In his column, Bad Advice, writer Collin Preciado will be giving you the worst advice you’ve ever heard.
Dear Collin,
My partner and I have recently come to our first major disagreement on how to raise our girls (ages 2 and 4), and we’re having a hard time finding any sort of compromise. Our issue is how much screen time our children should be receiving a day. I’m of the opinion that children should have little to no screen time since it only seems to turn them into dead-eyed little zombies, and when the screens are finally turned off, they are irritable and cranky. To me, this seems like the excessive screen use is probably not very good for them. My husband, who stays at home with the kids during the day, says he has to sit them down in front of the iPad so he can make them lunch or clean the house or any number of things he says he has to do. The iPad is showing they’re using it a couple hours every day, and that’s not even including the amount of TV they’re probably watching. I’m worried all this screen time is going to scramble their brains and delay their development, but there’s not a lot of hard science I can show him to prove to him I’m right. My question is how do I make him do what I want?
Sincerely,
Working Mom
Dear Working Mom,
I don’t think it’s true that there aren’t a lot of studies on the negative effects of excessive screen time on children, but, luckily, nobody cares about science anymore anyways. Now that the Department of Health and Human Services is under the thoughtful leadership of a whale-decapitating nepo baby who thinks COVID-19 was a bioweapon created by Ashkenazi Jews and the Chinese, we’re free to disregard any and all evidence-based science and just believe whatever we want to, and, personally, I believe screen time is really really, really good for little kid brains.
So, unfortunately for you, I’m with your partner on this one. Why bother putting in the effort to raise your own kids when YouTube and Bluey are right there to do it for you? There’s simply no way to raise kids without screens anyway. It’s never been done. It’s literally impossible.
Now, right now, some lame nerd might be pointing out that, prior to tablets, parents had been raising their kids for hundreds of thousands of years just fine without employing the use of screen technology, and my counterpoint to them is that they can go fuck themselves. You only have so many hours in a day to stare at your own phone, and any moment spent engaging one-on-one with your child is less time you get to spend watching people pop pimples or deep-clean carpets.
If anything, your kids should be getting more screen time. Even if they’re doing the simplest of tasks like getting a haircut, their face better be buried in an iPad so they’re not bothering you or anyone else around them. Kids should never be seen or heard, and all they should be seeing and hearing is an endless video of the stupidest and laziest slop the internet can provide.
These kids need to learn as quickly as possible that the only thing that really matters in this life are devices. The worst hour I’ve ever spent looking at my phone (reading my own column) was still a thousand times better than any hour I’ve ever spent with my parents. My childhood would have definitely been way more memorable had my parents just given me an iPad and headphones when we were out at a restaurant instead of teaching me how to behave in public. Who needs friends or social skills when you can just expose your brain to high-intensity light and sound all day? The key to a happy life isn’t meaningful human interaction; it’s screens. At least that’s what I have chosen to believe, which is my God-given right as an American.
Dear Collin,
Stoner Jim here. Read your new feature in Cincinnati CityBeat, an updated Miss Lonelyhearts. We’re now fellow travelers, riding this CityBeat wave… Welcome.
Slopmonster: Nathaniel West warned us a long time ago, “Oranges no longer titillate our jaded senses.”
Stoner Jim: “Bad Advice” has that noir feel and we have [redacted] working with us.
Slopmonster: Can you help guide us back to the Age of Aquarius?
Stoner Jim: We took a wrong turn and just kept going, as Springsteen suggested.
Slopmonster: And, damn, here we are, a psychedelic Ball of Confusion. We’re looking for a miracle… Collin?
Sincerely,
Stoner Jim and Slopmonster
Dear Stoner Jim and Slopmonster,
Right on. I’m not entirely sure I have any idea what you are talking about, but I appreciate your vibe. I am slightly disturbed by the apparent comparison to Nathanael West, if only because he died at the same age that I am currently, an age that some older people may consider young. Don’t look it up.
If you guys are reading this response in the same altered psychedelic state you were under when you sent me this email, the electric wolf with smoke eyes and black licorice teeth has asked me to provide you with a secret message: What goes on in the sea is of no interest to the rock, unless the rock is Dwayne Johnson, maybe.
Send me your unsolvable problem at badadvice@citybeat.com. What’s the worst thing that could happen? I’ll be sure to let you know.
This story is featured in CityBeat’s April 2 print edition.
This article appears in Apr 2-8, 2025.