As so many teenagers are attracted to the wonderful digital products, it comes as a surprise to learn that Apple’s co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs had serious reservations about allowing his own children to spend too much time staring at electronic devices.
In a New York Times article published recently, tech journalist Nick Bilton reveals that Jobs, who died in 2011, once admitted to being a “low-tech parent” When Bilton asked Jobs, in 2010, whether his own kids loved Apple’s iPad, Jobs replied: “They haven’t used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”
Bilton reveals that, since his surprising conversation with Jobs, he has had similar discussions with other well-known figures in the tech industry.
Chris Anderson, a former editor, told Bilton that he set strict time limits and parental controls on every device at home. “My kids accuse me and my wife of being fascists,” he said. “They say that none of their friends have the same rules. That’s because we have seen the dangers of technology first hand. I’ve seen it in myself, I don’t want to see that happen to my kids.”
Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles recently published a study which concluded that removing gadgets from children for just a few days immediately improves their social skills. An article in Newsweek last month suggested that American children spend more than seven and a half hours a day using smartphones and other electronic screens.
So before we all get too carried away with Apple's latest gadgets, perhaps we should all follow the example of Jobs. According to Walter Isaacson, who spent a lot of time at Jobs’ house when they worked on a book together, face-to-face family interaction always came before screentime. “Every evening Steve made a point of having dinner at the big long table in their kitchen, discussing books and history and a variety of things,” Isaacson told Nick Bilton. “No one ever pulled out an iPad or computer. The kids did not seem addicted at all to devices.”
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