Ultra popular cookie delivery company Insomnia Cookies recently announced a special box guaranteed to add a dash of sweetness to any Valentine’s Day breakup.
Along with a customized assortment of 12 delicious cookies, customers can choose between four cheeky break-up messages:
“It’s not me, it’s you.”
“You’re sweet, but not my flavor.”
“I have the hots for your roommate”
“We’re done. Have a nice life.”
Here’s a glimpse of what the “It’s not My It’s You” cookie box looks like, thanks to a video posted onto Insomnia’s Instagram:
Imagine getting this from your soon-to-be-ex on Valentine’s Day. That’s gotta soften the blow, right?
Varioussources quoted a press release where Insomniac said that the clever marketing strategy was a “very unserious way of ending things, since warm cookies [are] better than a cold heart.”
Valentine’s Day might traditionally be a time to celebrate romantic partnerships, but these days all kinds of relationships get acknowledged for the holiday. Only a few months ago, Sweethearts candies announced they’d have a special line of “situationship” candies for sale this year. And let’s not forget the zoo that famously allows you to name a cockroach after your ex.
Sure, there’s a dash of dark humor infused to these alternative celebration options, but it’s also a lighthearted way of including more shades of the relationship spectrum into the fold. After all, they might be our significant other, but that doesn’t make the other people in our lives insignificant. There’s a lot of love in the world—friend love, family love, self love, pet love, not just romantic love!
Plus, while it can be painful when a relationship ends, it usually opens up other opportunities in the future. So maybe adding some lightheartedness into the mix can make the transition a little less uncomfortable. Cookies certainly don’t make a situation any worse.
When polarization starts to feel like a defining characteristic of humanity, sometimes we need a reminder that people really are capable of coming together as one.
Watching a stadium full of Green Day concertgoers bust out their best “Bohemian Rhapsody” when it came over the loudspeakers is just such a reminder.
As the person who uploaded the concert footage to Reddit noted: “For almost 6 minutes, the equivalent of a small city sang, with one voice, the beautiful song of a man who has been dead for decades. If you can do this, you’re not just a famous person, you’re a legend.”
What could be more palette-cleansing than hearing thousands of people breaking into song together for an entire six minutes? What’s more unifying than a piece of music being so beloved and well-known that a whole stadium knows every note and word and sings it in unison with all their heart?
As one commenter on Reddit wrote, “Ever notice how one crowd singing together always sound the same as other crowds, as in has the same tambre [sic] and sound quality? It’s like the recognizable and familiar voice of humanity. Regardless of how different the people in the crowd are, the crowd always sounds the same. I think the idea that we are listening to humanity’s voice when hearing a crowd sing is a beautiful concept.”
Listen to the voice of humanity. It’s truly a beautiful thing.
Dating has certainly evolved over the years—we’ve gone from courtship being purely a financial arrangement (not that this trend has ever truly died) to knights jousting for a lady’s favor, to casual hookups … and now, romance is primarily found through an app more than anything else.
Technology used for meeting that special someone has become so advanced that you can base your search entirely upon specific interests. Like … oddly specific interests. Think a fellow cat person would be the purrfect match? There’s an app for that. Wish to “love long and prosper” with a fellow Trekkie? There’s an app for that too.
No matter the changes, one thing remains the same—dating is awkward. It’s got all the unspoken formalities of a job interview, disguised as innocent fun. The balance between playing it too cool and too eager is hard to find even for the smoothest among us, and usually results in total embarrassment. Even if we aren’t the ones committing those embarrassing acts ourselves, we are often the reluctant witness to them.
Terrible dates might not always be fun in the moment, but they can be just as important as the good ones. They can teach us a lot about ourselves and what qualities we want in a partner. And at the very least, they can teach us to embrace social clumsiness with a sense of humor.
Jimmy Fallon recently asked his “Tonight Show” audience on Twitter to share a “funny or embarrassing first date story” for his ever popular #Hashtags segment. The best part—some of these awful first dates ended in marriage. There’s hope for us all.
Below, find 15 stories that are truly the best of the worst. How do some of your first dates compare?
1. “After a nice dinner, she invited me to her house. On the way up, inside the elevator, I decided to push the button to stop between floors and give her a kiss… She had a phobia of closed spaces and she smacked my face as a reflex, two punches after we were kissing and laughing.” – @PanqueAlgarvio
2. “His jeans were so tight he couldn’t sit down. Stood at a bar stool the whole time.” – @onlyintheozarks
3. “Waiting 4 my date when an older couple asked me for a ride. my date came up and said sure! We drove them home & they asked us to come in. Date said “sure”. I pulled him back & asked why he wanted to hang w/strangers. He said ‘sh@t! YOU DON’T KNOW THEM!?’ We bolted!” – @natashaham75
4. “Before the date, we had been chatting about books we liked and I talked about a great book I just read. We went on the date. I loaned her the book. She ghosted me.” – @thenextbarstool
5. “The worst first date I ever had was when my date locked his keys in the car and I had a curfew so he had to break his car window out to get me home on time. Didn’t think I’d ever see him again but we wound up married.” – @csleblan
6. “First date movie ‘Basic Instinct’ not realizing how suggestive it was. We just thought it was a mystery thriller! We left the movie discussing how each character could have actually murdered someone. We’re married now.” – @Southrnbell_Amy
7. “First date with my ex husband was a double date with his parents. The preview for ‘Speed Racer’ came on, and she leaned over me to say to her son, ‘You know what your dad’s nickname in the bedroom is?’” – @theostoria
8. “A friend asked me on a double date as a blind date with his date’s friend. I went to the bathroom and came back just in time to hear my date say to her friend, ‘why do I get the ugly one?’ I said good night to all three and headed home, leaving her w/the bill.” – @StevenTrustum
9. “He loved cheese. I was subjected to a 2 hour conversation/lecture about cheese, and why cottage cheese is not cheese!” – @Optimist_Eeyore
10. “He took me to an Asian fish market. We walked around looking at live & dead fish for a while. I don’t like seeing dead animals & I don’t eat seafood. Then we sat on a curb & he pulled out a ziplock bag of pineapple for us to share. I don’t like pineapple.” – @markayhali
11. “My cousin set up a first date for me with a family friend. During a break from dinner, Mr. Man follows me into the ladies’ room, comes up close and says in a low voice, ‘I shave my butt.’ Can’t remember what I said in response but the evening ended abruptly.” – @carli_zarzana
12. “I once took out my high school crush to a sports bar and ordered the spiciest wings there in an attempt to impress her. Not only was she not impressed. The next morning I woke up with heartburn.” –@Dmonster38
13. “My date showed up with his bestie and girlfriend, and they talked through dinner about people I don’t know. Walking to the car, he gave me a wedgie because he thought he hadn’t been paying enough attention to me.” – @surrealDazey
14. “I was taking my date home and was pulled over by the police for speeding. When the cop came to my car, she jumped out and told him she had to get home. She walked home and I never heard from her again. I’m not sure who’s #WorstFirstDate it was mine or hers!” – @eastriverbear
15. “After an evening of dancing with a first date, leaving the dance hall, I had to take a quick pee break. Rushing out to the parking lot, I see a lady, I grab her and swoop her around, and plant a big wet kiss on the lips. She was another guy’s wife. Oops!” – @seadogskamore
There’s no denying that a wedding day is a special memory most people want to hold onto for the rest of their lives. It’s the reason people spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on wedding pictures and hand out disposable cameras to guests—to capture memories from all angles, including behind-the-scenes moments that you may forget due to the nerves beforehand.
One mother of the bride decided to take her daughter’s beautiful wedding photos and create a special personalized photo album. But upon further inspection of the gift, the bride noticed that something was amiss. Niki Hunt, told Good Morning America that when her mom, Sherry Noblett, gave her the wedding album at brunch, she admitted she may have messed up.
“She’s very crafty, so usually when she says something like that, it’s something really small. I’m thinking some of the pictures are askew, or whatever,” Hunt explained to GMA.
The book was a beautiful, sweet gesture for the newlyweds created with Shutterfly, a photo site that allows you to make keepsakes out of your pictures. It appears to be a well-crafted, good-quality album as long as you only look at the photos. When Hunt’s eyes drifted to the captions next to the pictures, she noticed the mistake.
Shutterfly generates automatic generic captions next to the photos, which can be edited to fit what is happening in the pictures. But Noblett either didn’t notice the captions or assumed they wouldn’t show up in the final product if she didn’t edit them. This mishap meant there were wedding pictures next to captions detailing a beach day, time at a park and even the four seasons.
Hunt and her sister could not contain their laughter in the restaurant and decided to record their reaction. The TikTok video has been viewed over 4.2 million times and the comments are full of people joining in on the laughs.
“Not the groomsmen being labeled summer, winter, spring and fall like it’s a spicy calendar,” one person wrote.
“Imagine your great-great-great-great-grandchildren discovering this in a box and reading it with no context lmaooo,” another said.
“When ChatGPT makes a photo album,” someone commented.
You can see all the wacky captions in the video below:
Our mother is single handedly the most hilarious person we know, and its usually completely on accident. Favorite wedding gift EVER!!! @shutterfly #shutterfly
Would you be considered human if you haven’t locked yourself out of your house at least once? One mom on TikTok found herself in quite the predicament with only her toddler to “mission impossible” his way to unlocking the house door to let his mom, @gesikaaaaaa, inside. The video starts with the camera pointed at a rosy-cheeked toddler on a snow-covered porch.
The boy looks to be no older than 2 or 3 but he’s an expert at following directions … sort of. It’s all still pretty new to him and, as anyone who’s ever interacted with a toddler knows, multistep directions are not the way to go. They tend to hear one thing only and even then are apt to be distracted by a stray piece of lint and not be able to finish the task.
Everything is new to a toddler and it doesn’t take much to distract them. And just about anything can be a toy. So when this mom helped her son through an open window in an effort to guide him through the process of unlocking the door, classic toddler cuteness ensued.
The desperate mom explains in the video that she left one window unlocked and you can see immediately that there’s no way an adult could fit through the small space without injury. So instead she uses her toddler to do it and once he’s inside the house his instructions are to get a chair … he finds a bowl. His mom tells him, “Focus. Focus. Grab the chair and take it to the door.”
What do you know? That sweet boy did just as he was told. Until he found a rock. Mom quickly refocuses the boy and the chair is back on the move, then he finds the fireplace tongs and takes a break to play with the fireside tools stand. Eventually the little guy succeeds in his mission but the journey there was the cutest maze of side quests you’ll ever see.
Since 2019, Kodi Lee has wowed “America’s Got Talent” audiences with his next-level musical skills. That goes for whether he’s performing touching original works or putting his own personal touch on well-known songs.
For “America’s Got Talent: Fantasy League,” the music savant was guided by his mentor Howie Mandel to cover “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen.
It’s hard to imagine a version of this fan-favorite tune you haven’t already heard before, since the song has been covered quite a few times. But once again Lee delivered something epic and completely unique.
Even though judges Mel B and Heidi Klum still prefer Lee’s original songs, all applauded his haunting and emotional piano rendition of the rock-n-roll anthem.
Simon Cowell even said “You use these words ‘Star Quality’ a lot, but you genuinely, Kodi, over the years we’ve got to know you, you’ve just got better as an artist. You’ve never given up, and the Finals just wouldn’t be the same without you in it this year.”
Other viewers applauded Lee for one-of-a-kind performance, agreeing that he did freddie Mercury proud.
One wrote, “‘You can do whatever you want to do in my music, just don’t make it boring’ -Freddie. What a magical performance.”
Another added, “Kodi has an amazingly rare talent to be able to sing across different musical genres. He owns them all!!!”
Last but not least, I think this comment sums up the general consensus pretty well: “This version is unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. It’s truly a masterpiece. Kodi is an amazing gift to our world. He continues to change the world just by being himself.”
The NBA closes its All-Star Saturday Night every year with the same thing: the Dunk Contest. It’s a unique event in that it’s either spectacular or horrible, and the line between the two is incredibly thin — think of how differently we’d look back on some of the really bad editions of the Dunk Contest if one or two of the ultra-ambitious flops are successful.
But over the years, there have been some extremely memorable dunks that have taken that year’s competition to another level. Of course, I’m talking about the ones that get a 50 from the judges, the highest possible score that can be handed out for a single dunk. There have been a whole lot of them over the NBA’s history dating back to when this became an annual event in 1984, and today, we wanted to identify the 10-best dunks that have earned a 50 in the competition’s history based on two criteria:
1. How good was the dunk? This means looking at how good the dunk was. It’s nice when things are self-explanatory!
2. How memorable was the dunk? This goes beyond just the dunk. When you say the name of it, do people automatically remember what you are talking about? How did the crowd react? How did the single most important person for selling a dunk — Kenny Smith — react, assuming he was on the call? Were there fun elements about the dunk that add some panache to the whole thing? (Ex: The Dwight Howard Superman dunk, which does appear on this list, is not as memorable if not for the jersey and the cape he put on, which makes it iconic.) This one is much more difficult to describe, but you know it when you see it.
If you’d like to see every 50-point dunk in the competition’s history, you can check out this video from the fine folks at the NBA. And with all of this now out of the way, let’s begin:
10. JaVale McGee dunks two basketballs in two hoops, 2011
Picking which dunk was going to round out this list was extremely difficult — there have been a lot of good ones over the years! — but this is on here for two reasons. One, it’s one of the most unique dunks we’ve ever seen in the Dunk Contest. Two, the list of guys in NBA history who could pull it off is remarkably short. McGee is one of the few players with the height, wingspan, and athleticism to be able to make this work, and even though it took him six tries to pull it off, he didn’t get dinged on the judges’ scorecards. That’s a testament to how difficult this dunk was, and as an added bonus, we get the very funny moment of Dwight Howard (who was on the call for this one) clearly hating that Reggie Miller thinks McGee is the only guy who could pull this one off.
9. Andre Iguodala takes off from behind backboard, 2006
The fact Iggy managed to not hit his head here continues to amaze me. It’s one of the most athletic things you’ll ever see, as he doesn’t have a super long run-up, but he’s still able to go up, grab the offering from Allen Iverson that hits off the back of the backboard, do a windmill (perhaps because if he did not, he was going to smash into the backboard), and dunk while his momentum is taking him away from the rim.
8. Nate Robinson jumps over Spud Webb, 2006
Few guys have ever been more fun in the Dunk Contest than Nate Robinson, the 5’9 journeyman guard who could absolutely fly and won the competition three times. His best dunk paid tribute to the guy with whom he’s always been compared, as Robinson got an assist from fellow diminutive high flyer Spud Webb. Robinson grabbed Webb’s Atlanta Hawks jersey, had him throw it on, and told him to hang out in the middle of the paint. Webb bounced the ball perfectly and Robinson did the rest, as he went up and over Webb en route to winning the Dunk Contest for the first time in his career. Capping it all off with Magic Johnson screaming “50, Kenny! 50!” really is an unintended great touch.
7. Dwight Howard Superman, 2008
I know what you’re saying: This wasn’t a dunk. Instead, this is one of the most impressive things that someone has done during the Dunk Contest. Being able to get up high enough that you could take a basketball and just throw it through the rim is completely insane, and everything about this was a joy. The tape getting put down was a nice touch, Jameer Nelson’s pass from behind the backboard was absolutely perfect, the cape and the Superman jersey are both iconic, and the person who decided to play the Superman music after Howard successfully did this deserved a raise that I hope they got. This also might be the single-best Kenny Smith performance, as he sells every bit of it perfectly. Even Magic Johnson decides to get in on the fun from his spot at the judge’s table. As a dunk, sure, I’ll hear the case it doesn’t belong here. As a spectacle during the Dunk Contest? Few have ever been better.
6. Vince Carter goes between the legs off the bounce, 2000
The dunk rocked — Tracy McGrady bounced it perfectly, and Carter made an extremely difficult thing look remarkably smooth. No one in the history of dunking is as good as mixing smoothness and power as well as Carter, and this was his masterpiece. He makes going up, getting the ball, and putting it between his legs look so easy, and then, that little hitch as he’s putting the ball into his right hand makes this look all the more explosive when he finally brings his arm up and dunks. And then, there’s everything else about this one: Marv Albert screaming. Kenny Smith’s iconic “IT’S OVER! IT’S OVER LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!” Multiple judges ignoring that judges are supposed to be impartial by throwing their arms triumphantly in the air. Vince looking right at the camera and saying “it’s over,” presumably without any clue that The Jet was screaming this same thing. In terms of meeting the moment that the Dunk Contest tries to create, this is No. 1 by a country mile. The dunk itself? Well, it’s really good, too.
5. Zach LaVine puts on a Space Jam jersey, 2015
LaVine’s appearances in the Dunk Contest were events — he went back-to-back in 2015 and 2016, with that second appearance being the single best competition I’ve ever seen in the event when he and Aaron Gordon threw haymakers against one another. Trying to ID his single-best 50 from those two performances is awfully difficult, as seven of his 10 dunks got a perfect score, but let’s go with his very first one. LaVine lobs the ball into the air, grabs it, puts it between his legs, and dunks with one hand. It’s ultra smooth and ultra explosive, and the Michael Jordan Tune Squad jersey from Space Jam really was an excellent touch. He almost made this look too easy, which is ridiculous.
4. Jason Richardson goes between the legs and does a one-handed backwards dunk, 2003
Going into this, I figured Richardson was going to be awfully high. He’s one of the most incredible dunkers the NBA has ever seen, and not many guys could ever go back-to-back in the Dunk Contest, so he was certainly going to be up on the list. And then, for the first time in years, I went back and reminded myself of what he threw down and realized that he had to be really, really high on this. For my money, his best dunk came in 2003, when he made it to the finals against Desmond Mason, giving us a matchup of the last two champions. For his final dunk of the night, Richardson stood in the corner, hoisted the ball into the air, and went between the legs from back to front. With his back to the rim, he dunked with only his left hand. Kenny Smith screamed that he’s never seen that before — because, while I do not know every detail about Kenny Smith’s life, he had not. It was remarkably athletic, remarkably powerful, really just remarkable in every way.
3. Michael Jordan from the free throw line, 1988
No athlete in my lifetime (or your lifetime, or any lifetime that came before us, or any lifetime that will come after us) was as cool as Michael Jordan, which he put on display every time he took off from the free throw line. There are a few options here for his best free throw line dunk, but let’s put in his 1988 dunk, which happened in front of a partisan crowd in Chicago Stadium. Jordan and Dominique Wilkins put forth the most famous Dunk Contest battle in history — the former won the event in 1986, the latter won it in 1987 — and while the whole thing featured some controversy over whether the judges scored Wilkins’ final dunk correctly. He did a two-handed windmill that only got a 45, meaning Jordan needed at least a 49 on his final dunk to win the whole thing. Jordan instead closed out with a perfect score by running the length of the floor, taking off from the charity stripe, going up with one hand, and keeping his shoulders squared towards the basket the entire time. Nique was clearly hard done by the judges, but this was a no-doubt 50.
2. Aaron Gordon up and over the mascot, 2016
The best Dunk Contest performance to ever come in second place. The best dunk ever thrown down by someone who did not win the Dunk Contest. He sat down in mid-air! No matter how many times I watch his showdown with Zach LaVine — which, for my money, might be the most incredible Dunk Contest we’ve ever seen, a true heavyweight prize fight between two of the best competition dunkers of all time — the one that blows me away without fail is Gordon having Orlando’s mascot stand in the restricted area with the ball on top of its head. “He’s just standing there,” Charles Barkley tells the rest of the booth.
And then, Gordon runs in, takes off, and jumps over everything before putting the ball underneath him and throwing down. Watch Andre Drummond, who flops onto the ground because he knows he has zero chance of winning after this. Draymond Green starts skipping. Anthony Anderson looks like he is ready to fight someone in that moment on Aaron Gordon’s behalf while Jon Stewart is declaring this year’s event over. Kenny Smith even busts out an “IT’S OVER, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN” for the first time in more than a decade. It, of course, was not over, as LaVine went on to win. I disagreed with it then and I disagree with it now, because come on, how can anything be better than this?
1. Vince Carter’s reverse 360 windmill, 2000
You don’t need to take my word for it, just watch the dunk, which looked as smooth as anything you’ll ever see, despite the fact that this should not be a thing that a human can do this easily. And then, the camera cuts to NBA players who are in complete and utter awe of what he just did. Shaq’s blown away while he’s trying to catch this all on camera, Dikembe Mutombo and Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen and Chris Webber all cannot believe what they just saw. Kenny Smith wanted to end the competition right then and there, because he knew that no one had any chance to beat Vince. He was correct. Fortunately, Carter did not take that advice, and he ended up giving us the single-best Dunk Contest performance that we have ever seen. It did not get better than his first dunk, though, because nothing will.
(WARNING: Spoilers for Power Book III: Raising Kanan season three will be found below.)
If you’ve been a part of the Power Universe family since the original Power series, then you know that the show and its creators know how to end a season in epic fashion. That was exactly the case with the season three finale of Power Book III: Raising Kanan. Following a season of terrorizing the Queens community, Ronnie was gunned down by Kanan in a setup between him and his mother Raq. As if that wasn’t enough, Raq also killed Detective Howard as he was approaching a decision to hand over Marvin to the authorities, along with himself, in order to protect Raq and Kanan.
Think we’re done? Nope. To further add to the drama, Unique, played by Joey Badass, also made a return to the show after it appeared that he was killed by Ronnie earlier in the season. It’s the dramatic ending that will give us plenty to anticipate in the future. Speaking of that, has Power Book III: Raising Kanan been renewed for season four?
Will There Be A Power Book III: Raising Kanan Season 4?
Yes! Before the start of season three, STARZ announced that the show had been renewed for a fourth season. “We’re thrilled to continue Kanan Stark’s story, and for fans to see how the events of his formative adolescent years continue to mold him into the cold-hearted villain they were first introduced to in ‘Power,” Kathryn Busby, President of Original Programming for STARZ, said in a statement. “We are quite sure that after viewers see the battle lines being drawn between Raq and Kanan on this epic upcoming third season that they will demand more.”
Production for the fourth season began in November, so it shouldn’t be too long until we hear news of what’s to come in season four.
‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’ season three is now streaming on STARZ.
The main takeaway from this year’s Super Bowl wasn’t that the Usher is good, or that overtime is confusing, or even that Spongebob and Patrick should commentate every year (though they should). The real lesson we all learned is that you can’t just watch the Super Bowl in anticipation of your favorite movie trailer anymore. You have to watch a trailer for the real trailer that drops online simultaneously. It’s a whole thing! Gone are the days of movie studios buying a full 2-minute slot for a new trailer. They know you’re just looking at your phone the whole time anyway so you might as well use it.
The biggest trailer drop from this year’s broadcast was for Deadpool & Wolverine, even though you had to be redirected to the internet to watch the full thing. It seems like a bit of an annoying task to whip out your computer/phone/tablet while watching the game, but over 300 million people did it, so it worked.
According to Deadline, the trailer for the fourth Deadpool installment was seen by 365 million in the 24 hours since it first aired during the Super Bowl, making it the most-viewed trailer of all time. The record used to belong to Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home which clocked in at 255 million on its first day, but Spider-Man didn’t have the power of sports behind him.
Deadpool & Wolverine is the very highly-anticipated and long-awaited installment in the franchise for fans of no-nonsense superheroes. Ryan Reynolds returns as Deadpool while Hugh Jackman was convinced to return as Wolverine. Emma Corrin, Morena Baccarin, Rob Delaney, Leslie Uggams, Karan Soni and Matthew Macfadyen also star. You can watch the trailer below because it would be RUDE to direct you elsewhere!
As a parent of three Gen Zers ages 15, 19 and 23, I spent many years fending off children begging, pleading and cajoling for screens and screen time of one sort or another. From around ages 9 to 14 with each child, I fielded question after question and complaint after complaint about them not having a phone and/or the limits my husband and I placed on their screen usage. It was exhausting to stick to our guns on that front (especially with our one child who would make an excellent lawyer). But we held the line, hoping and praying that someday they all would thank us for it.
Sure enough, each one of them has thanked us for it. Phew.
In fact, they’ve all started talking about how their own kids won’t have any screens at all until they really need to, which is more restriction than we placed on them even.
“Good for you!” I tell my them. “And good luck.” Their convictions are admirable, but little do they know that it’s not as easy as it looks.
As the first full generation to be raised in the internet-enabled, screen-saturated world, Gen Z (approximately ages 11 to 26) has grown up in uncharted waters. Pretty much every adult they’ve ever known has carried and used a smartphone. Their educations have included hand-held screens from their earliest years, as the “edutainment” industry has exploded. Today’s older kids and young adults became tech-savvy very young, they’ve been marketed to with various addictive apps their entire childhoods and have felt the pressures of social media throughout their formative years.
And Gen Z’s parents have had to navigate those uncharted waters, raising kids in an online world we didn’t have ourselves as children and struggling mightily to find a balance for them amid the digital chaos,. In an era where parents often need to work and childcare is prohibitively expensive, devices have become the easiest temporary babysitter, and a moderate amount of screen time (whatever “moderate” means) feels practically inevitable. Even the experts no longer have set screen time limit recommendations, but rather encourage parents to be conscious and engaged with what their children are using screens for. (In my former teacher opinion, there’s a significant difference between setting up a child with an interactive app that teaches kids math or reading or geography and leaving a child with unbridled access to the internet.)
We also live in a world where people in general use our devices for almost everything and where sites like YouTube can be valuable tools. It’s a reality that kids will not just get their own devices eventually, but will actually need to. But when, which one, how much, how often, what to limit and allow at what ages can be overwhelming questions for parents to navigate. Very few of us have managed to strike a balance that feels right. Sometimes I’ve worried we were being too strict and other times I worried we were too lenient. With each kid, especially when we were thrown into pandemic isolation, determining healthy screen time became more complicated.
But now that a good chunk of Gen Z are officially adults and starting to think about how they want to parent their own kids, they’re surprisingly Luddite-like. After years and years of wanting screen time, getting screen time, and seeing how screen time can be filled with pitfalls, and also after observing Gen Alpha’s early screen addictions, they don’t want the same for their kids.
Interestingly, some Gen Zers are even trying to limit their own screen time by switching to 90s-style flip phones—or “dumb phones” as they now say.
Some are also pleading with their fellow Gen Zers to vow not to raise “iPad kids” who can’t behave without having a screen shoved into their hands. Gabe Escobar garnered 25 million views with his “iPad kids” rant, with countless Gen Zers in the comments agreeing with him.
seriously pls we cant let it happen #genz #genalpha #ipadkid
And these Gen Zers aren’t just kneejerk-reflex saying they don’t want their kids to have screens at all. They understand that technology is a tool we all need and kids need to have access to learn how to use it. But they’re watching the struggles of Gen Alpha and seeing how giving kids the excessive amount of screen time that they themselves probably begged their parents for at one point actually impacts them. It’s not that they don’t want their kids on screens at all, but it appears Gen Z is preparing for their parenting approach with foresight and wisdom, which is great to see.
@gabesco I am fully on board with what this creator is saying although kids having ipads is a bit inevitable at this point the real issue is regulation and parenting styles #genz #genalpha #millennial #parenting #ipadkid #greenscreenvideo #greenscreen
I just hope they’re prepared for how exhausting it is to fight that battle with their kids when the time comes. But at the very least, they can speak from experience when they tell their kids that they’ll thank them someday for the limits.
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This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
This article originally appeared on 9.22.22
