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MTV did its damage on the youth who are now all adults and totally different from the generation that preceded them. There is no telling in what ways minds have

MTV did its damage on the youth who are now all adults and totally different from the generation that preceded them. There is no telling in what ways minds have changed. If only someone were to do a research study on this. But without it, it is difficult to say that damage did or didn't happen.

colechristensen 8y ago
My point has been the "X is ruining the children's attention" is a constant across history for several new X each generation for as long as there has been civilization. You could certainly do a study of some metric and X's effect on it and find a few that were affected negatively, call that 'damage', and write blog posts about it. X would continue to thrive, adults would continue to complain about it, and the next generation would find a new X to use, abuse, and irritate their parents. Philosophically, 'damage' is more like 'change' and there are a lot of people who like complaining about it because they have forgotten or misremembered what it was like to be young and have limited capacity to empathize with a different generation. If there are things about the change which are right and wrong, they probably aren't the ones being discussed or even understood until enough time has passed to see the change with the perspective of time and by then whatever problems have likely resolved themselves anyway.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  This argument proves too much. If some new actually-bad youth trend were to arise, e.g. the youths were to be convinced that lithium batteries are a better source of nutrients than real food, this logic would still ignore the problem, since "the old folks never understand". It's more illuminating to seriously consider the unforeseen effects of new things.
  - colechristensen 8y ago
    Some day that will probably happen. Somebody will figure out how to make some cybernetic implant that will plug in and provide an alternative to eating. "old folks" will go about complaining about wholesome food and techies will ignore them. Over time I have grown increasingly irritated by the talk about things being "bad for you". At this point if you don't have a decades long history of studies holding up to meta-analysis backed up by a philosophy of life and what is good and bad for it, I really think what is being said is nonsense. I'll believe hyper-specific cause-and-effect data, but I just don't care about the latest opinion about if something is bad for me. Until you can show me a study proving that listening to that sort of constant what-I-call-nonsense leads to quantifiable improvements I can be convinced to care about, I'd rather people spend their energy doing something other than complaining about change and/or the status quo. It holds the same status, in me, as celebrity gossip.
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      OK well I admire your commitment to the philosophical position... even so, please don't eat batteries.
      - colechristensen 8y ago
        All the other kids are doing it, must be a good time

colechristensen 8y ago

My point has been the "X is ruining the children's attention" is a constant across history for several new X each generation for as long as there has been civilization. You could certainly do a study of some metric and X's effect on it and find a few that were affected negatively, call that 'damage', and write blog posts about it. X would continue to thrive, adults would continue to complain about it, and the next generation would find a new X to use, abuse, and irritate their parents. Philosophically, 'damage' is more like 'change' and there are a lot of people who like complaining about it because they have forgotten or misremembered what it was like to be young and have limited capacity to empathize with a different generation. If there are things about the change which are right and wrong, they probably aren't the ones being discussed or even understood until enough time has passed to see the change with the perspective of time and by then whatever problems have likely resolved themselves anyway.

jessaustin 8y ago
This argument proves too much. If some new actually-bad youth trend were to arise, e.g. the youths were to be convinced that lithium batteries are a better source of nutrients than real food, this logic would still ignore the problem, since "the old folks never understand". It's more illuminating to seriously consider the unforeseen effects of new things.
- colechristensen 8y ago
  Some day that will probably happen. Somebody will figure out how to make some cybernetic implant that will plug in and provide an alternative to eating. "old folks" will go about complaining about wholesome food and techies will ignore them. Over time I have grown increasingly irritated by the talk about things being "bad for you". At this point if you don't have a decades long history of studies holding up to meta-analysis backed up by a philosophy of life and what is good and bad for it, I really think what is being said is nonsense. I'll believe hyper-specific cause-and-effect data, but I just don't care about the latest opinion about if something is bad for me. Until you can show me a study proving that listening to that sort of constant what-I-call-nonsense leads to quantifiable improvements I can be convinced to care about, I'd rather people spend their energy doing something other than complaining about change and/or the status quo. It holds the same status, in me, as celebrity gossip.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    OK well I admire your commitment to the philosophical position... even so, please don't eat batteries.
    - colechristensen 8y ago
      All the other kids are doing it, must be a good time