Don't be so hard on yourself. Yes, valid observation and time to curtail it a bit. But I think the 'stare at a screen' thing is a bit oversimplified. A computer is a medium of connection, mostly to other humans, or at least indirectly to human's work, art, etc.. So it's mostly using a tool for 'connection.' With anything, moderation is good, even moderating the moderation. But you're not staring at a brick. Don't oversimplify it.
The sentiment is valuable but screens <-> family comparison bleeds too much into the polarization camp for shock value. "Time spent doing X" as opposed to Y will always have shock value. We sleep too much. Too much time reading on the toilet.
My main pushback is solitude. I don't actually want to timemaxx family interaction or any human interaction. I don't want to be the only one on the planet either, we need one another. But a life well-lived includes deep experiences in solitude if you ask me.
EDIT: and another thing! human interaction here focuses entirely on the living and the related. Why? Human connection can span all of humanity. And it should.
I agree with most of what you said, however a big point of contention would be that the activities most people tend to spend time doing solo on their computer, do not tend to engender the types of "deep solitude experiences" you talk about
My father spent more time in the office than with his family. My ancestors spent more time in the field than with family. My distant ancestors probably spent significant family time hunting together.
Is there any way to make the profession a family affair again?
Time in the field would have been spent with family, too. Women used to weave and spin loom for clothing as they walked, and developed tools for it. Families used to include the children in the field work when possible, in rural areas. In addition, families working the fields used to spend less time working than modern adults do, not more[1]
> The ancien règime in France is reported to have guaranteed fifty-two Sundays, ninety rest days, and thirty-eight holidays. In Spain, travelers noted that holidays totaled five months per year.
One of the reasons why children, teens, and young adults have become so infantalised is because they are socialised mostly around each other, and spend a lot of time being told "no you can't, you are a child". This is not a call for children to enter the mines, and I do not wish to see child labour laws repealed (as they are apparently being in some parts of the USA). But for children to be socialised correctly, they must maintain connections with people of all ages, both older and younger — all benefit from such an arrangement. For them to grow up, they must be treated as people, and given age-appropriate responsibility and inclusion in the tasks that adults do. It is harder to teach a teenager to wash the dishes and their clothes, than it is to ask for a child's help washing the dishes and your/their clothes. The children are happy to help and to be included, you get to teach them rudimentary tasks, and it counts as family bonding time. The alienation of children from adults, and the alienation of children from their parents' work, is a great loss to society as a whole.
> In addition, families working the fields used to spend less time working than modern adults do, not more[1]
And they'd spend a lot more time doing all the things we don't need to do anymore. The money I get from work buys a lot of convenient _not_ needing to do a lot of menial labor.
Time on computer is often spent "with family" too, eg. my son is home from school today and noodling around on my phone next to me while I handle a bunch of errands online.
Run a family business, but probably best you don't. Every family business I have worked for was basically walking into an intellectual MMA match of endless bickering amongst them. Apart time can be a good thing in moderation.
I don't think your ancestors sat around the living room while their kids were playing threshing wheat, though. They put the plowshares down once it got dark.
This is probably heavily conditioned on one's specific experiences. An uncurated modern web/mobile sounds like a hellscape - ads in one's start menu, autoplaying videos, a flood of promotional notifications from shopping apps, people arguing with bots arguing with people about populist political garbage... blech. The real question is how this compares to your family member having a few cocktails and blaming you for their divorce or getting calls from collection agencies on behalf of somebody you haven't seen in person in five years.
This reminds me of Tim Urban's excellent post The Tail End[1] he wrote a few years ago.
He calculates that when a person reaches age 18, they have spent more than 90% of their in-person parent time. As a parent and a son, that hits pretty hard.
You could say the same thing about differeng hobbies or tools. Ive held a hammer multiple times longer than I could hold any person. Ive spent unknown number of hours in a garage or barn working on various mechanics.
Time with family is valuable, but so is time doing other things. You don't need everyone involved in everything 24/7.
Why is this front page? This is just a strangely framed ambiguous question. Here's more of the same: Will you have spent more of your life sleeping than with your family? Will you have spent more of your life walking than with your family? Will you have spent more of your time working than with your family? Will you have spent more of your time blinking than with your family?
I think you’re missing the point, which is that screen time is (or, the implication is that it is) an unhealthy waste of time.
It’s uncontroversial that sleep is necessary and healthy, walking is necessary and/or healthy, working is (mostly) necessary (regardless of whether it’s healthy), and blinking is necessary and healthy.
The implication is that there’s almost zero about screen time that is healthy or necessary, with some exceptions.
And that this has become recently common. Prior to the Information Age, it was less common that we spent this much time on screens.
I am taking an opportunity to learn how to make an iOS widget that can display dynamic text or an image from a URL.
It's because my dad always forgets exactly when and what channel his (our) sports team play. He has a phone but push notifications, texts, opening an app or website is too much friction, ultimately, for someone that can read yahoo, check email, and make calls, but not good with texting.
Anyway, a widget is the most immediate visual cue I could think of aside from a push notification but pushes are too fleeting. The idea is my dad just has to "swipe" to see today's games and I can curate it exactly to our teams and whether or not he can see it on the TV or needs to open streaming service X and so on.
---
Is this a good use of my time connecting with my dad? Is it better to call him instead of touching the keyboard? Should I be talking to him now rather than about him?
Valid point. Using a screen for your daily work is one side. Another is sitting with family members together who are staring on a screen like zombies. I guess it’s the latter part that the author claims to be different than 10 years ago. I feel it.
You can do so many different things with a computer. If you spend hours watching AI generated YouTube shorts instead of playing outside with your kids, then yeah, that's too bad.
But if you spend all those hours building a retro/modern sim city game pair programming with your 12yo, designing the artwork, crafting the story arc, writing the music, finding and fixing bugs, building new levels -- you don't need to regret that you weren't idling around at the park all that time.
Given that I got my first computer at 12, given all the screen time with video games and programming in my youth + my day-job in software I absolutely guarantee I've clocked more hours on a computer than "with my family". I'm OK with that.
Computers have consolidated work, media, and entertainment all within the same "box" and even a good deal of close friend interactions are now mediated "on the screen".
I'm certain early hunter/gatherers would've been equally as shocked seeing factory workers "leave the home" and "constantly meet strangers".
I agree with this take. When I add up all the films and shows I've watched, music I've listened to, books and articles I've read, games I've played, silly projects I've made, and whatnot else, it's hard to come to the conclusion I should have done something completely different for most of that time. I enjoyed myself for quite a lot of that time. I've learned quite a lot.
Sure, I can rot away and do things on the computer that doesn't really bring me joy beyond the Skinner box it can be, but that's at least somewhat on me if I fall into that trap (although we probably don't need to make more Skinner boxes for people to feel trapped by). There's a lot of things I really want to do on the computer, and I don't really see an inherent problem with that.
Yeah, this has always been my take too. Assuming an even 8h split on weekdays, the awake-not-working time is heavily eaten up by commuting and general upkeep. Family squeezes into shared upkeep and any remaining time at best.
The two weekend days don't seem enough to catch up to the accumulated work-time, especially if your commute is relatively long (which is true for a large chunk of the USA), so you're just constantly in a deficit until you retire... which is more of an "if" than a "when" in many cases.
Which is clearly a problem, but I don't think computers are the cause.
If you think of your screen is a big glowy box of noise that fails to contribute to a good, meaningful life, that's a problem! Put better things on your screen.
I think a better way to ask this question is if I was entertained by a computer more than by the company of friends/family.
Of course I spend more time looking at a screen - it's my job description. It's never been different in the past. But outside of work, that's a different story.
Is this really that weird, considering labor now involves mostly looking at a screen? In other words, is the total amount of time we see family really going down vs say the 1800s, when people used to work many more hours.
Yes, certainly, first because passion for computer can more often than not predate being able to co-make a family. Then like any work, current societies make far easier to get room to work with computers than any other kind of activity one might want to engage into. Finally, other humans don't want to spend none stop time in company of the single same individual, no matter how much they might love them: they need space for there own personal development. Computers will respond tirelessly to any human wanting to interact with them H24, and don't have any extra psychological and sociological need to fulfill.
So on sheer level of time spent on computer, other humans don't stand a chance. Time spend on something doesn't tell much about how much we feel emotionally positively connected with this thing though.
My life has been more aligned with computers, and I prefer it that way. Computers don't lie, they don't pressure you. At least they respond honestly to my input, almost all the time. Everything outside of computers was awful. So I like everything that involves computers. The internet let me read and learn so much, which made computers good for me. There are downsides, like YouTube and some communities, but overall, I enjoy building things with computers and making them work.
On the other hand, the world outside computers was mostly bad—people who deceived me when I was just starting out, fraudulent contracts, and all the physical pain I went through in manual labor. Looking at it from the other side, people with real-world capital tend to have good relationships and good people around them. But for those without that capital, the world inside a computer can actually feel more real than the outside.
I've come to realize that trustworthy colleagues and respectful relationships largely depend on social status. And it feels like I don't really belong there.
Computers don't get angry when I can't do something. They don't ask me to meet some standard, and they don't get frustrated when I fail to meet it. I can learn at my own pace, doing what I want. In the past, I had to reach out to people online and exchange emails during that process, but now even that's been replaced by AI giving me answers.
For me, computers aren't a cheap substitute for human relationships. They're the infrastructure that gave me the autonomy, knowledge, and productive capability I never got from the real world.
A shelter and a prison can look the same from the outside. But I chose to be here, because this world inside the computer has been less painful than what I experienced outside.
When code fails, at least I can investigate why it failed. People, on the other hand, can twist the same words depending on relationships and power, and exclude you without ever explaining why.
That's why I like computers. At least when I turn on my computer, work on something, and see it run, I feel a sense of accomplishment, whether it's AI generated or hand written code.
Honestly, I'm not sure if having my own home or meeting someone compatible would change anything.
the computer lets me stay home and work with my family around, so it's not all doom and gloom... 50 years ago I'd be in the office ~40 hours a week and commuting for another 5
My main pushback is solitude. I don't actually want to timemaxx family interaction or any human interaction. I don't want to be the only one on the planet either, we need one another. But a life well-lived includes deep experiences in solitude if you ask me.
EDIT: and another thing! human interaction here focuses entirely on the living and the related. Why? Human connection can span all of humanity. And it should.
Is there any way to make the profession a family affair again?
> The ancien règime in France is reported to have guaranteed fifty-two Sundays, ninety rest days, and thirty-eight holidays. In Spain, travelers noted that holidays totaled five months per year.
One of the reasons why children, teens, and young adults have become so infantalised is because they are socialised mostly around each other, and spend a lot of time being told "no you can't, you are a child". This is not a call for children to enter the mines, and I do not wish to see child labour laws repealed (as they are apparently being in some parts of the USA). But for children to be socialised correctly, they must maintain connections with people of all ages, both older and younger — all benefit from such an arrangement. For them to grow up, they must be treated as people, and given age-appropriate responsibility and inclusion in the tasks that adults do. It is harder to teach a teenager to wash the dishes and their clothes, than it is to ask for a child's help washing the dishes and your/their clothes. The children are happy to help and to be included, you get to teach them rudimentary tasks, and it counts as family bonding time. The alienation of children from adults, and the alienation of children from their parents' work, is a great loss to society as a whole.
[1]: https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_...
And they'd spend a lot more time doing all the things we don't need to do anymore. The money I get from work buys a lot of convenient _not_ needing to do a lot of menial labor.
He calculates that when a person reaches age 18, they have spent more than 90% of their in-person parent time. As a parent and a son, that hits pretty hard.
Obviously, YMMV.
[1]:https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html
Time with family is valuable, but so is time doing other things. You don't need everyone involved in everything 24/7.
God bless Debian.
For white-collar jobs typically translates to, computer = work.
It’s uncontroversial that sleep is necessary and healthy, walking is necessary and/or healthy, working is (mostly) necessary (regardless of whether it’s healthy), and blinking is necessary and healthy.
The implication is that there’s almost zero about screen time that is healthy or necessary, with some exceptions.
And that this has become recently common. Prior to the Information Age, it was less common that we spent this much time on screens.
People that did were called “couch potatoes”.
It's because my dad always forgets exactly when and what channel his (our) sports team play. He has a phone but push notifications, texts, opening an app or website is too much friction, ultimately, for someone that can read yahoo, check email, and make calls, but not good with texting.
Anyway, a widget is the most immediate visual cue I could think of aside from a push notification but pushes are too fleeting. The idea is my dad just has to "swipe" to see today's games and I can curate it exactly to our teams and whether or not he can see it on the TV or needs to open streaming service X and so on.
---
Is this a good use of my time connecting with my dad? Is it better to call him instead of touching the keyboard? Should I be talking to him now rather than about him?
But if you spend all those hours building a retro/modern sim city game pair programming with your 12yo, designing the artwork, crafting the story arc, writing the music, finding and fixing bugs, building new levels -- you don't need to regret that you weren't idling around at the park all that time.
Computers have consolidated work, media, and entertainment all within the same "box" and even a good deal of close friend interactions are now mediated "on the screen".
I'm certain early hunter/gatherers would've been equally as shocked seeing factory workers "leave the home" and "constantly meet strangers".
Different praxis for different eras.
Sure, I can rot away and do things on the computer that doesn't really bring me joy beyond the Skinner box it can be, but that's at least somewhat on me if I fall into that trap (although we probably don't need to make more Skinner boxes for people to feel trapped by). There's a lot of things I really want to do on the computer, and I don't really see an inherent problem with that.
This is breathless polemic.
The two weekend days don't seem enough to catch up to the accumulated work-time, especially if your commute is relatively long (which is true for a large chunk of the USA), so you're just constantly in a deficit until you retire... which is more of an "if" than a "when" in many cases.
Which is clearly a problem, but I don't think computers are the cause.
Of course I spend more time looking at a screen - it's my job description. It's never been different in the past. But outside of work, that's a different story.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40375906
So on sheer level of time spent on computer, other humans don't stand a chance. Time spend on something doesn't tell much about how much we feel emotionally positively connected with this thing though.
On the other hand, the world outside computers was mostly bad—people who deceived me when I was just starting out, fraudulent contracts, and all the physical pain I went through in manual labor. Looking at it from the other side, people with real-world capital tend to have good relationships and good people around them. But for those without that capital, the world inside a computer can actually feel more real than the outside.
I've come to realize that trustworthy colleagues and respectful relationships largely depend on social status. And it feels like I don't really belong there.
Computers don't get angry when I can't do something. They don't ask me to meet some standard, and they don't get frustrated when I fail to meet it. I can learn at my own pace, doing what I want. In the past, I had to reach out to people online and exchange emails during that process, but now even that's been replaced by AI giving me answers.
For me, computers aren't a cheap substitute for human relationships. They're the infrastructure that gave me the autonomy, knowledge, and productive capability I never got from the real world.
A shelter and a prison can look the same from the outside. But I chose to be here, because this world inside the computer has been less painful than what I experienced outside.
When code fails, at least I can investigate why it failed. People, on the other hand, can twist the same words depending on relationships and power, and exclude you without ever explaining why.
That's why I like computers. At least when I turn on my computer, work on something, and see it run, I feel a sense of accomplishment, whether it's AI generated or hand written code.
Honestly, I'm not sure if having my own home or meeting someone compatible would change anything.