Sticky Means Hooked. Do Not Kid Yourself, Pal
October 27, 2025
The Internet is addicting. Smart devices paired with the Internet, especially phones are digital needles filled with zeros and ones. According to Herman’s Blog and a recent post: “Smartphones And Being Present” people spend an average of four hours and thirty-seven minutes on their phones. It’s a very high number when you consider that people are supposed to be sleep for eight hours and work an additional eight. Half of the eight hours dedicated to recreation time is spent on a mobile device.
Herman, the author of the blog, doesn’t enjoy carrying the Internet around with him and tried switching to an old black and white phone. It didn’t last long because a smart device’s utilitarian uses are too great. The author is very old school because:
“I care about living an intentional and meaningful life, nurturing relationships, having nuanced conversations, and enjoying the world around me. I don’t want to spend this limited time I have on earth watching short form video and getting into arguments on Twitter.”
He admits that it’s hard not to be addicted to his phone. In order to not spend all of his free time on his phone, he decided to make it as uninteresting as possible. He turned off his YouTube recommendations, uses adblockers, and limits media consumption to RSS feeds. He’s retrained his brain to not seek his phone as a reward or turn to it every time he’s bored.
Herman encourages people to try limiting their smart device usage and being more present. It’s great advice. Humans are addicts, however, and they’re not going to listen. Call be Negative Nelly, but try taking a mobile phone from a 13 year old girl.
Whitney Grace, October 27, 2025
You Should Feel Lucky Because … Technology!
October 24, 2025
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Doesn’t it feel like people are accomplishing more than you? It’s a common feeling but Fast Company explains that high achievers are accomplishing more because they’re using tech. They’ve outlined a nice list of how high achieves do this: “4 Ways High Achievers Use Tech To Get More Done.” The first concept to understand is that high achievers use technology as a tool and not a distraction. Sachin Puri, Liquid Web’s chief growth office said,
“‘They make productivity apps their first priority, plan for intentional screen time, and select platforms intentionally. They may spend lots of time on screens, but they set boundaries where they need to, so that technology enhances their performance, rather than slowing it down.’”
Liquid Web surveyed six-figure earners aka high achievers to learn how they leverage their tech. They discovered that these high earners are intention with their screen time. They average seven hours a day on their screens but their time is focused on being productive. They also limit phone entertainment time to three hours a day.
Sometimes they also put a hold on using technology for mental and health hygiene. It’s important to take technology breaks to reset focus and maintain productiveness. They also choose tools to be productive such as calendar/scheduling too, using chatbots to stay ahead of deadlines, also to automize receptive tasks, brainstorm, summarize information, and stay ahead of deadlines.
Here’s another important one: high achievers focus their social media habits. Here’s what Liquid Web found that winners have focused social media habits. Yes, that is better than doom scrolling. Other finding are:
- “Finally, high-achievers are mindful of social media. For example, 49% avoid TikTok entirely. Instead, they gravitate toward sites that offer a career-related benefit. Nearly 40% use Reddit as their most popular platform for learning and engagement.
- Successful people are also much more engaged on LinkedIn. Only 17% of high-achievers said they don’t use the professional networking site, compared to 38% of average Americans who aren’t engaged there.
- “Many high-achievers don’t give up on screens altogether—they just shift their focus,” says Puri. “Their social media habits show it, with many opting for interactive, discussion-based apps such as Reddit over passive scroll-based apps such as TikTok.”
The lesson here is that screen time isn’t always a time waste bin. We did not know that LinkedIn was an important service since the report suggests that 83 percent of high achievers embrace the Microsoft service. Don’t the data go into the MSFT AI clothes hamper?
Whitney Grace, October 24, 2025
A Meta Believe It or Not: No Spying on Our Users. No, No, No
October 24, 2025
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Why worry about the data big tech collect about users. The grannies at the European Union wring their hands. In the US, it’s no problemo. Therefore, social media companies, cellphone and Internet providers, Kroger-like grocery chains, and even the local utility monopolies harvest data and sell it to advertisers. Case in point: I was speaking with a friend about a particular coffee brand I enjoy on a private text. When I turned on my TV, I saw a commercial for that exact same coffee brand. Coincidence? Sure, just like those ads for puffy jackets on Web sites after I buy a nifty blue puffer on Amazon. Yeah, I am going to buy another puffy after I just bought one.
That’s scarier than a R-rated horror movie and dumber.
Big Tech companies like Meta assure consumers they aren’t spying on them, but The Verge suspects otherwise: “Adam Mosseri’s ‘We’re Totally Not Spying On You’ Video Is Raising A Lot Of Questions."
Meta announced it will soon use AI chats to personalize ads. In poor timing, Adam Mosseri released a myth breaking video that attempted to assure users that Meta is not listening in on their conversations or reading their messages.
Meta’s ad system, however, is precise to the point of paranormal activity. Mosseri did offer explanations that reads like digital cookies and lies:
One, maybe you actually tapped on something that was related or even searched for that product online on a website, maybe before you had that conversation. We actually do work with advertisers who share information with us about who is on their website to try to target those people with ads. So if you were looking at a product on a website, then that advertiser might have paid us to reach you with an ad.
Two, we show people ads that we think that they’re interested in, or products we think they’re interested in, in part based on what their friends are interested in and what similar people with similar interests are interested in. So it could be that you were talking to someone about a product, and they, before, had to actually looked for or searched for that product, or that, in general, people with similar interests were doing the exact same thing.
Three, you might have actually seen that ad before you had a conversation and not realized it. We scroll quickly, we scroll by ads quickly, and sometimes you internalize some of that, and that actually affects what you talk about later.
Four, random chance, coincidence, it happens.”
Yeah, coincidence. Humans are programmed to notice patterns in their environment. It’s a survival instinct. Many of these patterns have transformed into odd conspiracy theories and rampant paranoia. Back in the day, these “coincidences” could have been chalked up to odd circumstances. Now it’s because Big Tech is watching. Anyone want a cup of coffee?
Whitney Grace, October 21, 2025
Losing Money? No Problem, Says OpenAI.
October 24, 2025
Losing billions? Not to worry.
I wouldn’t want to work on OpenAI’s financial team with these numbers, according to Tech In Asia’s article, “OpenAI’s H1 2025: $4.3b In Income, $13.5b In Loss.” You don’t have to be proficient in math to see that OpenAI is in the red after losing over thirteen billion dollars and only bringing in a little over four billion.
The biggest costs were from the research and development department operating at a loss of $6.7 billion. It spent $2 billion in sales and advertising, then had $2.5 bullion in stock-based compensation. These were both double that of expenses in these departments last year. Operating costs were another hit at $7.8 billion and it spent $2.5 billion in cash.
Here’s the current state of things:
“OpenAI paid Microsoft 20% of its revenue under an existing agreement.
At the end of June, the company held roughly US$17.5 billion in cash and securities, boosted by US$10 billion in new funding, and as of the end of July, was seeking an additional US$30 billion from investors.
A tender offer underway values OpenAI’s for-profit arm at about US$500 billion.”
The company isn’t doing well in the numbers but its technology is certainly in high demand and will put the company back in black…eventually. We believe that if one thinks it, the “it” will manifest, become true, and make the world very bright.
Whitney Grace, October 24, 2025
Starlink: Are You the Only Game in Town? Nope
October 23, 2025
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I read “SpaceX Disables More Than 2,000 Starlink Devices Used in Myanmar Scam Compounds.” Interesting from a quite narrow Musk-centric focus. I wonder if this is a PR play or the result of some cooperative government action. The write up says:
Lauren Dreyer, the vice-president of Starlink’s business operations, said in a post on X Tuesday night that the company “proactively identified and disabled over 2,500 Starlink Kits in the vicinity of suspected ‘scam centers’” in Myanmar. She cited the takedowns as an example of how the company takes action when it identifies a violation of its policies, “including working with law enforcement agencies around the world.”
The cyber outfit added:
Myanmar has recently experienced a handful of high-profile raids at scam compounds which have garnered headlines and resulted in the arrest, and in some cases release, of thousands of workers. A crackdown earlier this year at another center near Mandalay resulted in the rescue of 7,000 people. Nonetheless, construction is booming within the compounds around Mandalay, even after raids, Agence France-Presse reported last week. Following a China-led crackdown on scam hubs in the Kokang region in 2023, a Chinese court in September sentenced 11 members of the Ming crime family to death for running operations.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
Just one Chinese crime family. Even more interesting.
I want to point out that the write up did not take a tiny extra step; for example, answer this question, “What will prevent the firms listed below from filling the Starlink void (if one actually exists)? Here are some Starlink options. These may be more expensive, but some surplus cash is spun off from pig butchering, human trafficking, drug brokering, and money laundering. Here’s the list from my files. Remember, please, that I am a dinobaby in a hollow in rural Kentucky. Are my resources more comprehensive than a big cyber security firm’s?
- AST
- EchoStar
- Eutelsat
- HughesNet
- Inmarsat
- NBN Sky Muster
- SES S.A.
- Telstra
- Telesat
- Viasat
With access to money, cut outs, front companies, and compensated government officials, will a Starlink “action” make a substantive difference? Again this is a question not addressed in the original write up. Myanmar is just one country operating in gray zones where government controls are ineffective or do not exist.
Starlink seems to be a pivot point for the write up. What about Starlinks in other “countries” like Lao PDR? What about a Starlink customer carrying his or her Starlink into Cambodia? I wonder if some US cyber security firms keep up with current actions, not those with some dust on the end tables in the marketing living room.
Stephen E Arnold, October 23, 2025
AI: There Is Gold in Them There Enterprises Seeking Efficiency
October 23, 2025
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I read a “ride-em-cowboy” write up called “IBM Claims 45% Productivity Gains with Project Bob, Its Multi-Model IDE That Orchestrates LLMs with Full Repository Context.” That, gentle reader, is a mouthful. Let’s take a quick look at what sparked an efflorescence of buzzing jargon.
Thanks, Midjourney. Good enough like some marketing collateral.
I noted this statement about Bob (no, not the famous Microsoft Bob):
Project Bob, an AI-first IDE that orchestrates multiple LLMs to automate application modernization; AgentOps for real-time agent governance; and the first integration of open-source Langflow into Watsonx Orchestrate, IBM’s platform for deploying and managing AI agents. IBM’s announcements represent a three-pronged strategy to address interconnected enterprise AI challenges: modernizing legacy code, governing AI agents in production and bridging the prototype-to-production gap.
Yep, one sentence. The spirit of William Faulkner has permeated IBM’s content marketing team. Why not make a news release that is a single sentence like the 1300 word extravaganza in “Absalom, Absalom!”?
And again:
Project Bob isn’t another vibe coder, it’s an enterprise modernization tool.
I can visualize IBM customers grabbing the enterprise modernization tool and modernizing the enterprise. Yeah, that’s going to become a 100 percent penetration quicker than I can say, “Bob was the precursor to Clippy.” (Oh, sorry. I was confusing Microsoft’s Bob with IBM’s Bob again. Drat!)
Is it Watson making the magic happen with IDE’s and enterprise modernization? No, Watson is probably there because, well, that’s IBM. But the brains for Bob comes from Anthropic. Now Bob and Claude are really close friends. IBM’s middleware is Watson, actually Watsonx. And the magic of these systems produces …. wait for it … AgentOps and Agentic Workflows.
The write up says:
Agentic Workflows handles the orchestration layer, coordinating multiple agents and tools into repeatable enterprise processes. AgentOps then provides the governance and observability for those running workflows. The new built-in observability layer provides real-time monitoring and policy-based controls across the full agent lifecycle. The governance gap becomes concrete in enterprise scenarios.
Yep, governance. (I still don’t know what that means exactly.) I wonder if IBM content marketing documents should come with a glossary like the 10 pages of explanations of Telegram’s wild and wonderful crypto freedom jargon.
My hunch is that IBM wants to provide the Betty Crocker approach to modernizing an enterprise’s software processes. Betty did wonders for my mother’s chocolate cake. If you want more information, just call IBM. Perhaps the agentic workflow Claude Watson customer service line will be answered by a human who can sell you the deed to a mountain chock full of gold.
Stephen E Arnold, October 23, 2025
Woof! Innovation Is Doomed But Novel Gym Shoes Continue
October 23, 2025
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I have worked for commercial and government firms. My exposure ranges from the fun folks at Bell Labs and Bellcore to the less than forward leaning people at a canned fish outfit not far from MIT. Geography is important … sometimes. I have also worked on “innovation teams,” labored in a new product organization, and sat at the hand of the all-time expert of product innovation, Conrad Jones. Ah, you don’t know the name. That ices you out of some important information about innovation. Too bad.
I read “No Science, No Startups: The Innovation Engine We’re Switching Off.” The write up presents a reasonable and somewhat standard view of the “innovation process.” The basic idea is that there is an ecosystem which permits innovation. Think of a fish tank. Instead of water, we have fish, pet fish to be exact. We have a hobbyist. We have a bubbler and a water feed. We even have toys in the fish tank. The owner of the fish tank is a hobbyist. The professional fish person might be an ichthyologist or a crew member on a North Sea fishing boat. The hobbyist buys live fish from the pet side of the fish business. The ichthyologist studies fish. The fishing boat crew member just hauls them in and enjoys every minute of the activity. Winter is particularly fun. I suppose I could point out other aspects of the fish game. How about fish oil? What about those Asian fish sauces? What about the perfume makers who promise that Ambroxan is just as good as ambergris. Then these outfits in Grasse buy whale stuff for their best concoctions.
Innovation never stops… with or without a research grant. It may not be AI, but it shows a certain type of thinking. Thanks, Venice.ai, good enough.
The fish business is complicated. Innovation, particularly in technology-centric endeavors, is more complex. The “No Science, No Startups” essay makes innovation simple. Is innovation really little more than science theorists, researchers, and engineers moving insights and knowledge through a poorly disorganized and poorly understood series of activities?
Yes, it is like the fish business. One starts with a herring. Where one ends up can quite surprising, maybe sufficiently baffling to cause people to say, “No way, José.” Here’s an example: Fish bladders use to remove impurities from wine. Eureka! An invention somewhere in the mists of time. That’s fish. Technology in general and digital technology in particular are more slippery. (Yep, a fish reference.)
The cited essay says the pipeline has several process containers filled with people. (Keep in mind that outfits like Google Deepseek want to replace humanoids with smart software. But let’s go with the humans matter approach for this blog post.)
- Scientists who find, gather, discover, or stumble upon completely new things. Remember this from grade school, “Come here, Mr. Watson.”
- Engineers who recycle, glue together, or apply insight X to problem Y and create something novel as product Y.
- MBA-inspired people look and listen (sort of) to what engineers say and experience a Eureka moment. Some moments lead to Pets.com. Others yield a Google-type novelty with help from a National Science Foundation grant. (Check out that PageRank patent.)
The premise is that if the scientific group does not have money, the engineers and the MBA-inspired people will have a tough time coming up with new products, services, applications, or innovations. Is a flawed self-driving system in the family car an innovation or an opportunity to dance with death?
Where is the cited essay going? It is heading toward doom for the US belief that the country is the innovation leader. That’s America’s manifest destiny. The essay says:
Cut U.S. funding, then science will happen in other countries that understand its relationship to making a nation great – like China. National power is derived from investments in Science. Reducing investment in basic and applied science makes America weak.
In general, I think the author of this “No Science, No Startups” is on a logical path. However, I am not sure the cited article’s analysis covers the possibilities of innovation. Let’s go back to fish.
The fish business is complicated and global. The landscape of the fish business changes if an underwater volcano erupts near the fishing areas not too distant from Japan and China. The fish business can take a knock if some once benign microbe does the Darwin thing and rips through the world’s cod. What happens to fish if some countries’ fishing community eat the stock of tuna? What if a TikTok video convinces people not to eat fish or to wear articles of clothing fabricated of fish skin. (Yes, it is a thing.)
Innovation, particularly in technology, has as many if not more points of disruption. The disruptions or to use blue chip consultant speak or exogenous events occur, humanoids have a history of innovating. Vikings in the sixth century kept warm without lighting fires on their wooden boats made water tight with flammable pine tar. (Yep, like those wooden boat hull churches, the spectacle of a big time fire teaches a harsh lesson.)
If I am correct that discontinuities, disruptions, and events humans cannot control occur, here’s what I think about innovation, spending lots of money, and entrepreneurs.
- If Maxwell could innovate, so can theorists and scientists today. Does the government have to fund these people? Possibly but mom might produce some cash or the scientist has a side gib.
- Will individuals not now recognized as scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs come up with novel products and services? The answer is, “Yes.” How do I know? Easy. Someone had to figure out how to make a wheel: No lab, no grants, no money, just a log and a need to move something. Eureka worked then and it will work again.
- Is technology itself the reason big bucks are needed? My view is yes. Each technological innovation seems to have bigger price tags than the previous technological innovation. How much did Apple spend making a “new and innovative” orange iPhone? Answer: Too much. Why? Answer: To sell a fashion item. Is this innovation? Answer: Nope. Its MBA think and that, gentle reader, is infinitely innovative.
If I think about AI, I find myself gravitating to the AI turmoil at Apple and Meta. Money, smart people, and excuses. OpenAI is embracing racy outputs. That’s innovation at three big outfits. World-changing? Nope, stock and financial wobblies. That’s not how innovation is supposed to work, is it?
Net net: The US is definitely churning out wonky products, students who cannot read or calculate, and research that is bogus. The countries who educate, enforce standards, and put wandering young minds in schools and laboratories will generate new products and services. The difference is that these countries will advance in technological innovation. The countries that embrace lower standards, reduced funding for research, and glorify doom scrolling will become third-world outfits. What countries will be the winners in innovation? The answer is not the country that takes the lead in foot ware made of fish skins.
Stephen E Arnold, October 23, 2025
I love
AI and Data Exhaustion: Just Use Synthetic Data and Recycle User Prompts
October 23, 2025
That did not take long. The Independent reports, “AI Has Run Out of Training Data, Warns Data Chief.” Yes, AI models have gobbled up the world’s knowledge in just a few years. Neema Raphael, Goldman Sach’s chief data officer and head of engineering, made that declaration on a recent podcast. He added that, as a result, AI models will increasingly rely on synthetic data. Get ready for exponential hallucinations. Writer Anthony Cuthbertson quotes Raphael:
“We’ve already run out of data. I think what might be interesting is people might think there might be a creative plateau… If all of the data is synthetically generated, then how much human data could then be incorporated? I think that’ll be an interesting thing to watch from a philosophical perspective.”
Interesting is one word for it. Cuthbertson notes Raphael’s warning did not come out of the blue. He writes:
“An article in the journal Nature in December predicted that a ‘crisis point’ would be reached by 2028. ‘The internet is a vast ocean of human knowledge, but it isn’t infinite,’ the article stated. ‘Artificial intelligence researchers have nearly sucked it dry.’ OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever said last year that the lack of training data would mean that AI’s rapid development ‘will unquestionably end’. The situation is similar to fossil fuels, according to Mr Sutskever, as human-generated content is a finite resource just like oil or coal. ‘We’ve achieved peak data and there’ll be no more,’ he said. ‘We have to deal with the data that we have. There’s only one internet.’”
So AI firms knew this limitation was coming. Did they warn investors? They may have concerns about this “creative plateau.” The write-up suggests the dearth of fresh data may force firms to focus less on LLMs and more on agentic AI. Will that be enough fuel to keep the hype train going? Sure, hype has a life of its own. Now synthetic data? That’s forever.
Cynthia Murrell, October 23, 2025
Amazon and its Imperative to Dump Human Workers
October 22, 2025
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Everyone loves Amazon. The local merchants thank Amazon for allowing them to find their future elsewhere. The people and companies dependent on Amazon Web Services rejoiced when the AWS system failed and created an opportunity to do some troubleshooting and vendor shopping. The customer (me) who received a pair of ladies underwear instead of an AMD Ryzen 5750X. I enjoyed being the butt of jokes about my red, see through microprocessor. Was I happy!
Mice discuss Amazon’s elimination of expensive humanoids. Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
However, I read “Amazon Plans to Replace More Than Half a Million Jobs With Robots.” My reaction was that some employees and people in the Amazon job pipeline were not thrilled to learn that Amazon allegedly will dump humans and embrace robots. What a great idea. No health care! No paid leave! No grousing about work rules! No medical costs! No desks! Just silent, efficient, depreciable machines. Of course there will be smart software. What could go wrong? Whoops. Wrong question after taking out an estimated one third of the Internet for a day. How about this question, “Will the stakeholders be happy?” There you go.
The write up cranked out by the Gray Lady reports from confidential documents and other sources says:
Amazon’s U.S. work force has more than tripled since 2018 to almost 1.2 million. But Amazon’s automation team expects the company can avoid hiring more than 160,000 people in the United States it would otherwise need by 2027. That would save about 30 cents on each item that Amazon picks, packs and delivers to customers. Executives told Amazon’s board last year that they hoped robotic automation would allow the company to continue to avoid adding to its U.S. work force in the coming years, even though they expect to sell twice as many products by 2033. That would translate to more than 600,000 people whom Amazon didn’t need to hire.
Why is Amazon dumping humans? The NYT turns to that institution that found Jeffrey Epstein a font of inspiration. I read this statement in the cited article:
“Nobody else has the same incentive as Amazon to find the way to automate,” said Daron Acemoglu, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies automation and won the Nobel Prize in economic science last year. “Once they work out how to do this profitably, it will spread to others, too.” If the plans pan out, “one of the biggest employers in the United States will become a net job destroyer, not a net job creator,” Mr. Acemoglu said.
Ah, save money. Keep more money for stakeholders. Who knew? Who could have foreseen this motivation?
What jobs will Amazon provide to humans? Obviously leadership will keep leadership jobs. In my decades of professional work experience, I have never met a CEO who really believes anyone else can do his or her job. Well, the NYT has an answer about what humans will do at Amazon; to wit:
Amazon has said it has a million robots at work around the globe, and it believes the humans who take care of them will be the jobs of the future. Both hourly workers and managers will need to know more about engineering and robotics as Amazon’s facilities operate more like advanced factories.
I wish to close this essay with several observations:
- Much of the information in the write up come from company documents. I am not comfortable with the use of this type of information. It strikes me as a short cut, a bit like Google or self-made expert saying, “See what I did!”
- Many words were used to get one message across: Robots and by extension smart software will put people out of work. Basic income time, right? Why not say that?
- The reason wants to dump people is easy to summarize: Humans are expensive. Cut humans, costs drop (in theory). But are there social costs? Sure, but why dwell on those.
Net net: Sigh. Did anyone reviewing this story note the Amazon online collapse? Perhaps there is a relationship between cost cutting at Amazon and the company’s stability?
Stephen E Arnold, October 22, 2025
Parents and Screen Time for Their Progeny: A Losing Battle? Yep
October 22, 2025
Sometimes I am glad my child-rearing days are well behind me. With technology a growing part of childhood education and leisure, how do parents stay on top of it all? For over 40%, not as well as they would like. The Pew Research Center examined “How Parents Manage Screen Time for Kids.” The organization surveyed US parents of kids 12 and under about the use of tablets, smartphones, smartwatches, gaming devices, and computers in their daily lives. Some highlights include:
“Tablets and smartphones are common – TV even more so.
[a] Nine-in-ten parents of kids ages 12 and younger say their child ever watches TV, 68% say they use a tablet and 61% say they use a smartphone.
[b] Half say their child uses gaming devices. About four-in-ten say they use desktops or laptops.
AI is part of the mix.
[c] About one-in-ten parents say their 5- to 12-year-old ever uses artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT or Gemini.
[c] Roughly four-in-ten parents with a kid 12 or younger say their child uses a voice assistant like Siri or Alexa. And 11% say their child uses a smartwatch.
Screens start young.
[e] Some of the biggest debates around screen time center on the question: How young is too young?
[f] It’s not just older kids on screens: Vast majorities of parents say their kids ever watch TV – including 82% who say so about a child under 2.
[g] Smartphone use also starts young for some, but how common this is varies by age. About three-quarters of parents say their 11- or 12-year-old ever uses one. A slightly smaller share, roughly two-thirds, say their child age 8 to 10 does so. Majorities say so for kids ages 5 to 7 and ages 2 to 4.
[h] And fewer – but still about four-in-ten – say their child under 2 ever uses or interacts with one.”
YouTube is a big part of kids’ lives, presumably because it is free and provides a “contained environment for kids.” Despite this show of a “child-safe” platform, many have voiced concerns about both child-targeted ads and questionable content. TikTok and other social media are also represented, of course, though a whopping 80% of parents believe those platforms do more harm than good for children.
Parents cite several reasons they allow kids to access screens. Most do so for entertainment and learning. For children under five, keeping them calm is also a motivation. Those who have provided kids with their own phones overwhelmingly did so for ease of contact. On the other hand, those who do not allow smartphones cite safety, developmental concerns, and screen time limits. Their most common reason, though, is concern about inappropriate content. (See this NPR article for a more in-depth discussion of how and why to protect kids from seeing porn online, including ways porn is more harmful than it used to be. Also, your router is your first line of defense.)
It seems parents are not blind to the potential harms of technology. Almost all say managing screen time is a priority, though for most it is not in the top three. See the write-up for more details, including some handy graphs. Bottomline: Parents are fighting a losing battle in many US households.
Cynthia Murrell, October 22. 2025
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