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My GF is an elementary school teacher and she says the amount of kids who are developing anti-social behaviors is increasing pretty rapidly. Kids these days hav

• alan_wade 8y ago
  Computers, internet, youtube, games - these things are a part of a real world. I mean, they aren't a hallucination, they don't exist on a separate plane of reality. Experiences are real, joy they bring is real, and for many people, it's far better than what the "real" world around them has to offer. If people are tempted to escape into a virtual world, it might be because the real world around them sucks.
  • andai 8y ago
    Technology is designed as a hyperstimulus. The real world (suffering aside) sucks the same way fruit sucks compared with candy.
    • alan_wade 8y ago
      I don't mind it when instead of candy you get fruit. When instead of candy you get kicked in the nuts by a horse, that's when you need some of that youtube to get your mind off of things.
      • bryanrasmussen 8y ago
        kids who have been indulged however do mind, they want the candy, they want it now, and will complain for the next couple days about how you are always trying to give them fruit lest you attempt it again.
    • thetricia 8y ago
      And the last century has shown us that while the preference for candy/sugar might have created a big obesity problem, we're still around and there's no going back. The jury is still out whether or not it's inherently bad. Not being online-savy would put me at a social disadvantage. I'm in my early 20s. My impression is that it's only more so for younger ones. When people talk of "real-world social skills" they usually mean the ones that made sense during their adulthood.
      • maury91 8y ago
        Exists something call moderation, it works both for online presence and for candies. Eating 300 kcals of candies in one day every day will not have a bad effect on you (if the rest of the diet is good), same as checking your Facebook account for 1 hour every day (in 5 minutes interval every 1-2 hours), I disabled every notification from Facebook et similar, and I check them only when I have nothing else to do, and I believe is having a good effect on me, I'm still present online but I'm not wasting all my time and mental energy there
        • anoncake 8y ago
          Moderation clearly does not work for society at large.
    • 8y ago
  • rv-de 8y ago
    Immersing in a game is as real or unreal as is perceiving a hallucination.
  • badpun 8y ago
    The obvious problem with this temptation is that it leads to atrophy (or non-development in the first place) of social skills, which, for 99% of people, is detrimental.
• a_imho 8y ago
  Youtube is turning 14 next year and computers have been mainstream way longer than that. Personally I was a kid when it was the TVs fault and video games were making kids violent, but imo things turned out just fine.
  • qwertay 8y ago
    Trading card games and D&D is ruining kids.
    • Jaruzel 8y ago
      Those darn stick-and-hoop games are ruining our Victorian kids.
      • xxs 8y ago
        That sort of games do require physical activity, though; plus some verbal contact.
    • deadbunny 8y ago
      Kids these days don't know they're born! When I was a kid I had a stick and I was happy! Cue Monty Python sketch
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • ittgsv 8y ago
    YouTube as a 24/7 entertainment channel for kids is definitely not turning 14 now; it's pretty much a recent phenomenon.
    • TomMarius 8y ago
      It started with Minecraft "let's play" videos, that was around 2010.
      • 8y ago
• closeparen 8y ago
  I grew up during the transition. Before I had regular access to technology I spent most of my after-school and recess time staring off into space, pacing around constructing imaginary worlds, and reading YA fiction. I had no interest in my peers, and no idea how to connect with them, years before I ever touched a computer. When I finally did get into the internet, and programming, it was manna from heaven. Now I get to be a productive member of society, staring off into space at my desk and constructing imaginary worlds in the form of software systems for important business purposes. If it weren't for that, I might have wasted away, disintegrated, completely detached from the normal human world. I dunno. Just because a child has no social life and a lot of screen time, doesn't mean the causality works as you propose. Some of us have a tighter grip on the world of things than the world of people. (It's definitely become more balanced for me, with time).
  • jacobush 8y ago
    I think many who grew up in the transition phase became hooked on arts or other creative things like programming. (Programming can often be an art in itself, especially if done for fun.) But today, when I can barely get shit done with all the distractions at my fingertips, I wonder if I could learn the basics before gravitating towards something passive.
    • Waterluvian 8y ago
      The lack of internet on my LCIII as a kid forced me to scour every bit off these dozen or so "Nautilus" CDs we got in the mail. They were like little random chunks of internet. Some demos, software, music, a video (holy crap video on a computer!!!), And lots of written media. It forced me out of necessity to give time to content I never would have bothered with otherwise. Boredom is so healthy.
      • everdrive 8y ago
        No doubt. I'm glad to see other people saying this. I used to be bored all the time, and it did wonderful things for me. Among those: the media, fiction, or interactions that were meaningful to me held more space in my mind. They weren't competing against a sea of trash and new stimulus.
• belorn 8y ago
  I have never really heard people describe elementary school as the most inclusive environment where if just children took their time to talk to their peers then everyone would get along and bullying would be something of the past. If children has a higher need to escape reality than in the past then maybe we should ask why that is rather than in vain hope try to make the problem go away by removing the escape method. Like you I find it troublesome that parents use computers to babysit, but I would say the same thing about any form of babysitting mechanism that result in the child not get any social support.
  • bantunes 8y ago
    Maybe Minecraft and others succeed because they're just easier than actual real-life connections? If so, Minecraft might be a problem, a shortcut too many kids are taking.
  • keiferski 8y ago
    The idea that children "decide" to escape reality is completely ludicrous. The purpose of parents and society is to make good decisions for the future of their children, not pretend like they're opting-in to media manipulation.
    • belorn 8y ago
      The term escaping carries a rather strong implied meaning that its not a opt-in choice in the absence of that which to escape from. It is simply the result when there is no social support from parents and society (ie adults), and the environment that exist in schools that results in bullying and other anti-social behavior.
  • maury91 8y ago
    maybe is because I'm not from US, but I remember elementary school as a very inclusive place, we used to play with every single person in the classroom and also nearby classroom during recess. We used to meet outside school, play in parks and go to each other birthday, I still remember the single day of birth of every single classmate I had, and we are still in contact even if we all took different roads once starting university 10 years ago
• sjg007 8y ago
  Says my HN friends.
• xte 8y ago
  It's not a matter of "computers" but a matter of education: if kids discover something like Smalltalk/Cobol scripting in a friendly environment like ancient Alto&c workstations or actual unix shells and Emacs they may choose to develop some IT skill or ditch computers entirely; if they are mere consumer of contents they became incapable of developing anything themselves. Kids are "totipotent" individuals if they grow up as creators, citizen between other citizen they became adult, otherwise they became consumer, easy to steer from employers to politicians but incapable of being citizen.
• hndamien 8y ago
  I'm not sure it is so simple. As a point of counter anec-data I was always kind of concerned about this, and I even developed a slightly unhealthy habit with my phone when I sank into depression. In any case, we decided an iPad for our son might be helpful for education and we bought one for him/us when he was 1. He used it quite a lot and he learnt maths really early. As he has grown up - now 3, he only occasionally uses his iPad. To be honest, I find it quite strange that it hasn't turned out how we all would expect it to. I've been conscious to not put crappy advertising games on there, or anything with psychological hooks. But I honestly don't think it is the device that is the root of the problem.
  • murph-almighty 8y ago
    > I've been conscious to not put crappy advertising games on there, or anything with psychological hooks. It's almost like reasonably moderating the content your child consumes will help prevent undesirable behavior. I'm being a bit gratuitously sarcastic right now but that's really the crux of it. If it's trying to sell your child something or constantly stimulating them in a way the real world can't or it's not teaching your child something you want them to learn, be careful about how they consume it. I'm nowhere near the age of having kids yet but I'm already thinking about the optimal balance of usage so my kid would be digitally native and not addicted to apps.
• peteretep 8y ago
  > My GF is an elementary school teacher and she says Respectfully, I've spent a _great deal of time_ with elementary school teachers, and many appear very very willing to diagnose random children, adults, and coworkers as being "a bit autistic", and so on. In addition, and assuming wildly here, how old is she? If you're the HN average of about 30, and she's about your age, she doesn't really have a cross-generational experience to pull from, even assuming she was making observations free of the very many cognitive biases one would expect in this situation. My bet would be that if you found a teacher -- from almost any point in history -- and asked them what the kids are like in their time period, they'd tell you about the latest inventions that have made their kids uniquely awful and anti-social. I'll spare you pulling out the 3,000 year-old quotes about how "young people these days don't respect their elders". If there are some studies that show it, I'd be all for it. Teacher anecdotes are uniquely poor quality samples, in my opinion.
  • murph-almighty 8y ago
    > My GF is an elementary school teacher and she says Respectfully, I've spent a _great deal of time_ with elementary school teachers, and many appear very very willing to diagnose random children, adults, and coworkers as being "a bit autistic", and so on. I've had a very similar experience with the people I know who are trying to be teachers, though most of the people I deal with are either in or just out of college and this could be attributed to inexperience. I find it a little troubling that I see people practically seeking examples of unusual social behavior and attributing it to autism. I saw this sort of pseudo-analysis happen a lot with Sheldon in Big Bang Theory. Opinions of the show aside, I don't think it was ever explicitly stated that he had a social disorder.
  • scarejunba 8y ago
    Seriously, let’s be real. How much experience does this elementary school teacher have with the previous generation? None, probably. Through all of time we’ve heard this. The current generation is supposedly rubbish in some way the previous generation was not. Instead it’s been the opposite. Each succeeding generation has surpassed the previous in any human quality. I have immense confidence that our collective children will be the same. We are better people than our parents. Our kids will be better than us. No doubt about it.
• matty_makes 8y ago
  A great feature on Playstation is Family Management using sub-accounts. You can set time limits where it will log them out automatically. You can also setup a schedule with certain hours per day and end time. I hear lots of "how much gaming did you do when you were young?" but it isn't the same. Today big game companies engineer the games to be addictive to "win" screen time. Back then I may have sunk a lot of time into Nintendo but it was mostly solo playing or playing with friends/siblings that sat next to you. You tended to help each other out to get past levels, etc.
• cyberpunk0 8y ago
  They escape because our society is corrupt and failing
• Nadya 8y ago
  Before my household had internet I was nose deep in a book 24/7, never leaving my room, and I had no friends at all. Post-internet I at least had friends, sure some were in the Netherlands, or Germany, or Australia, or Brazil, or Japan but they were people. Actual people that existed outside of the fantasy novels I would read. People that as an adult, I was able to travel to and visit. I have a job in web development, something that wouldn't even exist without the internet. I owe essentially 100% of my "successful adult life" to the internet existing. Without it I'd likely be working a minimum wage job at a local fast food chain without a single friend to speak of. Merely existing and reading books. I blame helicopter parents like my mother far more than I blame access to the internet. What about the giant scare of strangers that flared up in the 90s? Every stranger is a potential murderer/rapist and you shouldn't speak to them. Children not being allowed to travel outside alone, the rise of "helicopter parenting". Even if you allow your child to go outside it's increasingly unlikely they'll meet another child because other parents don't let their children go outside. When I was younger I remember always seeing parks full of unsupervised kids playing. Most parks I see now are empty. Or maybe a parent watching their kid(s) play on the equipment.
• lostmsu 8y ago
  I don't think that behavior should be called anti-social. Why do you put their online friends in quotes? When I grew up, I only had one real friend, and everyone else I played with only because they lived on the same street. I did not particularly like the games most of the time, but there was no choice. In contrast, these kids have friends, who actually share some common interest. They choose those friends. And also, probably, more of them. If anything, I'd call that hyper-social.