Let's Do the Time Warp Again

How to make parenting much easier even if phones are dangerously different

Using “electronic babysitters” is a low-cost way for parents of young kids to capture an extra daily hour of peace and quiet. My Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids advises parents to take advantage of this tactic. If you’ve got important work to do — or crave a little break — there’s nothing wrong with plunking your children in front of their favorite television show for a while:

I’m not advising people to put their kids in front of the television and forget about them. My wife and I don’t let ours watch more than an hour or two a day, because we don’t want them to miss out on the other joys of childhood. I’m merely suggesting pragmatic adjustments in the way that families spend their time. If parents feel exhausted by their kids’ busy schedule, they should trim a few hours of activity from their week - even if their kids spend most of their extra hours on TV and video games. The parents will be happier, and the kids will probably be happier too.

In his review of Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, Scott Alexander concedes that my advice was reasonable back in 2011 when the book was published, but doubts that they remain true today:

Wise words - in 2011, when SRTHMK was written. What about the age of TikTok and Instagram?

We all know what argument comes next: “You think a newfangled thing is bad. But the ancients thought their newfangled thing was bad, and now that we’ve had time to get used to it, we realize it’s fine. Therefore, no new thing is ever bad.” People in 2000 were afraid video games were destroying society, people in 1960 were afraid TV was destroying society, people in 1600 thought the novel was destroying society, and people in 500 BC thought writing was destroying society.

Therefore, nothing can ever destroy society? Sorry, this is too Outside View, even for me…

Scott then proceeds to argue that modern smartphones are indeed dangerously different from all prior entertainment technology:

There are two lines of evidence that phones are genuinely rotting people’s brains in a way past technologies haven’t. First, standardized test scores are down. Second, teachers are freaking out…

I feel about 75% sure there’s a trend towards recent intellectual decline which needs to be explained, I think phones are about 60% of the explanation, and I think it’s about 25% likely that early childhood phone use causes some damage beyond what would happen if you kept your kid away from phones until age 18 but then let him use them normally afterwards. When I multiply those all out, that’s an 11% chance that letting my kid use a phone will rot his brain.

Furthermore:

But it’s not just addiction. What if they wander into the wrong part of the Internet and become incels, or SJWs with seven genders, or sedevacantists? Lots of people get one or another mind virus; why should my kids be immune?…

At this age, none of this affects me as much as my visceral reaction when I see a phone-addicted toddler. I shudder to see a three-year-old in the grocery store screaming “PHONE? PHONE?” until her parents relent and let her watch algorithmically-recommended YouTube videos of dancing monsters. And I know my kids would fall for it.

Suppose for the sake of argument that Scott is completely correct. Modern phones are indeed dangerously different from television and classic videogames from the pre-2011 era. Indeed, suppose that Scott dramatically understates the danger that phones pose to your children’s minds and souls. “Stop using all electronic babysitters” is still a childish overreaction. The obvious remedy, rather, is to freely use the safe, time-tested electronic babysitters of the past.

Key point: Not only do almost all “obsolete” technologies remain totally functional. More importantly, your little ones will take years to grasp that the technology they’re using is obsolete. For all your two-year old knows, the current year is 1965, and your classic Underdog DVDs are state-of-the-art. If classic cartoons held you spellbound in your youth, there’s every reason to expect your kids to have the same reaction. Which allows you — like your parents before you — to enjoy some breathing room.

In fact, obsolete technology has some big advantages over modern devices. If you hand a little toddler a touchscreen device with dancing monsters, his hands will wander. Before you know it, he’ll touch the wrong part of the screen, the beloved monsters will disappear, and the kid will scream in dismay. So instead of getting a much-needed break, the parents are desperately trying to make the monsters reappear so the cycle can repeat. A Sisyphean ordeal. Putting an old-fashioned DVD into an old-fashioned TV, in contrast, is almost foolproof. Press “Play All,” put the remote on a high shelf, and walk away.

Added bonus: You need not agree that 2011 is the One True Line between the harmless fun of the past and the dangerous addiction of the present. Maybe the evil didn’t really start until 2017. If so, feel free to hand your child a vintage iPhone X — just $139 on eBay! Or perhaps the real watershed was the move from VHS to DVD in 1997. If so, order this fine VCR for $24.95 and this 8-pack of Scooby-Doo videotapes for $27.98 — and you’re set for months.

Granted, your child will eventually encounter less restricted kids and more advanced technology. Depending on his personality, he may start whining about how “unfair” you are. But the same thing will happen if you don’t let your kid have any electronics at all. My strategy allows you to capture all of the benefits of whatever electronic babysitters you do not fear — without making the long-run outcome any worse than it already is. And if fears about the long-run harm of early exposure to modern phones turn out to be justified, you will have successfully saved your child from a dire fate.

Bottom line: If you’re a fretful parent of young children, electronic entertainment remains a vital lifeline. You don’t even need to spend precious minutes reviewing the research on whether phones really are dangerously different. As long as you trust the technology you were raised on, heed the timeless wisdom of The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Say “Let’s do the time warp again” and party on.

P.S. Announcement: On Friday, I finished an all-new introduction for the 15th-anniversary edition of Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, featuring responses to Nate Hilger, Scott Alexander, and Lyman Stone, analyses of the significance of new evidence on international adoption and genome-wide association studies, and my self-assessment of the homeschooling operation I’ve been running since 2015. The book should hit shelves in 2026, so stay tuned.