Surprising News about Steve Jobs (and Other Tech People)

I realize that this post may be VERY lengthy, but I thought it was worth considering. A few weeks ago I wrote about our society being a “non-connected connected society.” The words below are a portion of a transcript of Dr. Albert Mohler’s podcast; The Briefing. What he said is, in my opinion, surprising and very important.

I hope you’ll take the time to read his  words and the words of those whom he quoted.

–Jim Faughn

Tech executive parents understand vulnerability of children to technology

As I said, we live in a very ironic age – and in this case, a new irony comes to light. Sometimes it takes an unbeliever to make a profoundly important point about the centrality of belief. Earlier this week, millions upon millions of people appeared to be waiting – transfixed – for the latest announcement from technology giant, Apple. Even as people in the past waited for a word from the Lord, or word from the king, millions of people these days appear to be waiting for nothing more than a word from Apple. Apple chairman Tim Cook revealed a line of new products, including two new smartphones – the iPhones – and also a promised Apple watch. But all that is eclipsed by an article that appeared in yesterday’s edition of theNew York Times, the article really had nothing to do with the announcement made by Apple this week, but it has a great deal to do with the late Steve Jobs, Apple’s iconic former leader.

The headline in the New York Times is a shocker, “Steve Jobs Was A Low-Tech Parent.” Nick Bilton, writing in the disruptions columns of the paper writes, and I quote,

When Steve Jobs was running Apple, he was known to call journalists to either pat them on the back for a recent article or, more often than not, explain how they got it wrong. I was on the receiving end of a few of those calls [he writes]. But nothing shocked me more than something Mr. Jobs said to me in late 2010 after he had finished chewing me out for something I had written about an iPad shortcoming. “So, your kids must love the iPad?” I asked Mr. Jobs, trying to change the subject. The company’s first tablet was just hitting the shelves. “They haven’t used it,” he told me. “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”

Bilton then writes,

I’m sure I responded with a gasp and dumbfounded silence. I had imagined the Jobs’s household was like a nerd’s paradise: that the walls were giant touch screens, the dining table was made from tiles of iPads and that iPods were handed out to guests like chocolates on a pillow. Nope, Mr. Jobs told me, not even close.

Bilton then writes,

Since then, I’ve met a number of technology chief executives and venture capitalists who say similar things: they strictly limit their children’s screen time, often banning all gadgets on school nights, and allocating ascetic time limits on weekends.

Nick Bilton says he was dumbfounded by the statement from Steve Jobs, and perplexed by the paradox of all these technology chief executives who do not allow their children and teenagers to have much access to the technologies they develop and then sell. Back to his article, he writes

Chris Anderson, the former editor of Wired and now chief executive of 3D Robotics, a drone maker, has instituted time limits and parental controls on every device in his home. “My kids accuse me and my wife of being fascists and overly concerned about tech, and they say that none of their friends have the same rules,” he said of his five children, [aged] 6 to 17. “That’s because we have seen the dangers of technology firsthand. I’ve seen it in myself, I don’t want to see that happen to my kids.”

Remember, that was said by Chris Anderson, the former editor of Wired magazine, now chief executive of yet another technology firm. Nick Bilton then writes and I quote,

The dangers he is referring to include exposure to harmful content like pornography, bullying from other kids, and perhaps worse of all, becoming addicted to their devices, [he then adds the words] just like their parents.

Later in the article Nick Bilton tells us that most of these technology executives believe that the age of their children and teenagers is of utmost importance.

Children under 10 seem to be most susceptible to becoming addicted, so these parents draw the line at not allowing any gadgets during the week. On weekends, there are limits of 30 minutes to two hours on iPad and smartphone use. And 10- to 14-year-olds are allowed to use computers on school nights, but only for homework.

These technology executives told Bilton they have very clear restrictions for both children and teenagers on social networks. Then Bilton writes,

There is one rule that is universal among the tech parents I polled. “This is rule No. 1: There are no screens in the bedroom. Period. Ever,”

Bilton ends his article by referring to a conversation he had with Walter Isaacson, the major biographers of Steve Jobs. Isaacson told Bilton

“Every evening Steve made a point of having dinner at the big long table in their kitchen, discussing books and history and a variety of things,” he said. “No one ever pulled out an iPad or computer. The kids did not seem addicted at all to devices.”

In his article Nick Bilton asked a very interesting question, what do these technology executives know that other parents don’t know? Well, the obvious answer to that question appears to be this: technology never comes without a cost, technology, as the late French theologian Jacques Ellul said, always comes with a price. And that price is always exacted, and that price is particularly high among the vulnerable, and these tech parents, executives all, seen be very concerned about the fact that when it comes to their children and teenagers, they are the most vulnerable – and given that vulnerability, parents have to take kinds of defensive action such as are revealed in this article. But one of the most important insights from this column by Nick Bilton is that these tech executives, as parents, not only know something that other parents seem not to know, more importantly they are also doing something that other parents apparently aren’t doing – they are setting clear limits, they are not allowing the children to set their own parameters in terms of the use of these technologies, and they are using a word that is all too foreign to many parents but all too necessary to children and teenagers. That’s that short two letter word – no. These tech executives, as parents, are revealing to the world by this article that they are accustomed to say no to their own children about the devices they themselves have invented and developed and are now marketing to the world. So here’s a wake-up call for all parents – if technology executives know something that you don’t know, you need to know it fast, and this article is a quick way to get there. But it’s not only about knowing something, that is the dangers of these technologies and the addictive nature of these technologies in the lives, especially of the young, but also that parents have to be ready to do something. So add this irony to the ironies of the day – Steve Jobs may have been a high-tech executive, but he was a low-tech parent.

–Albert Mohler