Biggest technology leaders limit the tech their kids use

In a New York Times article titled “Steve Jobs Was a Low Tech Parent“, Nick Bilton describes how many technology entrepreneurs actually strictly limit their kids’ access to high tech gadgets.  Soon after the iPad was released, Steve Jobs told Nick that his kids hadn’t yet used the devices, revealing that he limited how much technology the kids used at home.  Nick goes on to say:

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.

I was perplexed by this parenting style. After all, most parents seem to take the opposite approach, letting their children bathe in the glow of tablets, smartphones and computers, day and night.

Yet these tech C.E.O.’s seem to know something that the rest of us don’t.

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, 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.”

Indeed, maybe they know something we don’t.

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