If a kid is consuming media they are being manipulated by external algorithms. If they are creating it, they are developing their own algorithms. So limit and curate consumption and reward production.

That's a great point. But I think it's orthogonal to the one I was making in the post. Regardless of whether we encourage content creation over consumption, I think it's even more important for the service to have an underlying human identity associated with that content.

Duh. When I used a smartphone almost 20 years ago to hack on its system middleware while riding a tram or write Python scripts to verify my high school math exam answers, it was "screen time" too. It's just as if our devices were tools that could be used in various ways with various consequences. The problem is when we let those with no regard to our best interests form and restrict these tools for their own profit.

There's no Android or iOS on my phone and it works the way I want and need it to, as I'm lucky enough to possess the technical abilities needed to form it myself. Let's make sure that as many people as possible are also empowered to do just that, so they can take care of those less technically inclined as well. This is what "freedom" stands for in "Free Software".

I noticed we create our own algorithms as well. I find myself reflexively typing in the same websites in the browser bar over and over to check what's there (e.g. the news). And I would consider that an algorithm in itself.

I highly recommend an rss reader. I used to use google reader, decamped to feedly when it died and more recently i moved to innoreader after feedly did weird stuff with pricing. I have heard theoldreader is good too.

When Google Reader went down I had set up a CommaFeed instance and I've been using it ever since. No fuss, no pricing shenanigans, pretty much no maintenance, it just works and it won't go down again without my involvement in it. Can highly recommend.