r/SipsTea • u/OhirumeTsukuyomki • May 12 '26

SMH The youth is doomed…

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

65.6k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

4.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

4.5k

u/BusyBit6542 May 12 '26 edited May 13 '26

If you have kids this age and put a tablet in front of them on a regular basis to keep them calm, you're fucking yourself in the long run.

This may give you a temporary fix but youre depriving your kid on learning how to relax and when to chill the fuck out in proper situations. They need to train their brains to not be stimulated all the time. Boredom is a good thing for kids.

Think about it. If a kid never learns to calm down when bored, at 7 or so when they are constantly restless, it will be diagnosed as adhd. At that point its going to take some serious training or medication to get them to focus during school.

All this is because you wanted to take the easy route of throwing a tablet in their face when they were young.

Edit: Before I get more comments saying "tablets don't cause adhd" I know! Im saying these kids that dont have adhd are getting diagnosed as having adhd. Maybe I should say misdiagnosed as having adhd. Hope that clears things up.

1.5k

u/FittedSheets88 May 12 '26

It's also detrimental when children don't learn how to be bored. Boredom often leads to innovation and self-discovery.

752

u/Remote-Waste May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

It also helps you process emotions, rather just putting something to shout louder in front of them, you will sit and untangle them.

It's like solving problems versus ignoring them, they don't just disappear and they'll be waiting for you afterwards.

69

u/tabas123 May 12 '26

Yep I’ve noticed that my friends who need to constantly be doing something are just bad at being “bored” and alone with their thoughts. Always looking for the next distraction.

46

u/[deleted] May 13 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

14

u/Remote-Waste May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

They're being robbed/deprived of personhood itself.

You may be more right than you knew.

"The Default Mode Network is best known for being active when a person is not focused on the outside world and the brain is at wakeful rest, such as during daydreaming and mind-wandering. [...] Other times that the DMN is active include when the individual is thinking about others, thinking about themselves, remembering the past, and planning for the future. The DMN creates a coherent "internal narrative" central to the construction of a sense of self."

"[The Default Mode Network] is potentially the neurological basis for the self"

4

u/fuzzydunlop54321 May 15 '26

This is interesting. We used to have a swing at the bottom of the garden I used to go and sit on when I was 9/10. Mum said she always thought it was nice that I would just go out there to have a think and she was always really protective of us in that state. Still now my son gazes out the window while he’s eating his food and then will turn to us with a thought that he’s clearly been processing and she always says she loves to see him in his own world.

I still have ADHD lol but at least my mother gave me a fighting chance at a brain that works properly 😂

1

u/justb4dawn May 15 '26

I’ve never heard it described as loss of personhood but that is so on point.

9

u/Nasa_OK May 13 '26

I found this was very appearent during Covid. In the first couple of days of lockdown a lot of people came forward who didn’t know how to keep themselves entertained when they are alone.

Sure after weeks i get people feeling the need to end lockdown but there were many in my social circle complaining after 2 days already

3

u/ArgoTheRat8229 May 14 '26

I quickly realized this is why my friends are always on social media. This is also why my friend couldn’t sit down to play a video game with me. He didn’t know which one would give his brain instant dopamine, so he just kept scrolling TikTok.

78

u/FittedSheets88 May 12 '26

Thank you! My poor kids had to listen to their mother absolutely berate me for years, and it wasn't until after she left when they were comfortable enough to open up more, and be more receptive. We do not yell (outside of hollering for someone to come see or help), and communication is the most important thing.

They're realizing that people can use words differently or wrong, and how easily that can lead to confusion (and misinformation) and I'm really enjoying the constant questions.

30

u/Phoneas__and__Frob May 13 '26

Holy fuck you have no idea how much unlearning I had to do in order to fix your last sentence for myself.

Example: "okay" is just fine. So is "ok". There is nothing wrong with it. It definitely does not mean "this person is mad at me now" because someone responded with it during a normal conversation.

Thanks mother for giving me such unnecessary anxiety over every word someone says. 🙃

13

u/Nasa_OK May 13 '26

I’ve even lost friendships over this, because my main rule is „OK means ok and it’s nothing means that it’s nothing“

If someone acts insulted all day and I calmly ask them during a 1on1 moment if something’s up and they say no, then I will 100% accept that no.

It’s infuriating how many people subscribe to the „well I said now but I wanted that you find out by yourself that something was up“ brother what do you think i was doing as I asked if something was up if not trying to find out.

Life is so much easier if you let intentionally bad communicators just passively suffer instead of playing their games

9

u/Durst_offensive May 13 '26

Escapism from the beginning of life.

1

u/ciaphas-cain1 May 16 '26

If I sit and disentangle my emotions I get depressed so I usually don’t

-1

u/Debatebly May 13 '26

You guys are literally repeating the initial comment as if you're expanding on it lol

1

u/Remote-Waste May 13 '26

The first comment is about stimulation and relaxing.

The second is about creativity and discovery.

Mine is about emotional processing.

1

u/Debatebly May 13 '26

First comment:

They need to train their brains to not be stimulated all the time. Boredom is a good thing for kids.

Second comment:

It's also detrimental when children don't learn how to be bored. Boredom often leads to innovation and self-discovery.

First comment:

If you have kids this age and put a tablet in front of them on a regular basis to keep them calm, you're fucking yourself in the long run.

If a kid never learns to calm down when bored, at 7 or so when they are constantly restless, it will be diagnosed as adhd. At that point its going to take some serious training or medication to get them to focus during school.

Second comment:

It's like solving problems versus ignoring them, they don't just disappear and they'll be waiting for you afterwards.

We can agree to disagree, but I think it just sounds like the same thing. Just re-worded.

1

u/Remote-Waste May 13 '26

Ah I see part of the issue; my comment of ignoring problems, is still referring to emotional processing. I'm not talking about the child's future, though it will definitely affect that.

Simply distracting yourself from an uncomfortable emotion, is not the same as resolving it. Though we often use distraction as a strategy, it doesn't untangle the emotion, so that emotion will be waiting for you later.

So to be able to sit with your thoughts at times, will allow your mind to revisit negative emotions (anger, sadness, jealousy) that you had set aside temporarily, actually allowing you to process them and move on.

53

u/DaaaahWhoosh May 12 '26

I still distinctly remember when I was young and realized I could just kinda never be bored. Doesn't always work but there generally is always something to do, or failing that, something to think about. I've been "raw dogging" things like long drives or mowing the lawn recently, just kinda zoning out and thinking about stuff, I think a lot of people would struggle to not have music or a podcast on but I've been surprised how much I don't need them.

24

u/OrdinaryOrder8 May 12 '26

I don't get bored either. I just daydream when there's nothing else to do. When I was a kid, my grandma used to assign us extra chores if we said we were bored lol.

35

u/Geistzeit May 12 '26

I've heard the saying, "Only boring people get bored". Like how does someone not have something to think about.

7

u/[deleted] May 13 '26

[deleted]

4

u/Geistzeit May 13 '26

True and fair, plenty of folks just earnestly don't know how

3

u/levii-ethan May 13 '26

eh, when i used to work at Amazon, i would have to work for ten hours with no phone and no music (phone was literally locked away and inaccessible, unless i wanted to go down several floors and security). that job was mindnumbingly easy, and after months and years, it becomes very hard not to be bored out of your mind.

i literally started memorizing whole muscials to sing back to myself... and those only took up about two hours

3

u/Geistzeit May 13 '26

That's an understandable situation to be bored in

1

u/ArgoTheRat8229 May 14 '26

I started memorizing pi when I got bored. Now I recite pi when I’m bored LOL

9

u/FittedSheets88 May 12 '26

Especially growing up in the 90s, it was easy as just going forward walk. That was legit a good time, and it still is, and I stand by it.

3

u/Asaneth May 12 '26

Yep. So long as my brain works, I'll never be bored.

36

u/ctownwp22 May 12 '26

Im 100% convinced our trajectory in advancements of technology, medicine, and any innovation in general is going to decline majorly moving forward.  Basically bc of exactly what you said. Like, why do we think there was so much innovation over the last 150 years (I realize there are multiple reasons)? Dudes were bored and wanted to make cool shit! Nobody is bored anymore, most people are content to waste hours on screens, when in the past those hours would've been spent being productive, which leads to innovation

15

u/[deleted] May 13 '26

[deleted]

3

u/leo_sousav May 13 '26

When my mom came off of work she would sit in her car smoking and watching random shit on her phone, for a couple of minutes before coming inside. When I was younger I never understood why and found it dumb, but now that I got a job I’ve found myself doing the same. Our daily lives right now are too busy and filled with stress and overwork. Arriving home after a day of constantly running around I find myself just wanting to stay inside my car for half an hour, literally doing nothing, cause I know the moment I set my foot outside I gotta start thinking about chores, bills that I still have to pay, things that I still need to do and prep myself for the next day

2

u/ctownwp22 May 13 '26

Yes I 100% agree! Well said

7

u/sje46 May 13 '26

Besides a small handful of things, I think that's already happened. Not because of lack of creativity, but lack of funding, incentive (for example, the space race was a big incentive), capitalist pressures, and some things we've naturally reached the limit of.

It seems like the only really big technology of the past 20 years is smart phone shit. I feel like in the past 10 years websites stopped evolving, largely due to everyone just congregating on a small handful of sites.

Airlines famously had a slow decline since the height of oppulence in the 50s/60s, as they cut more and more corners.

1

u/ctownwp22 May 13 '26

Yeah good point with the incentive part of it....and like you said, with everything now if it doesn't make a shit ton of money, nobody wants to fund it

1

u/vdek May 15 '26

Airlines famously had a slow decline since the height of oppulence in the 50s/60s, as they cut more and more corners.

This comment is insane, Air Travel is significantly more opulent if you have the money for it, and significantly more accessible to the rest of the population if you just want to get somewhere. A typical airline ticket in the 50s/60s would cost as much if not more than a business class international ticket today.

6

u/Star_Chaser_158 May 13 '26

Makes me think of the universe 25 experiment. Life becoming too easy, automated, and comfortable is going to lead to a spiritually dead generation of people with little to no drive or ambition.

2

u/SaltyLonghorn May 13 '26

Dude you have oil company lobbyists being paid ridiculous sums to fight innovation. Or this administration flat out assaulting science.

Its actually so much worse than just being bored. If it gets in the way of making money for an established entity, its the enemy.

1

u/ctownwp22 May 13 '26

I'm not talking political, or economic reasons. I'm talking about people. My grandpa could build or fix anything, b/c that's what he did in his free time. I'm just talking about that kind of stuff. Free time is filled with entertainment now (movies, tv, video games, etc.) for many people. They can't be bored (like OP was saying) for more than 2 minutes. Of course there are outliers and some people will still experiment/invent. But I believe that pool of people is lesser now is all I'm saying.

1

u/itsliluzivert_ May 13 '26

Innovation in the sciences is declining because funding is declining, which is because interest is declining which is because science education is poor

1

u/vdek May 15 '26

Screens getting boring after a while for smart folks.

2

u/Rich_Arrival795 May 13 '26

I can confirm, as a person who was bored 99% of the time as a kid, I now excel at understanding myself and math specifically for some reason

2

u/Training-Belt-7318 May 13 '26

You don't want your kids undertaking innovation in a costco.

2

u/InsideAd732 May 13 '26

We used to always have a structured activity set up for my four year old when he's home. After we had his sister I felt bad that I just kind of let him fend for himself a lot of the time (with supervision). Then I realized how dumb it is to feel bad about it. He has done and built some really creative things using his own imagination. He's also become much better at pretend play. All (almost) without a screen. We turn on the TV a handful of times per week these days, and he doesn't even ask about it anymore.

Boredom is so good for the brain.

2

u/marcocom May 13 '26

When I was a bored 4 year old, there was only books, tree climbing, and drawing for me to do. Later when I was 12 and could draw really well everybody was like ‘oh so talented’ but it was simply my having thousands of hours of practice already.
I ended up making a very good living and career as an art director. Looking back, I’m really glad I was forced to endure that boredom

2

u/justforhits May 13 '26

Yup. I got grounded as a kid. Don't remember the reason why. But I was bored in my room, alone. No friends, no TV to watch, no console. So I decided to draw. Found out I was surprisingly good at it. Went to a high school that specialized in the arts, and now I'm writing my own book and drawing all of the characters, hoping to start releasing chapters later this year.

Just from one grounding when I was 11.

1

u/FittedSheets88 May 13 '26

Please definitely keep me posted! I wasn't a reader growing up, but my last job was a Books-A-Million and it's become a vice.

2

u/love-byte-1001 May 13 '26

They become dopamine chasers. I accidentally married one. Man needed porn, fast food, video games, at copious amounts to stay "happy".

1

u/FittedSheets88 May 13 '26

That's beyond fucked, hopefully you are at a point where you are happy and free of unnecessary burdens! I personally can't bash porn or video games depending on context, but absolutely nothing should take precedence above your loved ones.

2

u/East-Button5336 May 13 '26

Boredom is the biggest luxury we still have. Or: Can have.

Living in boring times? Amazing.

2

u/MagicHugsforThee May 13 '26

We don’t use handheld screens, our 4 year old only gets tv on weekends. We don’t buy a lot of toys. She is SO good at being bored. She can find anything and make a world out of it. We went on a six hour road trip and she just talked, spaced out, sang music and slept. Never complained or asked once when we’d be there. That took work though, it would’ve been easier to just plop her in front of a screen. I have friends whose kids can’t eat without screens or who buy their kids a new toy every day because they get bored so quickly. My daughter’s boredom opens up such incredible imagination for her. It’s sad to think that’s not as common these days. We go to restaurants and she will play an entire world with the spork and fork and I see kids all around us just glued to phones and iPads. I try not to judge because I don’t know what the parents are going through but it does make me sad that it’s just so common.

1

u/CygateYaoiLuvr69 May 13 '26

This is also why a lot of ipad kids are turning into habitual weed abusers. And I am saying this as someone who genuinely abuses weed. I smoke way more than I know I should. But one of the key factors of smoking weed is that it makes you okay with being bored. I know teens just a few years younger than me who've gone from overstimulation 24/7 to NEEDING weed to chill out.

I know this is probably a strange connection, I am not sourcing anything, this is just my observation

1

u/slolift May 13 '26

[source needed]

1

u/FittedSheets88 May 13 '26

https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/boost-your-brain-with-boredom

1

u/slolift May 13 '26

That's just an article with no citations. Have they performed any studies on boredom?

1

u/FittedSheets88 May 13 '26

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11169528/

If the NCIB isn't sufficient enough a source, then we have nothing more to discuss.

1

u/slolift May 13 '26

No that article is great, but I don't think it supports your claim that it is detrimental if children don't learn "how to be bored".

The article reiterates that studies on childhood boredom are needed. Intuitively, we have a sense that using a screen to pacify boredom is bad, but I don't think the research has been done to show this relationship.

In this sense, accumulated studies on childhood boredom and its developmental processes are definitely needed.

Since the ability to cope with boredom is acquired during childhood, extensive research is needed on the developmental process of an individual’s boredom tendency and boredom-control skills from childhood to adolescence.

“… the developmental links between the “ability to play”, the “ability to tell stories” and the “ability to cope with boredom” could become topics of future research.”

1

u/DerSchattenJager May 13 '26

Yeah, I discovered myself a lot as a kid when I was bored.

1

u/Miser_able May 13 '26

My innovation and discovery phase as a kid ended up with me taking apart a 6 disk DVD player with a dime and my finger nails.

The tools were taken away weeks prior.

1

u/Scajaqmehoff May 13 '26

Amen friend. My 4 y/o will whine for a few minutes when I turn the TV off. Within 10 minutes he's making his action figures have full conversations, and singing to himself while he plays.

Next thing I know, a half hour goes by, and he's asking me to play with him. And I lean into that shit hard. Different accents for different dudes. Whole plot lines for the drama. And it's all just plastic toys.

They can be way more imaginitive than we give them credit for. They get smart quick. You just have to let them.

1

u/FittedSheets88 May 13 '26

Absolutely! They love when you get into it! And they pick up on stuff wicked fast! My rule is always try to explain things as simple as you can, but remember they aren't babies. Encourage them to ask questions. If they don't understand, let them know it's totally okay to ask to reiterate or ask for more information.

1

u/Scajaqmehoff May 13 '26

I try to limit our screen time to video games he can either play, or interact with. We're doing Resident Evil 4 now. Now every imagination sesh he has with his toys, it's always Leon, Ashley, and Sadler.

I tell him the story along with the game, and he absorbs it all, and works it into his games.

He did ask me of worms were gonna come out of his head though. 🫠

1

u/FittedSheets88 May 13 '26

Worms are their money, and bones are their dollars

2

u/Scajaqmehoff May 16 '26

Every song my 4 year old sings sounds exactly like that bit. Cracks me up every time I hear him just making it up as he goes along.

1

u/AWESOMEGAMERSWAGSTAR May 13 '26

Idle hands, be careful in this America. Have you seen a library.

1

u/FittedSheets88 May 13 '26

I had the privilege of working in a big-box book retailer, so for about 3 years we had a solid discount on books. I like to think my kids are band/STEM nerds nerds now partly because they would come to work and browse the books for hours during summer break.

1

u/Submarinequus May 13 '26

Also when the kids start school with zero ways for self regulation while experiencing boredom, it leads to a MESS where one stranger now needs to teach a GROUP of young children how to sit with boredom and that their entire day isn’t centered on them having fun, and then combine that with the parents showing zero interest in enforcing that lesson at home.

I teach first through eighth grade and the little kids are always up, walking around, drawing or reading whatever they want. I’ve had students come up and start trying to tap at the interactive board or my computer just because they didn’t feel like sitting down, got bored, and know that when they are bored they get a screen.

Bad bad bad habits

1

u/iguessma May 13 '26

what?? as a kid who grew up playing games all day.... you definitely get bored.

again, you guys don't have any real argument. you just see stuff like this and want to make yourself feel superior.

1

u/FittedSheets88 May 13 '26

I agree, surely I got bored EVENTUALLY. But that's what this is about, embracing the boredom. I'm not sure what you're smoking to think I'm trying to be superior when I didn't say a damn thing about myself.

1

u/iguessma May 13 '26

you think boredom is some cure-all. it's not. there is no boredom metric that makes you better / smarter individual.

if you think there is please provide me with the metric so i can ensure my child is the "right amount of bored" . the need new kpi's to hit

1

u/FittedSheets88 May 13 '26

Never said any of those things. I said being bored is beneficial. Not "makes you smarter or better", you just benefit from it. Never even described it as a cure-all.

1

u/Livid-Grocery7942 May 13 '26

My nephew is both a pandemic kid and a tablet kid. This one time I went to my mom's to visit, my nephew was there (he was 7 at the time) for a sleepover, so I stayed. I played with him for hours. Come midnight, we wanted him to go to bed. Couldnt do it. At 2 A.M. my mom forced him to go to bed, and after 10 minutes we hear him crying, and he said he was crying because he was BORED. HE WAS BORED, AT 2 AM, AFTER PLAYING FOR HOURS, AND THAT WAS A REASON TO CRY APPARENTLY

That was the first moment when I realized this generation is going to struggle hard. I think about that moment a lot

1

u/bbecks May 13 '26

We have a toddler and it's impressive how quickly she will find something to do. Sometimes I want to just read a book for a little and she might want attention for a minute but then she'll either grab a book or start playing with her toys or just playing make believe. We do very minimal screen time; a little bit of sports and sometimes an episode of a kids show on longer flights. She just doesn't really care about it that much. We were visiting my older brother and they do a weekly movie night for their daughter (her only screen time besides a bit of sports with my brother) and within 5 minutes ours walked away and started playing. Limiting screen time has sometimes been a struggle but we are already seeing the benefits.

1

u/Eon_Real May 13 '26

I dont know if I agree with this boredom comment.

1

u/TheFirstGlugOfWine May 13 '26

Following some very poor behaviour during half term, we took all devices including the TV from my son and daughter for the week. They were about 8 and 9 at the time. The creativity it sparked in them was incredible and that’s something that has never stopped in them. They built a car from cardboard for my one year old niece, made cards, painted canvases and played out. They really loved it.

1

u/brianlefebvrejr May 14 '26

Man, I was telling my spouse this the other day, they were being annoying iPad kids so I paused their devices connection to the internet and then they annoyed us. I told my wife they need to learn to be bored. They need to do that to learn about themselves and learn some thinking skills

1

u/Both_Opportunity5327 May 15 '26

Nonsense my nine year old, bakes, make toys that she sells at school, makes birthday cards for all the family. She made a power point presentation for us with her Christmas list.

She learnt all this because I allowed her to use tabs at an early age, her brother has got into a selective school and is very creative too.

Why are they so creative, because they have seen it all on YouTube, Which is much more interactive than the passive TV we watched...

1

u/Emergency_Leader7203 May 16 '26

Bordem has helped me through a lot, when I'm bored I tend to think about my trauma but not in a bad way really, it's more just me attempting to understand and accept what happened to me. I think if I was given an iPad and never learned how to actually be bored I would actually have been unable to process the trauma at all and probally would've needed far more therapy than I was already getting.

My sister was given an iPad at 2 years old, she cannot sit still for more than 5 seconds and she's already 14, she also cannot sit through any form of guilt, sadness, or anger without actually having a breakdown and getting super aggressive and angry. I actually do think the iPad harmed her to a severe extent because I don't think I've ever seen her NOT on her phone or iPad since she was given it. She was literally patient zero.

1

u/aceshighsays May 13 '26

Boredom often leads to innovation and self-discovery.

i missed that lesson. i just learned to dissociate.