Children, especially girls, who use smartphones before they are 13 years old may have worse mental health outcomes when they’re older, a new study suggests.
About 48% of young women who had smartphones by 5 or 6 years old reported having severe suicidal thoughts, compared to 28% of females who had smartphones by 13 or older.
In young men, 31% of those who had smartphones by 5 or 6 years old reported having severe suicidal thoughts and 20% of males who had smartphones by 13 or older reported having severe suicidal thoughts.
Damn, smart phones need to be a controlled substance.
I’ve got a 4 year old, screens are like crack to them. If we don’t watch any TV or YouTube all week he tends to forget about it, but watch one ten minute video and there’s meltdowns for the next several days because he wants to watch constantly. Adults can’t keep their phones out of their hands, and we all know social media is poison.
I can’t imagine how neglectful a parent must be to give a 5 year old unrestricted Internet access.
That said, what Ragnarok server are you running or playing on? Been a good few years since I scratched that itch lol.
Oh dang! I’m actually not playing right now either, but I always get the itch to go back to it around the new year.
If you haven’t tried it, the Ragnarok Origin Mobile game is surprisingly good. It’s not exactly the same, but it hit just the right level of nostalgia that I was looking for.
Parental controls really do seem like an impossible tight rope to walk for parents too strict and the kid willvjust figure out a way around them defeating the point entirely. Too lax and they might as well not be there.
I got way too much unrestricted access to the internet and I know it fucked me up. I was already genetically predisposed to having bad mental health but basically unrestricted internet access from the age of 8 did not help.
The days of dial up were the wild west online. Waiting sometimes hours for your music and porn to download through Kazaa or Limewire. And inevitably getting something totally unrelated just to troll you.
Damn, smart phones need to be a controlled substance.
I’ve got a 4 year old, screens are like crack to them. If we don’t watch any TV or YouTube all week he tends to forget about it, but watch one ten minute video and there’s meltdowns for the next several days because he wants to watch constantly. Adults can’t keep their phones out of their hands, and we all know social media is poison.
I can’t imagine how neglectful a parent must be to give a 5 year old unrestricted Internet access.
That said, what Ragnarok server are you running or playing on? Been a good few years since I scratched that itch lol.
Oh dang! I’m actually not playing right now either, but I always get the itch to go back to it around the new year.
If you haven’t tried it, the Ragnarok Origin Mobile game is surprisingly good. It’s not exactly the same, but it hit just the right level of nostalgia that I was looking for.
And /grats on the kiddo!
Damn, that’s not a small sample
I bet you 90% of those didn’t have any parental controls or even parents monitoring their usage after the fact.
Parental controls really do seem like an impossible tight rope to walk for parents too strict and the kid willvjust figure out a way around them defeating the point entirely. Too lax and they might as well not be there.
Yeah it’s really more about monitoring usage and educating them. The tablet/phone is not a babysitter, but many parents seem to treat it like one.
I got way too much unrestricted access to the internet and I know it fucked me up. I was already genetically predisposed to having bad mental health but basically unrestricted internet access from the age of 8 did not help.
The days of dial up were the wild west online. Waiting sometimes hours for your music and porn to download through Kazaa or Limewire. And inevitably getting something totally unrelated just to troll you.