The high price we pay for social media
My daughter attended a Waldorf school (in Europe I believe they are called Steiner schools, after the founder, Rudolph Steiner). There were good things about it and bad things, and I know the experience varies a lot with the particular school and the particular teacher you draw (the same cohort of kids and the same teacher travel grades 1-8 together). My daughter had an amazing teacher so overall I&#x27;m happy with the experience.<p>One of their policies, something we had to literally sign on to, was that our kids would not consume any mass media: no TVs, no movie theaters, no radio, no laptop, no cellphone. That policy long predates laptops and cell phones. The net effect is that Waldorf families can be friends only with other Waldorf families otherwise (a) people think your kid is weird, (b) you are a cruel parent, (c) your kid will want to spend all their time at Jane&#x27;s house doing nothing but watching TV.<p>It is one of the aspects of their approach that I really appreciated and had a notable effect on the kids&#x27; behavior. Bored? Draw something. Go outside and lift up some rocks and see what is crawling underneath them. Build a fort out of found objects. See if you can stack rocks and make an arch. I&#x27;ve seen this happen on the playground: a kid grinds two limestone rocks together to make powder, collects it on a leaf, and pretends the powder is a magic potion; rather than being ridiculed, the other kids immediately take up the fiction and run with it.<p>8th grade is where they loosen the policy half way, then the next year they say there are no requirements but it is still good to try to keep it to a minimum. All of the kids were thirsty for phones by then and they get pretty sucked into it.<p>That was 10 years ago, and the net effect on me is that I have no desire to watch TV and rarely watch movies. Having an eight year break without it taught me I&#x27;m not missing much. I work from home so I don&#x27;t experience any awkward moments being culturally out of the loop at the office water cooler. The only social media accounts I have are youtube (I&#x27;m there for the content, not the comments) and HN. I believe I&#x27;m happier for it.