Cautious parents in Silicon Valley

In his article for Kopp-Verlag, Adnan Salazar cites various publications on the topic: How do managers of large technology companies handle the use of tablets and similar devices by their children? The technocrat elite knows that electronic devices can disrupt concentration and make people addicted. We summarize the publication for you here.

The New York Times article “Steve Jobs was a low-tech parent” from September 2014, talks about how the late Apple boss did not let his children play with the iPad, one of his company’s most popular devices:

“Your children must love the iPad, right?” I asked Jobs to change the subject. The company’s first tablet PC had just come onto the market. “They haven’t used it yet,” he replied. “We’re restricting how much technology our children can use at home.” I probably gasped out loud and then stared at him speechlessly. I had always imagined Steve Jobs’ household to be a paradise for nerds: The walls enormous touchscreens, a dining table made of iPads and visitors are given an iPod on their pillow as a bedtime treat.
No, that wouldn’t come close to reality at all, Jobs told me.

Since then, I have spoken to several heads of technology companies and venture capitalists and I have heard similar things from all of them: They regulate very strictly how much time their children spend in front of screens. During the week, all devices are often completely banned and only allowed at weekends, and even then often only in homeopathic doses.” (Original article on http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/fashion/steve-jobs-apple-was-a-low-tech-parent.html?_r=1)

In another article from the New York Times, we learn that some private schools where the elite send their children do without computer screens altogether – a stark contrast to the flood of computers that have filled state school classrooms in Europe in recent decades.

English original article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/technology/at-waldorf-school-in-silicon-valley-technology-can-wait.html?pagewanted=all

It describes how the technology chairman of Ebay sends his children to a small Waldorf school, as do the employees of other Silicon Valley giants including Google, Apple, Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard. There are no computers or screens in this school. Instead, the good old blackboard with colored chalk, pen and paper, bookshelves, knitting needles and sometimes mud. At the epicenter of technology, there is a strict distinction between school and computers!

A father is quoted who works for Google and finds it ridiculous that an app should perform teaching tasks better than a teacher. His children don’t know how to use Google yet; and he thinks technology has its place, but all in its own time. Not all students completely do without technology in their free time. Waldorf students say they occasionally watch movies or play video games at home. One pupil says that he prefers working with pen and paper to using a computer. For example, he can see how his handwriting improves over the years.

The fact that billionaires deliberately limit the amount of time their children are allowed to spend in front of a screen and that they are saying goodbye to the public education system, while at the same time promoting both for the rest of the population, should give us pause for thought.

Full article:

https://www.chip.de/news/Skeptischer-Technik-Guru-Steve-Jobs-verbot-seinen-Kindern-ein-Apple-Produkt_110418407.html