Off late I am hearing a lot about independence of living on a campus sets some students down a path of TV addiction and some spend as many as 4-6 hrs a day catching up on shows they were denied of during high school. I am really concerned about this, one of my friends who was a top student in high school was telling us how he went down this Rabbit hole and almost got academic probation.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to stay away from this. Are there any policies that the university enforces that prevents access to these streaming services at - on campus housing common rooms etc) Personally I won’t be subscribing to these services but what are my alternatives?
I suggest that your issue is buried right there. Freshman year of college is a terrible situation for kids to learn self-restraint for the first time. They have to practice while they are still living at home, which means that they need to have enough freedom to make some mistakes and to learn from them.
There may be one somewhere, but I don’t know of any college that does anything to prevent access to streaming video, either on private computers or in common rooms. The occasional personal or group binge was a regular feature of my children’s college years. They got their work done anyway, and usually (but not always) first.
“They have to practice while they are still living at home, which means that they need to have enough freedom to make some mistakes and to learn from them.”
This is exactly why I am concerned, my parents disconnected cable TV when I was in 10th grade and have promised to get it back this summer. I wasn’t allowed to watch any of the popular shows or even NBA and NFL. I have felt socially and culturally isolated from my peers. I am looking for suggestions and tips to manage myself to develop the self-control needed to have healthy balance. I am afraid that this will be like opening the flood gates. @JHS
No policy from university that prevents access - that would be unconstitutional.
You can go through what your friend did and myself to get into it and never do it again the hard way.
In a sense, it’s not those difficult classes that makes Berkeley difficult, but the sudden freedom you receive and how you self-discipline your way through.
Have your parents install K9 on your laptop or phone, configure it to block certain websites, and not let you know the admin password? That is one way. Still hackable to get around it, but works pretty well. I had it on my kid’s laptop until sophomore year in HS but I figured after he could hack his way around things, it didn’t make much sense to use this software.
Other types of solutions are at the router level, and the university doesn’t allow you to bring your own router.
I suspect my kid still spends a lot of time on YouTube and the like, bit at this point he’s in control, it’s his life and grades. Not too much more I can suggest.
Most of the kids I know who crashed and burned in their freshman year due to time-wasting addictions were boys who sat in in their dorm rooms playing video games for endless hours.
Ah, the unintended consequences of parents trying to shield their kids from distractions. The minute someone has unfettered access, he or she is in danger of going off of the deep end. Understand that avoidance - of schoolwork, studying, etc. - is a choice. It’s very easy to use Netflix, partying, gaming, or anything else to distract yourself from the one thing you are at school for: to get the grades that get a degree (or entry into the next phase of your education). Remember: you have control of you. If you feel you must get some viewing in on a regular basis but know you may be prone to abusing it, use it as a reward. You studied for 2 hours, you get a 1/2 hour show break, or something like that.
Treat college as a job, a full time job. Attend classes, keep up on your work, treat yourself to a show on Netflix after your work for the day is done. You have a choice to live your life in a healthy way.
Thank you all for support and advice. I will try my best to not get there to begin with. I feel reward is a slippery slope, 1/2hr can easily turn in to 2 hrs.
My kids grew up without screens with the exception of one family computer when they were all over 10. They have never r overdone it since leaving the house. None of them is drawn to screens now due to deprivation when younger. Instead, I think it helped them develop good habits in terms of how to spend free time. So don’t blame your parents.
Watching Netflix is fine. The problem is bingeing and wanting to finish a series when it is already late and time to sleep. If you stay up past your first sleepiness, you can wake up again and then have trouble sleeping when done. And yes it is a time suck, but relaxation is a good thing.
Not very many young people have tv’s anymore. I am in my late 60’s and I don’t either! I watch Netflix-only- on my laptop. Maybe limit yourself to just Netflx and try to stop at a good time. The remaining episodes will still be there in the morning.
Get involved in activities and social life, maybe volunteer or intern, and basically leave yourself little time to veg out in front of a screen. But a little to relax is fine.
Different people approach this issue different ways. Some just never get a TV or get interested in video games to begin with.
I am a big football and hockey fan. Starting in high school, I would go to the den at home or the common area in college to watch football and take my books and a small board I could put on my lap to write on. I was mostly listening and picked up on the tone of the announcer to tell if I should look up at the screen. Obviously I wasn’t as efficient at studying but at least getting something done while “watching” the game. Hockey games were typically radio only and so listened at my desk. You just had to learn to manage your time and allow for those inefficient study times (and the other activities you will be involved in).
One side benefit from watching and studying was that I learned to study with all kinds of distractions going on around me. I don’t need total quiet, like my sister does, to study. She had a tough time studying just in her dorm room with everything else going on in the dorm. She eventually moved back home and spent an hour each way commuting to school just to have quiet to study.
You need to treat school like the job that it really is. You need to get your work done and meeting your deadlines is job one. But nobody says you can’t have some fun also.
The best thing to do is to have good habits and self-discipline, not necessarily looking for on-campus housing that prevents you from accessing streaming services. Other people are not you, so just because it happened to one of your friends, it doesn’t mean it will to you. Personally I try to keep TV watching and gaming during the school year to a minimum because I know myself.
^I came to say the above. A residence hall service that bans you from using streaming services won’t help you develop good habits on your own, and may only delay the problem until after you graduate. You have to learn your own self-control. College is a great place to do that.
That said, I think that 1) the problem of “TV addiction” or “video game addiction” is much overblown and 2) if you are already super worried about it now, it’s unlikely that you’ll fall prey to it.
Set reasonable limits for yourself. If you’re not subscribing to the services yourself, you really have nothing to worry about; common rooms usually don’t have magical subscriptions to Netflix or Hulu (many common areas don’t even have TVs, and usually in the ones that do the students have to hook up their own device that provides streaming services). If you do later choose to subscribe or have cable TV, set limits for how many hours a day you can watch, or learn to prioritize your school work (“I can watch two episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale after I’ve written three pages of that paper due next week.”)
Also, 4-6 hours of television isn’t that unusual. The average American watches about 5 hours of television a day. Not saying that it’s good or bad - just not unusual.
I appreciate parents who are strict with their kids, but this may lead to some form of rebellion from them:
Imagine growing up without a smartphone (only a flip or slide phone), video games, a laptop, or even a TV. A pretty boring life if you ask me. Add on the strict curfews, extra chores, and other rules that may seem slightly extreme to your kids. Now, there’s nothing wrong with doing chores around the house, but all of the work should be done equally between everyone. Then, you decide that college is a wonderful idea for them. So, the day you drop them off is the day they might go crazy. Freedom is everywhere at college and your son or daughter may end up with poor grades. Parties are also a big issue as well.
Overall, this may be the result of highly strict parenting. You still can be strict and let them have some freedom, but since I’m not in charge of anyone’s kids, I’ll just leave some suggestions down below:
Leave the TV, video game system, or even their tablet at home UNLESS if they can prove to you that they can handle the urge to not play all day in their dorm room.
If they struggle with cell phone use: limit or turn off their data plan or buy them a flip/slide phone.
If you're worried about them partying & drinking, then you may want to take them home every weekend if they live close by. However, if they live too far away from home, then it's obviously harder for you to handle.
@bodangles That’s only if they struggle with drinking or if they get in trouble on the weekends. Now, group projects and other events are acceptable excuses to stay, but I guess thinking about that comment a little more would’ve helped me in the long run.
Maybe giving them a talk about being smart may help, but still, it’s probably a little too controlling I limit their weekend stay at college, but if my son or daughter was having issues with alcohol or other drugs, then I’ll try my best to keep them out of harm’s way while they’re at college.
@sta3535 I agree with you.
As a student I wouldn’t want to go home every weekend. I have had a very sheltered life and I see a value in learning by mistakes. It is already too late for many of us to learn this skill without consequences that matter. If I was allowed to fail when I was in middle school, I would have had room to recover, if I fail now my future is ruined. Let your kids fail when they are younger, they will know how to deal with it as adults.
I perfectly understand if a parent wants their child home if they are drinking habits are life threatening or destructive. But it undermines a students confidence to be treated as child even when in college. Please don’t put your kids through this.
There are plenty of temptations at college. Discipline yourself. I personally have Netflix. but have a rule. Typically I stream 1 TV episode per day (I live alone, so usually enjoy an episode while I eat dinner). On a Fri or Sat night if I’m home, I might watch 2, or stream a full movie.
@doneinamonth It’s true, I’ve been told that I shouldn’t waste my life by playing video games. But, comparing the 2 makes more sense:
Video games & Netflix (staying in) OR Partying & Drinking in college (going out):
Both of these activities are time consuming and they may or may not affect your overall college life. Proper time management & responsibility is needed.