Comment by ACow_Adonis

I genuinely don't think the tech medium is the problem. There's good and educational software available on tablets just as there is on anything else.

While I've always been anti-tablet myself, and anti-phone for similar reasons (though why a kid would need a phone is beyond me at this stage), there's programs for literacy and learning available on the tablets that work just fine, as well as art, creativity and painting. The "secret" is just no access to the toxic: we have one tablet, my 5/6 year old loves reading-eggs and Minecraft but we have no social media and no YouTube and no purchases, plus the entire house is behind an ad blocking firewall. My kid is allowed to watch videos and access apps like ABC iView/kids, but from the open web they have to be ripped and placed on our local media share drive before they're viewable. No YouTube or YouTube kids obviously because it's a toxic cesspool.

My experience is that without the trash\addictive nonsense, while the kids are drawn to the iPad, they'll also self regulate a bit and move between other activities of they're available and get bored of spending all their time on the pad.

In his room I've just built him a Linux computer, and that's restricted both in time (can only log on to his account at certain hours), has no native web browser, and requires me to install programs and updates. He can access the games we approve but like everything else in the house it's basically a social media and almost ad free zone.

I've introduced him to modded Minecraft because it's basically Lego... And though it's frustrating that Microsoft took it over, we basically just ignore the Microsoft side of things and just operate on the free community modded side of things. I showed him how we could change his sword and I've got a whole modded world where we can set ourselves up and play on LAN together. The other game he loves at the moment is beyond all reason, a community made RTS game I've been involved with, and he just won his first match against the simple AI (though I did have to talk to the other Devs to allow us an account from the same IP so we could play together). The goal of all this is to give the message that technology is all about being a creative tool you choose to use to make what you want, not a medium about being a passive recipient for advertising or marketing or endless video consumption, feeds, recommendations or outrage cycles. No one needs any subscriptions or recommendations or likes or feeds. But there's nothing inherently toxic about a screen or a tablet, those are choices we make (or more accurately are pushed upon and chosen for us if we're not careful).

I think there's a non-zero chance that I'll be setting up a local server for the neighbourhood kids over the next year or two so they can all play together without worrying about the wider internet and I'll probably have to work to admin that in some way.