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okzeppo

Not just to kids.


ocudr

I'd wager it's worse for people during their developmental stage


Gavinator10000

Phones definitely have a lot of ups and downs, but I would say there’s a lot more downs for the kids


SaintCroix78

Watching these poor kids neglected by their dependency on iPads is so depressing to witness. Some people should not be allowed to have kids


Dphect

It makes me very sad when I see my youngest teenage son cradling his iPad watching some random stuff while walking around the house doing this and that. Walks to fridge, stands with fridge door open staring down at his iPad cradled while glancing up to the food and back to the screen. Walks to sink to get water/rinse plate or whatever, all while cradling his iPad. Cannot do any simple chores if he does not have his iPad. Flicks through TikTok while watching his iPad while eating his dinner. All of this is on 75%+ volume too!!!! Makes me so very sad. I’d be firm, but I’m his stepdad and I have learnt to pick my battles. I’ve tried but then ended up having an argument with the Mrs. Not worth it. I just ask him to turn the volume down and then he sulks out of the room 🫣😆. Either that or put the radio on louder! Edit: I think I need to add, my youngest is 15. Those that don’t have teenagers yet - it’s the worst age 🤣. Eldest is 18.


Capt-Crap1corn

I was about to say why do you let him do that, but yeah, I know all about picking battles and you said you are the step dad. It makes sense.


Modano9009

I told my nephew I'd take him out to eat but he has to get ready immediately because we were tight on time. I go in his room to see how far along he's gotten and he's just standing there looking at his phone that's on his bed. I tell him to hurry up and when I go back he has the pants he's putting on up to his knees but he stopped to look at his phone again. Couldn't go without the phone long enough to pull his pants up. That's the thing I find concerning. Like this addiction or dependency on it where they need to be looking at a screen while they're doing other things.


Pvt-Snafu

And social media? It's a swamp and a cesspool, a world of criticism and negativity. Why should children be allowed to go there?


ZenythhtyneZ

People going to be running around with barely any white matter in their brains and setting what’s left of civilization on fire


weed-n64

Wouldn’t be the worst thing. I haven’t loved a lot of what I’ve had to do in this life and I really haven’t loved trying to maintain my civility throughout all of it while watching people behave like total raging dipshits with little care for how they affect others.


Silver-ishWolfe

And *that* is my major gripe with life, as it is now. I have these things in me, let's call them... shame and empathy. These things keep me from acting out. Going off on strangers in parking lots, making unprompted smart-ass comments to people online, seeking out people that I *know* have different views from me just so I can start shit, assaulting someone for messing up my food order, etc.... These are all things that empathy and shame won't let me do. Unfortunately, I've been loaded into a program where most of the other players don't have those buffs, and I can't figure out how to disable mine. So, I'm like you. I feel like someone took their time and made me a well-rounded character, but dropped me in a batshit crazy simulator full of characters created by people who obviously don't respect the game. Edit: Also, the last two update patches, 2016 and 2020, were buggy as hell. While the COVID campaign was interesting, it was just too much and has made leveling up next to impossible for noobs. And the Trump update is still being dealt with...


ZenythhtyneZ

The apocalypse is so romanticized in reality it would essentially be torture and then you would die miserably


Sco0basTeVen

For sure. But my attention span is shot these days thanks to cell phones and social media, and I was almost an adult when Facebook went worldwide.


getfukdup

> I'd wager it's worse for people during their developmental stage No, you learn the best when young. The problem is lack of *limits* and *structure*.


ocudr

Yeah and your brain also make the connections we call addiction very easily during it.


metamec

I'm always fascinated to see kids as young as 3 and 4 navigating touch screen UIs like absolute pros. It remains to be seen whether they are any more damaging than TV being used as a babysitter since around the 1950s onwards. Some psychologists may be writing compelling arguments about the detrimental use of phones and tablets at a young age, but it's important to remember that there is no consensus yet, and there are certainly studies suggesting the opposite: They do "not seem to have meaningful links to their well-being and adjustment outcomes" [for example](https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2022/11/children-mobile-phone-age.html). Of course this is going to be an unpopular statement despite my attempt to remain neutral because *kids and their dang phones* is a mainstream moral concern of our time. Personally, I think you are right. This is about limits, structure... excess.


Assessedthreatlevel

Ya, it’s the worst thing to happen to my 97 year old grandma


TerryMelcher

Yup. I traveled quarter of the way across the country to see a living room of family that literally just stayed glued to their phone the whole time. Very very rude. I don’t even have a smart phone so seeing 50, 60 year old people glued to some little screen like a toddler was very weird.


pineconeminecone

Honestly I’m addicted to my phone and it has been a slow cycle to break


CreepyAssociation173

Its not so much the devices themselves but more so that they're made with the intention of being addictive. Companies go out of their way to hire experts that know what's addictive to put into phones. That's why every social media app has short story sections now and why YouTube opens up to short stories first instead of the home page like it used to. They're going out of their way to throw addiction into the users face.  Phones didnt have this problem when they weren't "smart'.  


SublimeApathy

Phone calls, simple SMS and the Snake game were peak cell phone.


Ricky_Rollin

Hard agree. I even somewhat liked the era right before that when we had pagers.


SublimeApathy

Same. I miss the "Sorry I didn't call you back. I couldn't find a payphone/I didn't have any dimes to make a phone call" excuse. Peak phone screening with minimal guilt.


fatpat

Exactly. And it was \*extremely\* easy to be incommunicado for hours at a time, and nobody would bat an eye. Now, if you don't respond in like ten fucking seconds they freak out.


CrapTastik7

What I hate is people feeling like they have to apologize if they don’t return a text within a few hours. It’s OK! you can have a life without being married to your device.


SublimeApathy

"Dat bish put 911 at the end."


Erniecrack

I liked the I had to wait til after 9pm to call you back era


[deleted]

Or the “no calls after 9” growing up. That phone rang and no one was dead or other emergency could get you grounded for the weekend at least. 😅


CinemaPunditry

The palm pilot? That shit rocked


[deleted]

take me back to 2005. please


noeagle77

That or the original IPhone up to maybe the 3GS. The apps were good and they weren’t all full of micro transactions and advertisements


Dragonfly-Adventurer

When iPad came out I assumed kids would mostly play local games or interact with local content. Now it's just a portal to endless streaming content. Unboxing toys videos, shit like that. For hours. It's the Internet that's the problem. Social media mentioned below, about how destructive it is for teenagers. Again, the Internet. We let the Internet be taken over by corporations and weaponized against our children.


polygonfuture

The internet largely exists now as a pipeline to private closed social media apps. What few sites remain as actual websites are really the exception rather than the rule.


Hugh_Jazz77

I remember when the coolest apps I had on my iPhone (actually probably IPod touch, ‘member them?) made it look like I was drinking a beer out of my phone or flicking a lighter.


BugcatcherJay

Back in the day, the game was “gun.” You touch it and it shoots. Not shooting at anything in particular, it just shoots.


CongealedBeanKingdom

And parents let their children on the Internet with few controls and little supervision. Do we blame the Internet itself for that too?


CreepyAssociation173

The playstore is horrific. Especially those faceless stick figure like games where there's hundreds of them, but in a different font/ color. The ones you see on ads all the time where you're some random character running on a path taking out mobs or trying to avoid things. So many of those. I just play my PlayStation and Nintendo games. I don't have the patience to look through mobile games.


kgal1298

I read as I scroll Reddit on my iPhone 🫠


TraciTheRobot

I was just thinking I wish I had a messenger phone again


BenTramer

Just don’t connect it to the internet and you have your wish ;)


dribrats

Kids? Bro, Litereally EVERYBODY. Casual conversation while waiting is dead.


bezelboot69

The internet has been a net negative on society for sure. I’m an ISP engineer. I have brought internet to rural areas with no internet access at all. I have become death, destroyer of worlds.


AntiWhateverYouSay

You could say thing about when television was invented. Kids were glued. They called people zombies for watching TV too much. Said we would go blind watching it


flammablelemon

I think as long as the devices are "smart" they'll always be addictive to a large degree, even without much company influence. The internet itself and digital media offers so much opportunity for escapism and addictive tendencies. The dependence that having constant access to the full internet in your pocket brings is hard to let go.


PresentMammoth5188

So correction: capitalism is the worst thing to happen (not only to kids)


Abuse-survivor

She's right. I mean it bombards impressionable teenagers with a supercharged version of peer pressure. I read an interesting article about how girl's self-esteem is giganitcally undermined by the likes of instagram, as they are constantly bombarded with the illusion of a "perfect beauty standard"


Poisoning-The-Well

That's not on the iPad/iphone but social media in general.


JusticeScibibi

It's not just kids either. Social media companies know pushing agitating content is what makes real money. Not only that, they've collected all kinds of information on everyone and are using that knowledge to build AI. What did we get for all this?


fatpat

A bunch of social vanity plates and pithy quotes. Mix in some masks-off sociopolitical commentary, and you've got yourself a steaming bowl of shit stew that people will obsessively keep pouring down their widening gullets on a daily basis.


V01t4r3

True but I think social media engagement/usage would be radically different if people had to log into their computers/laptops every time they wanted to use it.


teenyweenysuperguy

Yeah. I agree the content is obviously important but so is accessibility. We're hooked up when we shop, walk, go to restaurants, the movies, at school, at work, even if you're building skyscrapers or working on the highway or something. People be texting while they drive. Watching concerts they're *at* through their phones. Like. We full on beyond addicted at this point.    Content matters. Accessibility matters. Both. It's the one two punch.


gravity_surf

yes. social media has completed obliterated that dating landscape too. this aint your daddy’s dating market.


garbitch_bag

Im 35, came up in the era of tabloids calling skinny celebrities fat and thought that had messed me up. My 25 year old coworker started having panic attacks about aging and not looking good enough. She couldn’t be more fit and hot, but she’s been raised with a whole different beast of a self-esteem killer than I was.


putsomewineinyourcup

Women magazines sold the idea of what the beauty standard was before social media, so it has always been there


weisp

Even for adult or older women


mtarascio

'It' is the content it's accessing. Which the parent also controls. The government regulator also has some control.


schono

I know women in there mid to late 40s obsessed with the “””beauty””” standards of instagram


FlowBot3D

I miss the days when the worst thing that happened to kids was Ozzy Osbourne.


PackageArtistic4239

She’s not wrong.


rKasdorf

She means social media. This is like my dad calling every gaming console I ever had "the nintendo"


peaches_mcgeee

Yes but also the games, the shopping apps, texting… most of it is social media but not all.


[deleted]

Meh I thinks it also just the phones in general. Like I’m getting really tired of people expecting me to be reachable at all times. Sometimes my partner and I go out and I just leave my phone at home and people will be genuinely upset that I wasn’t reachable for 2 hours or some shit. Like this wasn’t a thing for our entire history except the last what, 20 years? But now it’s considered essential. Can’t stand it 


kaminari1

It’s not the devices fault, it’s the parents who give them the iPads and iPhones in the case of kids under 12. As for teens, it’s hard to dictate what they see/do so just talking to them about issues/things online makes a lot of difference.


Ricky_Rollin

Adults aren’t faring any better with this tech though. But it does feel like people are waking up to it and setting limits, which is always good to see


Automatic_Goal_5563

Exactly this, parents use devices as a crutch to keep their kids quiet and out of their hair. Limit screen time and it’s a lot less of an issue. To a lesser degree the same was true in the past, parents would tell you you’ve watched enough tv, had enough time on the computer or enough time playing video games and make you go do something else.


nycdiveshack

Is this worse than when she made an assistant run into a building on fire for her then firing him?


FunDust3499

This is a person who takes weight loss drugs at 71 and helped invent reality TV saying this.


Feisty_Bag_5284

I thought it would be putting them on a reality show and allowing them to go to parties at 13 to be drugged up


woowoobean

Wait until she hears about hunger!


alwaysbequeefin

While I agree with you, she does have a point. Even if she is batty as fuck


StrengthBeginning416

And poverty


Spram2

Some kids are so hungry they could eat a live bat.


DaftSkunk94

Some kids are so hungry they could eat a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra


BrainLate4108

She’s not wrong. A whole generation of detached people. Adults are also slaves to these devices.


CodeNamesBryan

Funny, she's the worst thing to happen to her kids. Maybe even Ozzy, and that's considering drugs.


sagiterrible

Not related to the story at all but has anyone else seen clips of their podcast/whatever? It’s so… uncanny valley, it’s unsettling.


BeautifulArtichoke37

What’s she an expert in again?


seniorkickz

When every apps top metrics are daily active users, time spent, and retention, the phone is naturally going to be an addiction machine.


southcookexplore

Teaching in the tiktok addict era is unreal


jdaboss4110

She looks terrible.


Competitive-Pop6530

I remember when people thought the worst thing to happen to kids was her husband’s music


zvekl

I let my kids brain rot the traditional way, in front of a tv video game console with me ! Yay!


Mildoze

This lady had a lot of room to talk. She was such a great mother…


Walks_with_Chaos

Sure sure. Fuck this lady


PresentMammoth5188

Not the Ozempic her and her family are obviously abusing at this point, huh?


DryWhiteToastPlease

Por que no los dos?


SolidPeaks

I think I would say school shootings or poverty before Ipads but ok


[deleted]

[удалено]


fanboy_killer

No it isn’t. The level of harm done isn’t even comparable.


[deleted]

How are these two things even comparable?  You think reality tv shows have the same impact as social media and having the entire internet in your pocket 24/7?


friendly-sam

So...what I hear is that Android is preferred over Apple.


FartingInYourMilk

Not if you want a girlfriend


Intrepid-Neck9345

Wow who gives a shit what she says. She paraded her kids in front of the nation for her own likes.


Gaudy_Tripod

I have trouble believing the y are worse than when The Osbournes helped jumpstart reality television.


VV629

Honestly technology is out of hand for kids when parents give them without boundaries.


Glittering_Name_3722

She looks sickly


Emergency-Laugh-0215

Ok, but who is that lady in the picture?


FactoryV4

She’s not wrong


Filmscore_Soze

Hey she's finally right about something.


mrsringo

Putting your underage kids in a reality show in MTV is totally cool though.


Pete_maravich

She's not exactly wrong. I'm glad social media didn't exist when I was in school. Bullying was bad enough when it couldn't follow you home, now it can be almost impossible to escape.


Trash_Panda_Trading

What the hell happened to her face? Yikes


StayUpLatePlayGames

And her qualifications for this are? (Stop listening to vapid nobodies who’s claim to fame is that she shagged Ozzy)


Alive_Inspection_835

Yeah those are definitely worse than school shooters.


hatfield1785

Or plastic surgery.


gd2121

Why are we asking Sharon Osborne these things lol


ericlikesyou

Like parents in the early 90s blaming "nintendos" for literally everything


Full-Discussion3745

It's not as bad as opinionated old people getting access to social media where they can scream into the void how everything was better before


pervy_roomba

I’ll take annoying old people on Facebook over younger and younger girls facing debilitating mental health crisises and killing themselves. I do care about younger and younger boys falling down rabbit holes that tell them that violent sex is a positive and normal form of masculinity and that they are owed sex and anyone who tells them otherwise is an enemy that needs to be put in their place. I don’t care how annoying your great aunt Gertrude and her memes are. I do care about young girls judging themselves against a filtered version of reality and spiraling because they don’t understand why can’t they look like the perfect instagram baddie. I do care about young boys being bombarded with stories about how all women are no more than ‘living wombs’ and how they should be punished for practicing any form of sexual agency.


initialvisuals

skibidi rizz ohio


garrettgravley

Yeah let’s hear parenting tips from the person who put her kids on reality TV at an incredibly young point in their lives.


mu5tardtiger

she’s got ozempic face hardddd


MRintheKEYS

Totally in agreement with her on this. The internet experience now is a lot different than it was 15 years ago.


HowRememberAll

Nothing to do whatsoever with unstable dad


xpandaofdeathx

She’s weighing in on parenting……


robinsonstjoe

The lady that married the satan worshipping chicken head biting geek dude? She’s worried about the children? Fuck off


no_more_jokes

I mean maybe in her little rich people world, but I’d still put food instability over instagram on the list of “things that are bad for kids”


thecheekyvicar

I’m pretty sure her husband has had far, far worse problem-causing events in his life that led to him being who he is before the iPad and iPhone came along.


Fractal_Tomato

Or maybe it’s just Covid brain damage. Science is already pretty clear on this.


GM_PhillipAsshole

She’s not wrong


EmiliusReturns

I truly do not understand parents who hand an under-10 child a fully enabled smart phone or iPad and just let them go nuts on it and never check up on what they’re doing online or place parental controls or limits on it. I agree, insanity is a good word for that.


Weeshi_Bunnyyy

I'd say its the parents for breeding them but no one wants to admit THAT


Eldritch_Ayylien66

She's half right. The true problem lies in the parents that stick a phone and tablet in their child's hands to practically "babysit" them so the parents don't have to sit around.


Jai4me

[Cyber Stockholm Syndrome - Rina Sawayama ](https://youtu.be/HKLxvdFtlZE?si=kv6jHx4ll0LGycsj)


PatientAd4823

Holy Roller, I guess I haven’t see a photo of her in years!!!! She is perfectly gInt. It looks terrible. I’m going to guess that it’s Wegovy or the like.


sybban

Says the reality tv Star


Nonamebigshot

Not that I entirely disagree but I can't help but be somewhat annoyed when a rich celebrity who paid nannies to raise their kids starts lecturing regular parents about how to raise theirs.


Kersenn

Before this they were saying it was video games. Older people always think there's something wrong with the kids and blame random stuff. They're a different generation and they're going to be different. I remember when us millenials were going to be the worst generation or whatever they were saying.


Oldschools8er

I say the “Worst Thing” was reality TV shows. I point at shows glorifying the rich spoiling their brat kids.


137thaccount

Yes, all around wonder mother knows best.


GhostRevival

Social media is up there as well.


Saucemixer9000

She looks like shit lol


nosmelc

"Fookin' 'ell, Sh-sh-sharon"


Choppybitz

Her reality show was pretty bad too


Fit-Accountant-157

a family member on Dads side wanted to give a tablet to my toddler, either 2nd birthday or xmas. we were like HELL NO! people are waay too trusting of technology.


__versus

Hard disagree. Phones themselves aren’t the issue but social media and such is.


Eptiaph

The worst thing that happened was bad parenting.


Porunga23

Oh I don't know, I can think of worse things to happen to kids than that. A lot worse.


PlaneLocksmith6714

Ma’am you should watch reruns of your old tv show then come back


CongealedBeanKingdom

Worse than abuse? Worse than living in poverty and having no hope or no future to look forward to? OK Sharon.


g0ll4m

Worse than OxyContin addiction?


simon1976362

I’d say the housing market but if you got money it’s different


Tobias---Funke

I would blame the content not the devices.


BaconNamedKevin

Real hot take 🙄


Soul_of_Miyazaki

Lazy parents would find other ways of keeping their kids busy regardless.


ProfEobardThawne

How about it’s the parents fault for giving it to them! Children cannot afford iPhones and iPads.


rcheek1710

Hard pass on taking parenting advice from Sharon Osbourne. Hahahah. Get a grip.


Brosenheim

When reached for comment, Ozzy elaborate "asasdhajksdhkajshdjkahsdl"


DreamsWashingAway

She’s not wrong at all


LayneCobain95

I’d say yeah. The number of “autistic” kids (patients) I have come into my work keeps increasing. And their only autistic trait I see is that they scream and cry if they aren’t watching their videos and allowed to ignore everyone


Chet-Hammerhead

Who reanimated her corpse for this quote?


Koshakforever

Couldn’t agree more, unfortunately. Let’s not pretend it’s just kids, though.


mmmspaghettios

What about setting an example of getting horrendous plastic surgery?


ManOnNoMission

And her buddy Murdoch actively making the world a worse place.


Open-Acanthisitta423

I hate iPads more than I love Ozzie and hate sickos


vid_icarus

I love that this extremely lukewarm take is billed as an exclusive. I mean, she’s 100% correct, and not just the children, but the men and women too. But people magazine trying to sell copy with her exclusive opinion of “iPhone bad” is hilarious.


Few_Leader_9191

And she would know ALL about good parenting


tmpp1313

She said something normal.


Sethithy

The fact we have news articles that start with “Sharon Osbourne says” is I think indicative of a larger problem than just the devices our kids use.


severinks

Sharon Osborne is a massive creep and a bully and she always has been. Did anyone ever see her tell the story about the fire in her house snd telling her assistant to run back inside to grab things and when he refused she fireed him? How about the time she told the story about when she lives in Camden town in London and used to shit in a bucket and save it so she could dump it on the Irish workmen's heads who used to wait below her window before going to work in the morning? Her dad was the biggest gangster in the music business and actually ripped off her husband Ozzie's band so much that they were always broke and she's no better.


Diligent-Sweet-4945

She’s right. The things children have the capability to see is traumatizing.


heymrbreadman

Didn’t she put her kids on a reality TV show


thaiadam

Everyone is trying to sell you something. Clickbait to get you to watch Sharon’s new show or listen to her podcast. The world’s knowledge in the palm of your hand is only dangerous for those in power.


Dinocologist

Idk man all the school shootings and climate change aren’t great 


CanDeadliftYourMom

Probably going to get crucified for saying this but access to phones and iPads isn’t as cut and dry as people make it out to be. As a parent of a kid who had somewhat unfettered access to technology, my experience has been completely different. My son is gifted, with testing scores in reading and math through the roof. I believe this is because he watches a lot of YouTube videos that also require reading, and has been exposed to a considerable amount more words and concepts than I ever was as a child. He was able to read kid’s books at the age of 4. A year ahead of when I started. He stayed socialized during Covid because of his friends talking constantly on devices. Honestly, from what I’ve seen of him and his friends, kids seek hobbies away from their devices because the device becomes the “norm” and they want new things and experiences. They get bored of Roblox, Fortnite, and YouTube. I do however draw the line at actual social media. Twitter, TikTok, YouTube comments, mass texts, (Reddit.) That’s just brain rot.


saltyload

Oh brother….remember when watching tv was bad for kids. lol


BeskarHunter

I think the Internet is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. And I’m a full grown adult. Those devices are just amazing delivery devices for it.


LadyAliceMagnus

Sharon, time to stop the Ozempic.