I’ve seen parents pushing toddlers around strapped into a stroller with a tablet mounted on an arm right at the kid’s eye level. Even if the kid wanted to stop looking at the tablet, they’d have a hard time. They’re basically Ludovico Technique-ing their own kids.
this is what i’m talking about. i watched A LOT of tv, but there were no tablets to shove at me while shopping or traveling. is the portable screens available to or pushed on kids 24-7 that seems fundamentally different to me than what i experienced as a kid.
I grew up in the '70s. My parents limited us to one hour of TV per day, but I had friends who spent nearly every waking hour when they weren’t in school parked in front of the television. Like, six to seven hours per day and more on the weekends. The stats back that up, too.
i grew up in the 80s, i was a latchkey kid and i had a tv in my room and in the living room. but there were no screens to hand to me while driving, shopping, attending social or family functions. if i was bored somewhere, my options were to engage, explore, observe, read, or draw.
i think there is something fundamentally different about the relationship cultivated between small people and small, ever - present screens than the large stationary box we had at home.
Though pre-DVR TV and especially a household too poor for cable the television was… a bit less continuously interesting. Having even a VCR was just amazing and that was a royal pain meaning you really had to pick and choose what to record. Most of the time you didn’t even have anything you wanted to watch that happened to be playing right then. Even when you did want to watch, good chance it is a rerun and you only half paid attention if you bothered at all.
The on-demand nature of it and the volume of it are really what makes it just constant.
Lol I spent almost a year living in a part of Florida that had two broadcast stations, ABC and PBS. And I had a TV without a remote, just the two old-fashioned dials. And I would spend entire fucking evenings just flipping between those two channels. The weed helped, but I finally gave in and paid the $100 or so installation fee to get cable.
Exactly, my generation grew up with the good brain rot, we all knew the same marketing jingles and all made our parents spend their money on the same toys the cartoons told us to get.
What’s funny is my generation’s brain rot was mainly Looney Tunes and The Three Stooges. So technically it was actually the brain rot from forty years prior.
I miss the good ol’ days when mass-market TV is what rotted kids’ brains. Brain-rotting TikTok slop is totally different from that.
It definitely seems more… Distilled? Concentrated?
There’s also much less opportunity for regulation and a far more rapid response to shifting incentives
yeah, but those of us who grew up on tv didn’t have ubiquitous access to screens either.
I’ve seen parents pushing toddlers around strapped into a stroller with a tablet mounted on an arm right at the kid’s eye level. Even if the kid wanted to stop looking at the tablet, they’d have a hard time. They’re basically Ludovico Technique-ing their own kids.
this is what i’m talking about. i watched A LOT of tv, but there were no tablets to shove at me while shopping or traveling. is the portable screens available to or pushed on kids 24-7 that seems fundamentally different to me than what i experienced as a kid.
I grew up in the '70s. My parents limited us to one hour of TV per day, but I had friends who spent nearly every waking hour when they weren’t in school parked in front of the television. Like, six to seven hours per day and more on the weekends. The stats back that up, too.
i grew up in the 80s, i was a latchkey kid and i had a tv in my room and in the living room. but there were no screens to hand to me while driving, shopping, attending social or family functions. if i was bored somewhere, my options were to engage, explore, observe, read, or draw.
i think there is something fundamentally different about the relationship cultivated between small people and small, ever - present screens than the large stationary box we had at home.
Though pre-DVR TV and especially a household too poor for cable the television was… a bit less continuously interesting. Having even a VCR was just amazing and that was a royal pain meaning you really had to pick and choose what to record. Most of the time you didn’t even have anything you wanted to watch that happened to be playing right then. Even when you did want to watch, good chance it is a rerun and you only half paid attention if you bothered at all.
The on-demand nature of it and the volume of it are really what makes it just constant.
Lol I spent almost a year living in a part of Florida that had two broadcast stations, ABC and PBS. And I had a TV without a remote, just the two old-fashioned dials. And I would spend entire fucking evenings just flipping between those two channels. The weed helped, but I finally gave in and paid the $100 or so installation fee to get cable.
yeah, no. tv was a lot better than how fucking tiktok is today.
The short form really fucks people up. Tiktok specially is less important. Reels and youtube shorts both as well
Exactly, my generation grew up with the good brain rot, we all knew the same marketing jingles and all made our parents spend their money on the same toys the cartoons told us to get.
What’s funny is my generation’s brain rot was mainly Looney Tunes and The Three Stooges. So technically it was actually the brain rot from forty years prior.