I grew up without TV, computer, Playstation etc in a fairly rural area. It was great most of the time, till I had to go to school. I spent most of my time at home or around the farm, and my 2 other siblings. Very rare to see others outside our fam. And if anyone did visit I would hide from them, not knowing how to interact with them.
I never learnt how to socialize, and was very shy as a kid (and still am to a degree). I was even afraid to enter shops, and would only go into ones I had been to before with parents, if I had to. Wasn't till my early 20s that I built up enough courage to enter new stores without intense fear.
I started off at a school which I was bullied allot, never learnt anything, eventually was pulled and put into a traditional state school where I did much better (but far behind other kids). Though still bullied a bit, but teachers there actually cared, most bullying didn't last.
But once I got to High School (and to a degree primary) having such a different upbringing to all the other kids made it very hard to make any friends. Or have anything to in-common to talk about.
It also made parts of learning in school harder, because teachers would talk about xyz pop culture that 99% of kids knew about (e.g. popular movies), and I was just like.. what, I've never seen that.
The last 1-2 years of school once I was allowed a computer I had no self control, and binge watched SOO much tv/movies, in an attempt to catch up to kids my age, and have something to talk about. It would take many years to get it mostly under control.
I think for my kinda upbringing to work, you need to live somewhere where everyone is doing it too, otherwise it's a painful upbringing for the kids, which effects them for life, in a bad way in my case.
Maybe there is a middle ground to take here that would work better, idk.
Psychological problems can still be a result of upbringing.
In the GPs case, a lack of commonality with “regular” folk due to zero access to electronic devices, which lead to intense fear interacting with “regular” folk.
> pretty clear from the GPs post that they took steps to integrate
I didn't get that at all.
I'm telling you that I spent all my time with TV, computers, and video games and as a result did not learn how to socialize well until much later. If you think simply knowing the details to a popular TV show is going to win friends, at least in my case you'd be wrong.
If you're a kid that's going to get bullied/shunned, the specifics don't matter. Change them and the bullies will pick on something/anything else they can find.
Yes, the original anecdote was simplistic. Most “anecdata” is.
However your response that their social anxiety wasn’t a result of their upbringing, and then expanding that with the evidence being your own anecdote, is far more simplistic and somewhat uncharitable too.
You might be correct but you might also not. However you know less about the situation that the commenter (obviously) so I don’t really see how you can confidently assert anything about their condition.
And that is why I responded the way I had. It’s not saying you are definitively wrong; just that you know far too little about the specifics to make assertions.
this is interesting because on the surface i ad a similar upbringing but a very different outcome. now this was a decade or two earlier. internet didn't exist yet, but we had no TV, no car, and i didn't have a single friend until i entered university. i was also bullied (mildly).
but that's where the similarity ends. i was proud of how we lived. i didn't want to be friends with kids who had nothing in common with me. i deliberately distanced myself.
i got access to computers in highschool and spent a lot of time there. i got access to the internet at university and i got a TV.
somewhere in between i learned that i didn't like to waste time with mindless TV watching and i developed a discipline to study the TV guide to decide ahead of time what i wanted to watch. and i still do that. now everything is online, but i deliberately pick what and how much i want to watch. most of the time. i wish i could say what it was that gave me the feeling of not wanting to waste my time. but i have no clue.
anyway, to your key point:
I think for my kinda upbringing to work, you need to live somewhere where everyone is doing it too, otherwise it's a painful upbringing for the kids, which effects them for life, in a bad way in my case
or if you raise your kids in such a way that they don't want to have friends (in my case it wasn't deliberate, just circumstances), it's less painful, but it also affects them for life in an equally bad way.
i think a middle ground would be to teach the kids mindful watching of TV/youtube, playing games, etc. it takes discipline to be a good role model though.
I started off at a school which I was bullied allot, never learnt anything, eventually was pulled and put into a traditional state school where I did much better (but far behind other kids). Though still bullied a bit, but teachers there actually cared, most bullying didn't last.
But once I got to High School (and to a degree primary) having such a different upbringing to all the other kids made it very hard to make any friends. Or have anything to in-common to talk about. It also made parts of learning in school harder, because teachers would talk about xyz pop culture that 99% of kids knew about (e.g. popular movies), and I was just like.. what, I've never seen that.
The last 1-2 years of school once I was allowed a computer I had no self control, and binge watched SOO much tv/movies, in an attempt to catch up to kids my age, and have something to talk about. It would take many years to get it mostly under control.
I think for my kinda upbringing to work, you need to live somewhere where everyone is doing it too, otherwise it's a painful upbringing for the kids, which effects them for life, in a bad way in my case.
Maybe there is a middle ground to take here that would work better, idk.