[petercooper]

For years our neighborhood had an ice cream truck or two turn up a few days a week during summer, which we used to enjoy. This year, not a single one.

I saw one of the trucks at a school fete and asked about it. The guy said one person had complained about the noise so the local council banned them after 7pm! With most of their sales falling between 6-9pm, they decided it wasn't worth it for one hour and moved on to other local towns.

So not exactly "kids", but I think banning the normal, everyday noises involved in a local culture, whether that's church bells, kids playing football, carol singers, or ice cream trucks, is a slippery slope to nowhere positive.

[taylorlapeyre]

I agree, but with a caveat about ice cream trucks specifically. If they park in one spot and play the same jingle very loudly for hours on end (say, three to four hours in one location outside of your home), it is in fact insanely maddening.

[masfuerte]

The UK has rules about this:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/code-of-practice-...

Among other things, playing the jingle in the same place repeatedly is prohibited.

[lapetitejort]

Have you heard the ice cream trucks with a random "Hello?" thrown into songs? I don't understand the purpose. Googling brought up some people saying it goes back to the 90s, or that it's specifically a Southern California thing. Strangely enough the movie A Different Man (2024) played that exact sound during an emotional scene. That movie takes place in NYC.

[macNchz]

Definitely a thing in NYC—had an ice cream truck that would sit down the block from my place playing music all day long and many years later that "hello" is like nails on a chalkboard.

[tetris11]

I wonder what the copyright licensing is on Frank Mills Music Box Dancer which is quite common on the icecream trucks here

[lapetitejort]

Based on the images and knock-off ice cream bars I've seen, ice cream trucks seem to treat copyright as a suggestion

[neaden]

I hear the Hello from our local ice cream trucks in Illinois, so not just a California thing.

[nunez]

It's for vibes basically. I thought it was hilarious when I was younger

[johnthedebs]

I may be more sound sensitive than most, but if I could hear it loudly for even 5-10 minutes I'd be annoyed. 3-4 hours? While I'm at home? Absolutely no way; I'd complain too.

[petercooper]

In the UK stationary ice cream trucks don't play music, only those travelling around, so you hear it for a couple of minutes at most as it winds around the neighborhood. I'd also be complaining if it was going on for hours :-)

[toast0]

At my old house, we had the best ice cream truck. Rather than playing music, it just had like a train bell. Sounded like the ice cream engine was rolling through. Ding.... ding .... ding ....

[loco5niner]

That is a vast improvement.

[cocothem]

for the entire time the ice cream truck is stopped, it's engine is still running and generating toxic fumes. Had one parking strategically right next to a playground.

[alfalfasprout]

TBH a lot of it is also a cultural shift toward being selfish. You notice it here in the comments as well.

Combined with "karen" culture, people are more empowered than ever to complain about things. They forget that when they were kids, they'd be loud, play in their neighborhood, and get up to no good :)

It's a real shame, this mentality is what's moved us away from a feeling of community.

[ectospheno]

Complaining about an ice cream truck you can hear in the back of your house while wearing noise cancelling headphones isn’t Karen culture.

[gilfoy]

It absolutely is. Gettin an ice cream truck banned from your neighborhood because you heard it drive by is the epitome of Karen behavior.

[hombre_fatal]

Blasting sound out of your vehicle into a residential area for hours just because you want to sell something is selfish.

So is defending the behavior and imposing it on everyone around you just because it's sometimes convenient for you to walk 10 meters for some ice cream once a month.

Like TFA says, we have to decide as a society what kind of noise we think is worthwhile. The sound of kids playing seems essential for a culture to stay friendly to family development.

But broadcasting an advertisement jingle to neighborhoods because you want to make money, perhaps not.

[op00to]

Ice cream trucks are awesome. I have stopped wfh zoom meetings due to Mister Softee coming by and wanting to grab an ice cream. The surprise and delight of a treat when totally unexpected is wonderful. No one complained.

[nunez]

I miss Mr Softee too!

[s1artibartfast]

You are focusing on the driver, but what about the patrons. Is one selfish person listening to sound for a minute enough to to prevent 10 kids from being happy? 100? 1000?

[xigoi]

Would the kids not be happy if the truck was not constantly playing music?

[stirfish]

Yeah, did you even think of the children?

[cycomanic]

So what about the sound of your car going by my house every morning? That's really the irony, everyone is complaining about all sorts of noise, but the worst noise in urban environments, the constant traffic & car noise, is somehow sacrosanct.

[anon1251212451]

No, doing so is the equivalent of using Adblocker.

[gilfoy]

Isolating yourself from the sound via one of various available methods would be analogous to using Adblock.

[earnestinger]

Parent is perfectly right.

> cultural shift toward being selfish

I enjoy ice cream so damn all other opinions :)

[southernplaces7]

It completely is. If you're talking about one parked for dozens of minutes or hours, sure, worth getting annoyed, but if you, living in an urban environment, can't handle a few minutes of some random noise from someone just trying to get their economic sustenance while making a few of your neighbor's kids happy for a bit, you're the problem. The funny thing is how many people try to justify their specific unreasonable intolerance as something completely okay to impose on others with complaints.

[sophacles]

Yes it is. No Karen thinks she deserves the title... even tho she does.

[wink]

Sometimes it's also just the individuals.

We have a small playground here and for a number of years there were exactly 3 people being loud and obnoxious. One mom and her two sons. None of the other kids ever bothered me. :P

[dylan604]

I'm not sure about this being a new thing. I also think we've gone too far with the anti-karen whiplash and think everything before that was trendy was perfect. When I was a kid that got up to no good or was just being annoyingly loud, I would hear about it. There's always been an acceptable loud, like kids running around and playfully being loud at a park or playground. Going to the same playground with a loud stereo is not the same thing. You're clearly up to no good as a teen smoking and hanging with your friends. You make it sound like kinds "back in the day" never got into trouble. I can assure you, I, er we, absolutely got in trouble for getting up to no good.

[sophacles]

There's a difference between the neighbor (whom you've almost certainly met) stepping out and saying "hey stop that" or "keep it down", and karen calling the cops. That's the new thing - this insane insistence that children must be kept hidden, and that the authorities must be involved if they are playing in designated play areas, or walking around the block unsupervised, or (heaven forbid) being loud during reasonable daylight hours.

[taeric]

Certainly, there were plenty of "dude, really?" moments when kids would go over on limits. It is hard not to think we haven't pushed the limits down to zero, though.

Granted, using smoking as an example is hilarious to me. I confess near zero sympathy for that going away. If anything, I'm pretty sure I'm more dumbfounded that people still smoke in any real numbers.

[subjectsigma]

Former/recovering smoker. I hear this sentiment a lot (“Why would anyone ever smoke? It’s just dumbfounding”). I can tell you the reason people smoke is because it feels fucking great. It’s a terrible, terrible habit and the number of smokers of any drug should be zero, but I’m not going to lie to you and tell you it wasn’t relaxing and enjoyable.

[taeric]

Oh, I know that that must be the case for a lot of folks. The movie Trainspotting did a pretty good job communicating some of that.

The surprise on my end is usually that new people smoke. Anyone that had already developed the habit, I am not surprised still does it. In that regard, it is not unlike any other drug.

I also realize I should count myself incredibly lucky that smoking does not impact me at all. I literally feel nothing when I try a smoke or cigar. Can barely even taste it. Reminds me of my grandfather who used to smoke to be social. When he found out they were bad for you, he just stopped. Had no withdrawal at all. Yay genetics. :D

[southernplaces7]

Second this. It's not like us smokers, or at least most of us, are sitting there hating every minute and aspect of having a smoke but unable to stop. We maybe can't stop, sure, but it's also just wonderful while we're doing it.

[stirfish]

I've found that I wanted to smoke long after I stopped enjoying smoking.

[dylan604]

It's the same thing as why would any shoot a spike into their veins to get high on heroin. The lack of empathy for an addict is telling. The indignity of a righteous ex is insufferable. How someone became an addict is not necessarily relevant, but once they're hooked quitting is not so simple as those unable to empathize while on high horses want to think.

It is however annoying when the addict does their thing in public with zero fucks to give for anyone else around them.

[loco5niner]

Ice cream trucks are specifically obnoxious especially in a neighborhood or a park. I would also complain. They would fit in fine at a carnival or similar.

I've always found it odd that most people would complain if someone sprayed water all over them, but are surprised when people complain the same way about obnoxious noise.

I do live next to an elementary school and enjoy listening to the children playing. Like the article says, that's a natural, even joyful, sound.

[dkarl]

I agree; I wondered how HN would manage to make the article controversial, and this was the answer, equating the sound of playing children with the sound of intrusive commercial marketing aimed at children.

[moron4hire]

Ice cream trucks are a weaponized guilty trip against parents. The kids whine and complain about wanting ice cream and I'm already having a hard enough time modeling good food habits for them. If it were once a month I wouldn't mind, but it's been every day for the last month. Like, dude, nobody needs ice cream that much. Please stop starting an argument in my house.

Incidentally, we just replaced all the windows in our house, and now the kids can't hear the ice cream truck coming, so chalk up one disproportionately expensive W, please.

[matthewaveryusa]

100% this. I tell the kids it's a trick and they seem to like it and point out when the trick-truck is back. Works great at checkout as well with the trick shelves.

[loco5niner]

I love this and will be stealing it to use with my kids

[taeric]

What? If you can't tell your kids no without feeling guilty, it actually sounds like you need more places to tell your kids no? If they are whining about it, set the expectation that whining and not accepting a no is, itself, unacceptable?

This one is an odd area where I would think budgeting would be a good lesson. Set a budget aside for how much they can spend per day and per month on ice cream. If they have the funds, they can get it. If not, make it clear on when they exhausted their budget. In this regard, it should not be an open question on whether or not they can get something. And any "no" will be a direct result of something they have control over.

[tstrimple]

There are a huge number of parents who just don't want to parent their children at all. You see it on HN constantly. "We have to ban cell phones for all kids because I don't want to tell little Johnny he can't have one when his friends all do! That's hard!"

[moron4hire]

Instead, how about you just not assume you can tell what is going on in someone's house based off of your obviously limited experience with children and one post on an internet message board.

I really don't appreciate your reply. It comes off as assuming that I'm basically an idiot. "Oh, just tell the children no!" Yeah, that doesn't really work when you have highly intelligent children you've been raising to be rational, thinking agents. They may not be developed enough to value long-term health issues over short-term pleasure gains yet, but they certainly are skeptical enough to call out fiat answers as bullshit. I'm actually rather proud my children argue with me so much, despite how exhausting it can be.

Hence me targeting my ire at the damn ice cream truck. It's not my children's fault they want ice cream (they are children) or that they are elementary school lawyers (I have certainly encouraged it, much to my in-laws' ire). It is the ice cream truck operator's fault for employing marketing tactics aimed directly at children. I keep my children off of cable TV and pay for streaming subscriptions to keep them away from completely unadulterated junk until they have brains developed enough to see through it, but this guy injects it out of my control.

[taeric]

I'm sympathetic. Apologetic, even. I can sadly see an easy way to read the tone of my reply as overly condescending. But, to counter with the assumption that I have limited experience with kids is not helping the discourse.

It was specifically the use of the words "guilty" and "whining" that struck me as wrong there. I could see wanting to avoid seeing disappointment. But I don't consider that guilt. And I'm pretty strict on my kids when they start whining.

[loco5niner]

Oh man, I've got young kids and there are so many battles. I don't need more battles, please. Especially artificial battles purposefully created by intrusive marketing jerks.

[taeric]

Don't make it a battle, is my point? Give them something they can control, if that helps. But, if they can't take a "no" then that is a problem. And not one to be fixed by just avoiding it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for avoiding unnecessary conflict. And a lot of conflict avoidance with kids is to not let them turn it into a conflict. You said no, you didn't start a fight.

[loco5niner]

Call it a battle, call it just saying no. Either way, it's a jerk blasting music in a place they shouldn't. Disturbing peace and quiet, and forcing parents deal with yet another thing when they just want to take their kids to the park.

My kids are 2,3, and 4. No works just fine for now, and we are laying the foundations for budgeting.

[gowld]

Presumably, the problem was the truck music, not the ice cream sales. There's a market opening for a travelling ice cream seller who doesn't play loud, obloxously noise on loop after 7pm.

[pavel_lishin]

Our local ice cream truck plays a very annoying jingle, coupled with a woman's voice saying "Hello?" in an obnoxious way. I haven't complained, because I'm not that kind of asshole, but something about that voice clip feels like stubbing my toe over and over again.

If it were a regular jingle, I'd have no problem. Perhaps one that could be turned down so you don't hear it from halfway across town.

[bitwize]

Was it this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_BF88VYRvE

The "hello" is bizarre. It's like something a weapon AI from Metal Gear Solid would do to flush out its enemy.

The tune is also weird. It's not a recognizable folk or children's tune, and it sounds vaguely Japanese, like background music from a Sega Pico game.

If I heard an ice cream truck playing this come down my street, I'd think I was in an episode of Black Mirror, or some sort of analog-horror scenario. I'd do my best to find a good hiding place and avoid being seen. (Maybe crouch in a cardboard box?)

[bitwize]

I found the tune I linked to. It is, in fact, Japanese in origin: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KpT9mHF7xfE

[pavel_lishin]

Fuck me, that's it.

[petercooper]

Someone else involved in the conversation suggested they could announce their times and locations on Facebook, which I thought was a good idea, but I guess it conflicts with their preference to not have a fixed schedule. They just drive round till they make enough money and then go home when they're bored.

[parpfish]

Or just play the jingle on the half hour like church bells

[dekhn]

Can we trade? I live near a park and many days I hear the truck driving around the block literally for hours, and they just play one song.

[anon1251212451]

I'm all for kid noises because it's good for them but ice cream truck, church bells... should definitely be gone.

[schwartzworld]

Funny, we have the opposite problem. Ice cream trucks in my area have become way too aggressive. I would give anything to ban them from our neighborhood, as they come through within the first hour after school getting out, causing daily arguments in houses with children. Sometimes more than once a day.

Look, even if I wanted to give my kids ice cream every day after school, I am at home and would just get it from the freezer. Even if I say yes to ice cream today, it’s another exhausting round of “why can’t we get ice cream” tomorrow.

At the park yesterday, two trucks were making the rounds. Meaning every 15 minutes, there was an argument. I overheard multiple exhausted parents saying things like “because I already got you ice cream!”

> church bells, kids playing football, carol singers, or ice cream trucks

One of these things is not like the other. Some people like carol singers. Who likes Turkey In The Straw blared through a cheap speaker on loop?

[southernplaces7]

Or these parents could, you know, learn to create limits and rules for their kids and teach them to respect those, instead of blaming the ice cream truck that spends a few minutes outside at a good time for sales because the parents can't get a grip on something so minor. That guy is trying to make a living, and the inconvenience is tiny for any one area where he spends barely any time.

A lot of the so-called Karen culture is like this I think: people who can't manage their own internal issues trying to outsource the solution to them by imposing demands on others just trying to live their own lives..

[schwartzworld]

Spoken like someone who either doesn’t have kids, or at least has easier ones than mine. You think you’re just going to explain to a four year old the rules about ice cream and they’ll just be like “you’re right daddy. I forgot we had ice cream from the truck yesterday. I’ll grab some carrot sticks instead”?

It’s not really ethical to market that aggressively to kids, because kids just want. All the time they want. Most people here were children themselves once, or at least know people who have been children. If kids had the credit card, they’d spend everything on Pokémon cards and candy.

Here’s a better question before you call me a Karen: given that most people have freezers, who exactly benefits from daily ice cream truck visits? Not the parents, for reasons above. The kids find it frustrating too. The fact that they had ice cream yesterday usually doesn’t ease their disappointment.

[tstrimple]

> You think you’re just going to explain to a four year old the rules about ice cream and they’ll just be like “you’re right daddy. I forgot we had ice cream from the truck yesterday. I’ll grab some carrot sticks instead”?

If provided with consistency, yes that's exactly what happens. I've raised three kids who have not had repeated meltdowns over hearing an ice cream truck.

[schwartzworld]

> I've raised three kids who have not had repeated meltdowns

Mazel tov. Unfortunately for parents who aren't you, the act of providing the "consistency" you're advocating for, often DOES require dealing with repeated meltdowns, or even just maddeningly repetitive questions of "why not". Children are born wild animals (not yours, of course), and raising them is the act of civilizing them.

If there's one thing that annoys me about other parents, its seeing or hearing about someone dealing with a difficulty that your kids didn't have, and then patting yourself on the back for being a better parent. Every time you explain something to your kids, they just got it and stopped bothering you about it? Trust me when I say, you are in the minority.

> meltdowns over hearing an ice cream truck

I know for a fact, it just wasn't an issue when I was a kid, or even in our neighborhood until this year, when the trucks started parking on our street after school. For many children, that is a time of the day when they are exhausted and unlikely to be reasoned with. Maybe it's a sign their parents are "inconsistent" or whatever, but I maintain that there is a difference between a truck stopping by once every hour or 4-5 times per hour, and also a difference between an ice cream truck at the park vs stopping on residential streets one by one every day. There's no other business that works this way, it's not like they have some fundamental right, and that's not even talking about the noise pollution aspect.

[LiKao]

These "maddeningly repetitive questions" are exactly the internal issues that are being talked about. If they ask "why not" just let them ask.

It's not your job as a parent to 1) make sure your children are happy all the time 2) defend your decisions against all attacks.

I found that when children say "why not" repeatedly, they are actually saying "I am unhappy and want to find an argument to reconsider your stance". If you signal them that this is actually something to argue about, e.g. by repeatedly answering these questions, they will just play the game you are offering them.

I found that it's actually a good approach to only directly answer "why not" the first time, and to just answer it the second time by "I understand that you are unhappy about my decision. I have already explained it and will not explain it again. If you need help dealing with your unhappiness I will be there for you."

A lot of the maddening part of these questions is most often the parent not being able to deal with the unhappiness of the child. Once you accept that unhappiness is a natural part of life 1) this will be easier for you 2) you will model much better for your child how to deal with unhappiness.

[southernplaces7]

>Spoken like someone who either doesn’t have kids, or at least has easier ones than mine.

I do actually and in particular a little one with autism, making part of the process for educating on certain things more difficult than average, but despite being far from parent of the year, I manage and there are things that work.

>You think you’re just going to explain to a four year old the rules about ice cream and they’ll just be like “you’re right daddy. I forgot we had ice cream from the truck yesterday. I’ll grab some carrot sticks instead”?

Well, yeah. That's what parenting is partly about. Establish limits or conduct through repeated insistence on certain rules and lessons to be learned learned, instead of trying to make complaints against others causing a minor inconvenience with their own source of making a living or food choices you don't seem to like.

Parenting isn't easy and each case is different, but if something as minor as a few minutes of ice cream truck marketing is too much to handle with your kids, blaming others isn't your solution to that problem.

And please, the whole ethics thing you describe is just absurd in this context. A jingling ice cream truck, which kids love and which hardly sells something terrible or deceptive, is far from the kind of manipulative marketing you're contriving here. It's just a basic and basically harmless reality: Kids love ice cream, and there's nothing wrong with someone selling a bit of it to them. You're creating an ethical knot that doesn't have any good reason for existing in a normal world.

Example: Every time I take mine home from school, we pass by a Dairy Queen that's on the route home. Oops, and guess what gets asked for each day that this happens? Some days I say sure, and we go get a cone or blizzard. Other days, it's a firm no, and that's that. Repeat insistence made this work out okay. And I don't blame the DQ for anything, even though this particular branch happens to also use music to market its very visible presence.

>Here’s a better question before you call me a Karen: given that most people have freezers, who exactly benefits from daily ice cream truck visits? Not the parents, for reasons above. The kids find it frustrating too. The fact that they had ice cream yesterday usually doesn’t ease their disappointment.

Totally subjective opinions of your own, and in no way justifying getting so annoyed that you want to ban these things, as you seem to. Again, how about not converting your personal dislikes of minor things into trying to shut those things down.

[thinkingtoilet]

It's amazing how much power one person can have if we let them. I would organize people to talk to the people who made the ban and let them know you are unhappy. People pay so little attention to local politics that even an issue like this can result in someone being elected or not being reelected.

[ryandrake]

It really is crazy in the USA how much of an overreaction a single, loud, entitled, nosey, complaining neighbor can get with local government: whether it's complaining about kids making noise, complaining about kids playing alone, complaining about traffic, complaining about suspicious black people in their neighborhood, complaining about the length of their neighbor's grass or a car parked in front of their house. You read all these stories about how one complaint resulted in the police being deployed, fines being assessed, innocent people getting in trouble, roads getting speed bumps and 5 all-way stop signs, and other crazy shit happening because some one person couldn't manage to mind their own business.

[jpk]

I think part of this is because people often don't appeal to local government unless they've got an axe to grind. Nobody goes to the city council meeting to comment on how everything is great and things are fine the way they are. So when someone shows up to complain about ice cream truck music, the people who are pleased, or at least indifferent about it, don't show up to oppose the complainer, and the signal the council members get is that it's a problem and a city ordinance or whatever is required. There are typically opportunities in the local law-making process to allow someone to oppose the complainer, and it does happen, but few will match the complainer's level of effort. Then if a law makes it on the books, local LEOs become the complainer-class's customer service representatives, and you get what you're describing.

Ultimately, local civic engagement is often what matters most to your day-to-day life, which is good. I think effective and durable self-governance must start at the local level. But we get blasted by media related to national politics at every time and season, to the point that the thought of trying to stay dialed into local government is a non-starter for many. If all the attention we can bear to allocate to politics is monopolized by the national wedge issues of the day, who will muster the volition to save the ice cream truck music?

[Der_Einzige]

Now imagine a determined AI agent empowered by a nefarious and disgruntled AI researcher.

[dylan604]

When it comes to government reps that field calls like this, there's some variation of a formula saying for every one phone call translates to X number of people that feel the same way but do not make the call. It used to be different weightings for someone calling vs writing a letter. Either way, it was more a statistics reaction. Not sure if this comes into play or not.

It could also be that the single person that did complain happens to be a close friend or even related to someone else powerful, or is just influential in the area in other ways. That tilts the weighting as well.

[antonymoose]

I’ve grown up in a Hollywood Hillbilly-esque family, one that made it but kept to the original values. That is to say the e’ve “made it” and live in a highly regarded vacation destination area. Except I grew up learning to stand up to bullies, ne’er-do-wells, and miscreants, if that meant coming to fisticuffs, so be it.

From a young age I learned a fascinating lesson, socially speaking, is that some non trivial percent of the population does not at all mind the proverbial “Karen” causing a ruckus for the community. However, the second you stand up and tell them you don’t agree, somehow, you are the one held responsible as the troublemaker.

It’s not the initial ruckus causer that matters, it’s the conflict causer that does. Too many don’t care about change in any way, they care about “the peace.”

[taeric]

It is downright depressing seeing all of the people pile on regarding the food truck. I can almost understand setting a volume limit on it, if there are some that are going overboard. After all, I'll gripe to my kids for yelling while in the same room with me. But banning or justifying a ban!?

And, I'm fine that we disallow extreme things such as sonic booms. Yes, that should remain banned. For really good reasons. No, that does not extend to sounds of life.

Does it somewhat suck to live near a ball field during playoff season? I guess? Isn't exactly a hidden part of life, though. It also somewhat sucks when the chickens are upset about something out back. Or, heaven help you if you have frogs nearby.

Reminds me of the hilarity of people that want to point out how horrible fireworks are for pets. You aren't wrong, but fireworks are nothing compared to a standard storm in many places. So, maybe tone down the bitching about it a bit?

Edit: Amusingly, I'm currently working from basically under an airport at the moment. Also a very loud place.

[nano521412]

It's just that annoying. If your city aren't so car dependent maybe kids can get their snack from real vendors in commercial area instead lol

[taeric]

Trust me, it isn't that annoying. Having sea lions that won't stop barking all day is annoying. Coyotes in mating season is obnoxious. A rooster that has decided to not be quiet is annoying.

So sure, kids doing kid things can be loud and obnoxious. But it is not really any more annoying than anything else. The ice cream truck playing a jingle is just not that big of a deal.

Now, I do suspect some folks have obnoxious trucks that play far far louder than they need to? In this vein, it is a lot like cars going down the street. At a base level, it makes noise and it doesn't really make sense to complain about it. That said, it is extra obnoxious to have people trick out cars and motorcycles to be loud on purpose. And those I have no sympathy for getting banned.

[ravenstine]

Meanwhile, nobody does anything about all the crotch rockets and douche canoes with exhaust systems deliberately modified to be obnoxiously loud at any hour of the day.

[jancsika]

> is a slippery slope to nowhere positive.

Both you and the author are rankly speculating.

Worse, the author is outright misleading:

> Trying to suppress that energy by demanding silence or defaulting to screens is damaging.

The word "damaging" links to an article by Haidt with evidence of damage from defaulting to screens, but decidedly not evidence of damage from demanding silence.

They make the same bait and switch with screen time in a separate paragraph, again with a link to a Haidt article.

I have to say I resent both you and the author for forcing me into having to side with boomers! But you have zero evidence that forcing kids to play sardines instead of tag is detrimental. Given that, I must begrudgingly respect the boomers' grudge and side with your local council's ban (or at least say that it appears innocuous). :(