much... even so far as to conclude that reduced sunlight exposure was the main cause of the nearsightedness.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/k... [cbsnews.com]
https://naturalon.com/sun-expo... [naturalon.com]
https://www.marksdailyapple.co... [marksdailyapple.com]
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
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From the perspective of a parent (Score:2, Informative)
I am a parent and my children use tablets daily. Each child has their own LeapFrog tablet full of educational apps and games. My toddler can count forward and backward from 1-50, understands there's a number zero, can actually count items, can recite the alphabet forward and backward (backward is a bit more difficult), can recognize numbers greater than 10 on signs and products, can draw some letters with varying success with pencil and paper, and a number of other impressive feats such as recognizing anima
From: the glad you caught up to the present dept (Score:3)
First, this is now news. Second, could you possibly find a worse source of information on the subject? For example, how about this article from 2013: https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com... [nytimes.com]?
Anyone that has a child knows not only that young children regularly use smartphones and tablet but also that school systems are regularly using tablets as educational tools. In fact, the school system my daughter is in requires it and has done so since the 2nd grade. This is not a new thing. This has been going on for several years. My daughter has been playing video games since she was 2 and started using a tablet around 4. By the time my daughter was 3, she was pretty good at Mario Kart for the WII.
Some other things you might be surprised to know exist: 1) After school clubs for writing video games, 2) After school clubs for building robots, 3) Teachers using mobile apps to teach kids basic programming skills like hopscotch [gethopscotch.com]. Young kids soak this stuff up like a sponge and they're going to be running circles around many of the adults that are around now when they become adults.
This should come as a surprise to no one, especially slashdot. The good paying jobs of the future are largely going to be in the STEM fields. School systems have modified their curriculum accordingly.
Apologies to John Frink (Score:2)
Socially awkward (Score:2)
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What do you mean by "weren't properly socialized"? When you were 8, did you have 283 Facebook friends? I didn't think so.
Wonderland, rabbit holes, etc. (Score:2)
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https://xkcd.com/566/ [xkcd.com]
Second row.
Historical context (Score:2)
Probably not quite what it looks like. (Score:3)
In the last six years, a lot of parents have upgraded their tablets. My sister in law is one of them. She "gave" her old tablet to her son, he's only allowed to use it a few hours a week but for the purpose of this he'd be considered to have his own tablet. So this survey doesn't actually mean a lot.
That said, letting electronics raise your child is a common practice and not a good thing. It's not new, the tablets are new but personally I grew up watching excessive television and that's really no better. It may even be worse as there's no real interaction with the television. The point is, this survey makes it sound like tablets are causing some new wave of neglectful parenting, but that's not the case at all they're just the new go-to distraction taking the place of the last one. I'm sure before television, there were other things parents would let children do that weren't good for them but got them out of the parents' hair. My thinking is, exposure to any of these things (tablets included) isn't inherently bad, and kids having their own isn't even bad, but anything in the absence of good parenting becomes a bad thing.
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[different form factor] = Robotic slugs implanted in the brain
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Only because you have no imagination. I'm still using mine as a light browser, email client, videophone, occasional gaming time waster, VNC client, as well as acting as the remote for my soundbar, TV and Plex server.
I would but my laptop does these just fine and takes up just about as little space while doing a lot more at the same time.
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I find it interesting that you think 'twice as much' is the same as 'just about as little space'. If I were less lazy, I'd hit you with a joke about the size of your penis.
Re:Makes sense (Score:4, Interesting)
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Your workstation won't be any faster at accepting what you type than a 1980's-era 8-bit home computer. We've been the slowest part of computing for the last three decades.
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We've been the slowest part of computing for the last three decades.
Microsoft: "Hold my beer."
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Re:Makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Aircraft for one. My laptop doesn't usually have room to open fully.
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I would but my laptop does these just fine and takes up just about as little space while doing a lot more at the same time.
I find it interesting that you think 'twice as much' is the same as 'just about as little space'. If I were less lazy, I'd hit you with a joke about the size of your penis.
When compared to my full tower desktop with corner desk and triple monitors, my laptop is only a little larger than my tablet. And by little larger, I mean fits just as comfortably anywhere I need to use it.
https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/... [lenovo.com]|se|google|All_Products|NX_Lenovo_All_Products_DSA&ef_id=WcAn_gAAAoLExYOZ:20171024181007:s
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Yeah, I should have gone with a joke about the size of your penis.
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When compared to my full tower desktop with corner desk and triple monitors, my laptop is only a little larger than my tablet.
Yeah, I should have gone with a joke about the size of your penis.
Well when it's this big, everything else looks small in comparison...
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Yeesh! That was dire. But I get your point: I'll definitely make the joke next time to save us from your attempt.
Hey, you threatened twice before I went for it! :p
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I actually use my laptop for parallel programming. That is to say, it is a bit crufty. I have an iPad 2 that I still use. I keep it on the end table by the couch. I use it for checking email (but usually not writing unless it will be very sort), light browsing, and generally killing time with a crossword puzzle or some such. It's essentially replaced the pile of magazines most people used to have there instead. I supposed I could get a netbook or light-duty laptop for the same purpose, but I won't spend the money until the iPad breaks and forces the issue.
What I would like a tablet for is a wireless remote screen. Something I could move reference materials from my laptop screen over to and use the touchscreen or laptop keyboard to interact with. Probably will never happen but just seems like it would be useful.
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I primarily use my Galaxy Tab A as an ebook reader, it's great for that. Also, Memedroid, a time waster if ever there was one.
Also the occasional web browsing, though it's slow.
Re: Makes sense (Score:2)
Re: Makes sense (Score:2)
Re:Makes sense (Score:4, Informative)
Tablets are useful, don't be a dolt. They are not desktop replacements. They are not laptop replacements. They are not essential-must have items.
For kids they're great pacifiers. But my son, who is 9, is at the point where he wants a PCMR PC, and tablets are becoming more of a utility rather than the center of his world.
The problem is that some marketing dolt somewhere kept trying to push the idea that tablets were going to replace computers. It didn't happen, it's not going to happen.
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Park City Mountain Resort PC?
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Personal Computer Master Race Personal Computer. I'm assuming it means a PC with a discrete graphics processing unit.
"PCMR" refers to people who have chosen to become masters of their own computing and video gaming experience by acquiring a device where the person who owns it, not some app store monopolist, controls what computing is done. And if you want to (say) race, you're not limited to the steering wheel controllers approved by the peripheral monopolist.
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PCMR PC is just redundant.
And if you're really controlling what computing is being done on your PC then surely your PC isn't running Microsoft Windows.
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually got to go outside and play and use my imagination, and no one to track me or take incriminating evidence of me while I acted upon said imagination....
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No you didn't, you watched tv.
At the risk of stating the obvious, a generation or two back the typical lineup on broadcast TV wasn't nearly as conducive to 24x7 consumption by kids.
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Unless you were rich, you didn't even have to go that far back in order for TV to be a completely unsuitable distraction. Not everyone can afford cable. The same goes for what games consoles existed at various times.
Relative wealth probably accounts for lack of total penetration even with this particular story.
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Relative wealth probably accounts for lack of total penetration even with this particular story.
Or parents who have drawn a line in the sand. Making my kids borrow one of our devices to watch videos, play games, etc., makes for a much more manageable metering mechanism than them having random access to their own.
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So what does the child do once the homework is done but the meter is still refilling?
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So what does the child do once the homework is done but the meter is still refilling?
Well, since the only two meaningful things that children can possibly do outside of school hours are homework and staring at a phone or tablet, the only real choice they have is to sit facing the wall until they go to bed, still crying their eyes out from all the opportunities their parents robbed from them to grow up in a myopic virtual universe and ignore the real one around them.
TL;DR: I really hope you were joking.
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No you didn't, you watched tv.
At the risk of stating the obvious, a generation or two back the typical lineup on broadcast TV wasn't nearly as conducive to 24x7 consumption by kids.
It seemed to me that there were more good shows when I had 3 channels, than there are now with 3000.
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It seemed to me that there were more good shows when I had 3 channels, than there are now with 3000.
Absolutely agree. But having no point of reference, kids will cheerfully keep playing (and replaying) whatever swill is on until you forcibly scrape their eyes off the screen.
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I was in the hospital for a week recently. My Galaxy 4 Tab kept me sane, thanks both to chat programs to connect with my friends, as well as both a gaming platform (Candy Crush etc.) and movie player.
What, was I supposed to use my even smaller phone screen for all that? WHY?
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I spent a month in the hospital. I took a bruiser of a laptop with me. It had a 19 inch screen and 2.5T drive space.
A bigger screen is pretty much always better.
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I hope you remembered to lock the doors and disconnected all the security cameras during your porn-binging sessions.
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I think I might find a tablet useful, though I haven't bought one yet. I occasionally scan current sizes and prices.
What I'm really after is a good e-book reader. That means the screen needs to be about 8 1/2 X 5.5 inches. Perhaps a bit smaller. It has to be reasonably durable. And the screen has to be readable under bright ambient light. And it needs to work without any internet connection. Also, I don't want it to be a Kindle, because Amazon has proven that they can erase books you've already bough
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If your primary use is to read books, get something with an e-paper display. The latest generations have much better contrast ratios than at the beginning.
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8-years-olds and Tim Cook.
Sent from my 2010 Mac mini.
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Non-ionizing radiation in those amounts might make you warmer - if you hold it really, really close. What would be even worse would be to step outside into sunlight. That's many times more severe. Better stay in the basement.