Are your children phone/iPad/gaming addicts?

So my 14 year old daughter is becoming a phone/iPad addict. (Endlessly on Wechat, TikTok/Douyin, QQ, YouKu and various movie/drama streaming sites).

She is on her early summer break (due to COVID in Hong Kong). She actually needs to prepare for her exams in May and also June.

We recently told her to study for four hours during the daytime and then she is free to play in the late afternoon and we all watch a movie or do something together in the evening. And she has two, “free,” days per week.

But we have repeatedly caught her playing during study hours so we have confiscated all her electronics.

My wife is even considering putting her back in boarding school (bloody expensive, but a fantastic school).

I was wondering how you as a parent, “manage,” your child’s phone/iPad/gaming time? Do you have any issues with this, does playtime affect their study?

Nope and they never will as long as they live with me. I know that's old person talk, but it's true. They get an hour each day to play video games, but, unless they are doing school work, they get no other screen time at all.

As far as phones are considered, that's easy, they don't get any. My kids are a little younger, but they don't need phones at all.

I don't have kids but my younger sister is addicted to Roblox. So, I guess there's my contribution to the topic.

Everyone is. Go on public transit, people are on their phones. Go to restaurants, people are on their phones. Walk the streets, people are on their phones. Go to movies, people are on their phones. Go to the beach, people are on their phones. I finished college just before smartphones became big, but I imagine if I went back people would probably be on their phones. If your daughter was born decades earlier she'd probably be hogging the landlines and screaming like a demon at anybody that picked up the phone while she was using it, like most normal teenage girls of those days.

Edit: Oh, in China? Maybe not normal then, I wouldn't know. But in American, par for the course.

@kadin_kai: no kids, but I have a niece and nephew and their parents (my sister and bro-in-law) regulate their screen time in minutes. They are young, though, so I don't she wants them to become groomed to using screens.

My niece might want to use the tablet and my sister will be like "OK, 20 minutes" and after 20 minutes that tablet is gone.

Part of me wonders if she is that way because of me; I play a lot of g ames, probably too much, and I think my sister doesn't want that for her kids.

I get that, but on the other hand I think being tech proficient is really important for kids these days, and they will fall behind if they don't know how to use tech well.

Yeah I am in a similar boat. I lived the first 20 years of my life without a cell phone, and didn't get a smart phone until I was 25 or so. I never made the transition to a phone being part of my identity; sometimes I leave it at home when I go to run errands, I don't really use it for games or a lot of apps, and what little social networking stuff I do is really just to look at pictures of food or hot cosplay chicks on Instagram (I haven't been on Facebook for like five years).

I remember the first time I overheard someone talking about someone without a phone like it's a bad thing. They were at the doctor's office waiting and they were like "It was so weird, there was this guy sitting there, and he was just sitting there. Like, not reading or anything and not on his phone. It was bizarre" and she seemd almost disgusted by that.

That's what I do. I just sit there and sort of daydream or think about my day or what I need to do. I guess I am that weird guy ROFL.

I don't know if that demographic that is always on their phone has the ability to just sit and think. Or to sit and observe. I wonder if we drove to the top of a mountain to watch the sunrise and had to wait 30 minutes if they would just enjoy the morning and breathe and think, sip their tea and practice mindfulness....or if they'd just get on their phone until the sun rose.