Five year olds 'having panic attacks over socializing with their friends'

What’s the average screen time of these five year olds?<p>Intuitively, this seems like a simple result of over screening because kids don’t behave like devices.<p>Every time I go to a family restaurant, I see a tiny kid (frequently too young to even speak) sitting with a phone or iPad watching and maybe swiping away. And usually I experience a tantrum when that kid has to break away from their screen to do something in the real world.<p>If young kids spend more time with youtube than friends, that’s going to result in lots of stuff.<p>Fun fact, if you ever bring up how screens are bad for little kids you will fight with parents.

I&#x27;m so thankful to be in Texas and to have made the choice years ago to home school our kids. Though it has still been tough, being in a better position to make our own choices has made the past year easier. Our kids have mostly been able to continue doing their normal routine with schooling and seeing friends. I feel terrible for the kids that have been forced to leave their normal day to day routines and friends.

We&#x27;re going to spend the next years, or decade, dealing with the fallout of these lockdowns.<p>It seems like politicians in some countries are keeping the charade going, just because they don&#x27;t want to start dealing with the post-COVID era.<p>The data is very clear that countries which didn&#x27;t lockdown had very modest increases in deaths (eg. Sweden and Ukraine, +6% deaths YoY) and are now able to recover and resume normality much faster.<p>Whereas countries which did lockdown, faced much higher per-capita COVID deaths anyway, and now have all of these social problems to untangle: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.statista.com&#x2F;statistics&#x2F;1104709&#x2F;coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.statista.com&#x2F;statistics&#x2F;1104709&#x2F;coronavirus-deat...</a><p>If a family kept their child inside and out of school for a year, they would be arrested. Instead, we have willingly forced this on every child. We (in lockdown countries, who didn&#x27;t protest or agitate against this tyranny) should be ashamed of ourselves.

When I was a kid, we were told to go outside and not come back until the street lights turned on. We didn&#x27;t have computers, internet, or more than 5 TV channels on our 1 family TV.<p>Now the media has scared everyone into keeping their kids inside 24x7... then the plague made it even worse.<p>How can you not expect kids to end up with all that free time being burned up in screens? Parents don&#x27;t suddenly have more free time, and energy, to deal with kids than they did in the 1970s.<p>Many of the children in the 1st world haven&#x27;t been in the same room with other children in a year. Of course it is going to be difficult transitioning to our new normal.

Five year olds don&#x27;t have panic attacks. They have tantrums.

Honest question to those who have supported lockdowns: Are you surprised?<p>Edit: Apparently not.