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An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you
- phenkdo 6y agowhy just Indian youth? This is a global phenomenon and I am not sure this is such a bad thing. Very similar things were said about books, movies & TV, humanity adapts and moves on.
- bondarchuk 6y agoI think by now we can safely say that the influence of TV on society has indeed been net negative.
- aww_dang 6y agoIf you have high standards in anything, most people won't get it right. Tools are only as useful as the person wielding them. The generalization may be true, but concluding that there's no benefit or that we would be better off without would be a non-sequitur.
- Ensorceled 6y agoBecause he’s Indian, writing a message specifically targeting Indian youth, in an Indian paper. Please take your “what about” somewhere productive.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ryandward 6y agoMaybe we can try to be nice to each other.
- phenkdo 6y agoicymi, i was trying to be rhetorical. Please take your holier-than-thou sanctimony somewhere productive.
- Ensorceled 6y agoI didn't miss it, I just disagree with your attitude. https://xkcd.com/2368/ https://xkcd.com/2368/
- throwaway316943 6y agoI don’t think there’s anything wrong with addressing a group of people you belong to and share common values with. This site is based around such as notion. Statements from a group member carry more weight and you can speak to shared ideals. It doesn’t mean your statement can’t apply to others either. Similar things were said about the other media you list but one can’t deny that there are both qualitative and quantitative differences between those media. The danger I think lies in the replacement of human interaction and is proportional to the amount of time consumed.
- throwmylifawy 6y agoI am not Indian, but I feel like he is talking to me as well. I spend about 5-6 hours online and I am not accomplishing my goals. I don’t even have goals. Ultimately it is not the fault of the internet companies, the blame lies on me.
- sbmthakur 6y ago> Ultimately it is not the fault of the internet companies, the blame lies on me. That may not be entirely true. Dark patterns like Doom scrolling are employed by companies to keep you hooked on their apps. Also checkout Social cooling. https://www.socialcooling.com/ https://www.socialcooling.com/
- tgv 6y agoQuick link for info on the author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chetan_Bhagat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chetan_Bhagat, an investement banker turned novel and screen writer, who also writes about the Indian society. I had never heard of him, but "He was included in Time magazine's list of World's 100 Most Influential People in 2010."
- strategyanalyst 6y agoChetan Bhagat is like a low brow JK Rowling of India. Most Indian authors in 90's wrote with aim of trying to win a Booker by writing needlessly esoteric prose and themes which appealed to Western readers, he wrote books in simple English with Indian urban characters. He is probably the most popular author alive in India right now.
- yesenadam 6y agoThank you. I looked him up.. and found that the movie 3 Idiots was loosely based on his first novel! I love that movie so much, and it got me into the wonderful world of 21st C Indian cinema. 3 Idiots (2009) and PK (2014) are my favourites. The best of the other recent Indian movies I've seen: Barfi! (2012), Mardaani (2014), Lagaan (2001), Rocket Singh (2009), Dangal (2016), Dabba (2013), Black (2005), Rang de Basanti (2006), Taare Zameen Par (2007), Dhobi Ghat (2010), Secret Superstar (2017), My Name Is Khan (2010)
- onion2k 6y agoI had never heard of him... This says more about your lack of knowledge than his lack of fame.
- yalogin 6y agoIf we really want them to see shouldn't they be tweeting this instead or may be in India post it on WhatsApp. Kidding aside, its going to be really tough to wean people off social media. It will be the defining problem of the world going forward. Things only get worse from here. There will be woke people who get off of the internet but not woke population.
- hawkoy 6y ago> If we really want them to see shouldn't they be tweeting this instead or may be in India post it on WhatsApp. The letter is for parents and old people.
- dvdkon 6y agoI don't like how the author pits "using phones" and "success in life" against each other. I get his point, people who don't put any time into furthering their career aren't likely to be in a good position later in life, but there are many who have obtained their career goals while "consuming" media for hours each day and there are also many who don't use their phone much and are still as poor as ever. I'm not against motivational articles or against critiques of modern smartphone usage, but this one seems to be to be mostly an emotional appeal with the wrong arguments. Paraphrased, "if you use phones, you won't make it anywhere in life, and you don't want that, right?"
- otabdeveloper4 6y agoSocial media and video games are addictive in the same way that cigarettes, alcohol, etc., are. Worse, video games and social media are now explicitly targeted by big business to get kids addicted as early as possible. It's a mess and we're heading for a huge shakedown and re-orientation in a generation. (At one point cigarettes were seen as a "not big deal" too.)
- reedf1 6y agoEverything is addictive, what matters is when the addiction subverts your intrinsic goals.I think what people need to be spared is some moralism about what your intrinsic goals "should" be. Some people's intrinsic goal is to be part of the culture of their time, and games do that just like books, movies, comics, what have you.
- creata 6y agoThere are lots of games that are simply designed as entertainment (edit: or political pieces, art, etc.), and I'm perfectly fine with those. But there are also games, typically mobile games, that blatantly do everything in their power to keep the player (often a naive child) coming back, and those are definitely manipulative. Manipulative enough to be illegal? I don't think so, but I'm not sure.
- akiselev 6y ago
- raverbashing 6y agoNo, it's not the youth that has to get off their phones It's the older generation. They are the ones lacking critical skills and ability to understand what goes on Fb, etc Edit: I don't see why this is so controversial. Younger people do stupid stuff on their phones, but they're more open to learning from their mistakes The older generation has a more inflexible mindset and hasn't been on the internet/social media for longer (most of them, which is probably not so much the demographic here, even for older HNs commenters) I see how a lot of people behave today and it's how I behaved and felt for a good amount of time. But that wasn't on the hate melting pot of Facebook, it was on more spread out and on more niche sites. Or spoken in other words: some things are better left on a pub brawl table not as a hard statement on social media.
- leg100 6y agoHow does the older generation getting off their phones help them to understand "what goes on Fb", let alone help them gain critical skills (which seems far fetched)?
- dudul 6y agoI actually think that the generation that was born with a technology also barely understands it. How many kids really understand what FB is made of? How many of them really understand what the internet is? They don't, it's always been there, who cares? There is this misconception that just because a kid can swipe and type super fast on their phone they are "tech literate". As someone who taught tech in school I've seen the exact opposite.
- julianlam 6y agoThe scary part is those same individuals who have grown up with Facebook, et al. being ubiquitous, believe Facebook is the entirety of the internet.
- fennecfoxen 6y agoThis sounds mildly implausible given that Facebook is full of links to things that aren’t itself.
- mikeymz 6y agonot sure spouting unfounded assertions about the "cognative brain" is helping. spending 5-7 hours a day on social media is a massive waste of time though. of that there is no doubt
- skrebbel 6y agoI think this is a good message, but by making the phone the problem I fear the author misses a fundamental connection to the youth he addresses. The issue is what you do on a phone, not the phone itself. In fact, phones make it a lot easier to create and not just consume, than televisions did back in the author's youth. And I bet there were similar anti-TV op-eds in newspapers in those days that the author would have rolled his eyes at. The message should've been to create more and consume less. A phone let's you do either, the device is hardly related at all. You can't see what a person is doing when they're bent over their phone.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoWhile you're right, the addictiveness of social media makes it extremely difficult to self-regulate once exposed to something that gets you hooked.
- julianlam 6y ago> The message should've been to create, not consume. This needs to be said more and more with each passing year. I became aware of this phenomenon back in the early 2000s, with Facebook gaining popularity among my friends, and blogs were gradually losing steam -- people aren't creating anymore, but simply consuming media, and therein lies the problem: how can you express independent thought when your media consumption habits dictate your beliefs?
- coldpie 6y agoNah. People are more creative now than they have ever been. You just haven't followed them to the new platforms. On the Internet, go check out SoundCloud and YouTube and Instagram and TikTok and Open Source communities. Off the Internet, go check in with your local independent radio, theatre communities, and maker spaces. Creativity is exploding. People haven't stagnated; you have.
- im3w1l 6y agoCan we quantify this?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jhbadger 6y agoI'm old enough to remember when it was TV that was supposedly wasting the time and destroying the youth. Before that, it was comic books. And movies. And even in the 19th century people were complaining about novels. Yes, in theory it is better if people do something constructive rather than just enjoy entertainment. But people can't be 100% in productive mode 100% of the time.
- kardianos 6y agoI call survivor bias. Books without action can render useless. TV can consume countless hours and does eat lives. Smartphones are the same, but more so. We must recognize the danger all these thing. Information without physical action is a danger.
- paulryanrogers 6y agoTaken to an extreme simply talking to--and visiting--friends a lot can be considered a useless waste. For example, loitering is forbidden in many retail places yet it's become culturally accepted use of indoor malls for teenagers (pre-COVID). Life requires balance. And everyone gets to decide what they do with their down time.
- Ericson2314 6y agoLoitering is a better use of land than metastasized retail. Anti-loitering is a fucked up policy on so many levels. being synchronously social with other human beings is easily the last bad part of malls and phones.
- AlexandrB 6y agoLoitering laws are pure bullshit that's used selectively to get "undesirable elements" away from commercial areas. Be they teenagers, the poor, or - back in the day - certain races.
- rvense 6y agoAs the graffiti says: "Homeless, go home!"
- Aeolun 6y agoYeaaaah, no. I think the reason most of india’s youth is on their phones is because they just have no real prospects in life and the phone is an escape mechanism.
- Icyphox 6y agoWoah. That's a huge generalization. Why do you think all Indian youth have no prospects?
- ffpip 6y agoIt's true. Too much population, too little work. Everyone has just stared coming online. They are discovering infinite porn, TikTok and youtube.
- hawkoy 6y ago> Woah. That's a huge generalization. What do you think the letter does? But I will agree with fpip. India has so many fundamental problems that will require serious government and public change. My state will not have enough drinking water for 30%+ of its population by 2030. Prices of food will go up as ground water becomes non existent. How do you think that will impact people? Educated people are fleeing the country. They are willing to take any jobs to get out before it's too late.
- Aeolun 6y agoIt is a huge generalization, but nowhere did I use ‘all’. The closes I came was saying ‘most’. If everyone tries to be an engineer or doctor because that’s the only way to have prospects in life, something is broken.
- lostgame 6y agoDoom scrolling is a terrifying problem for me, personally. I have only recently realized just how bad it is. I have recently gotten headfirst back into turntablism/vinyl DJ’ing, and leaving my iPhone in my room, just wearing my Apple Watch with me to tell the time and to do a quick voice reply to someone if it’s important enough. I’m trying to start reading books again. It’s scarily hard to keep that level of attention span again. I’m an iOS developer for a living, and I think screen addiction should perhaps start to be considered a workplace hazard. Worse off for me - previous to DJ’ing, my hobbies have been game/homebrew development and hardcore audio production / editing / engineering - all on my MacBook, of course, staring at a screen. Looking at the actual ‘Screen Time’ reports became jarring. I actually still have a dopamine response that tells me to look at my phone when it’s in the other room. Thank God the watch can’t do HN or Reddit. It’s like a signal in my head, wired there, like ‘hey; you’ve gotta use the bathroom’ but instead it’s ‘hey, pick up your phone and start scrolling.’ I’ve had issues with substance abuse in the past that I’ve moved past and worked through. ‘Doom scrolling’ has, by no exaggeration, been harder to kick for me than any substance or even cigarettes, which I smoked for almost ten years - it’s going to take years to unprogram what it took years for the developers of things like Facebook/IG/Reddit to program in the first place. It’s messed up to think that people who have never faced addiction before may deal with this as their first go. It’s going to be a hard recovery for a world buried unproductively with devices in their faces all the time giving them a much quicker and more consistent dopamine response than cigarettes ever could.
- Subsentient 6y agoBoth zoomers and boomers are guilty of opposite problems No, zoomer, Facebook is not a good use of your time. Get a PC and create content, rather than consume it. You have access to a miracle of modern technology, and you squander it on garbage. No, boomer, phones are not the devil, and you're being a drain by refusing to learn basic tech skills, and people are getting tired of holding your head above water when you immediately forget everything we try to teach you and plunge it back in. The problem isn't what the new generation is using, it's what they're using it for. The older generation's aversion to technology and deliberate lack of effort will only cause them pain in the future, and it causes pain to countless grandkids right now :^)
- aaron695 6y agoWhy does Indian society think it's ok for a letter to be written in this patronising tone? For a newspaper to write it, it must be acceptable somewhat. As a youth today I'd be more worried that you are seen as so weak that they can talk to you this way. Western society does jab away at the youth (https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/avocado-toast https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/avocado-toast), but not this bad and the youth fight back.
- altitudinous 6y agoI like that the comments here are generally proving that this article is pretty much on the money.
- altitudinous 6y agoAn interesting experiment is to leave your phone at home when you go out. Try it. I don't mean take your phone anyway but don't use it. That is not the same thing. The value in this experiment is not to have your phone to fall back on. Initially you feel anxiety, but it soon becomes quite liberating. Having to look at road signs to navigate, relying on personal interaction or reading notices to find things out etc etc. Sounds old fashioned but it improves my quality of life when I do it.
- skohan 6y agoI did this accidentally a few weeks ago, and it was such a good experience I have done it intentionally a few times since then. I was just walking in my own neighborhood, but it was a similar feeling to what it's like traveling in a new city for the first time.
- hnarn 6y agoThis whole idea that being without a phone is somehow liberating — and just not using it is definitely not as pure and wholly amazing as being completely without it — is to me a silly and predictable response to the very real drawbacks of high tech modern life. Phones have value. That’s why people use them. Pretending they don’t and that we’re all brainwashed doesn’t change that reality. Here’s an example: I want to take public transport to a grocery store. I walk out the door. I don’t have my phone. First of all, if I don’t check the opening hours of the store before leaving, I now have no idea. The whole trip may be for nothing. Secondly, when planning my trip, my phone would help me suggest what line and where to switch, if necessary. It would alert me in real time of any issues, again with alternate suggestions. When traveling: no music. No audio books. Just the organic, wonderful and inspiring sounds of the city. Not to mention all the wonderful people on public transport you’re aching to know better. When I get to the store, I may have forgotten my shopping list. And even if I brought it, I have no way of getting in contact with someone that may want to add something to it. If I find a new product I don’t recognize and I’m unsure of whether it’s overpriced, I can’t compare to any other vendor. I also can’t check reviews from other people. I’m sorry if I sound cynical, but sometimes I feel like the spread (but not necessarily the preaching) of this whole luddite idea of smartphones ruining us is mainly fueled by people young enough to have grown up with them being everywhere, because I’m in my mid 30s and I remember what life was like without smartphones, and for the most part, it sucked.
- robofanatic 6y agoMay be Chetan Bhagat is losing readership to the "internet" that's why it's concerning.
- swiley 6y agoIMO it's not "smartphones" but the OSes built by apple and google that encourage unhealthy and addictive usage. None of my pre "smartphone" PDAs did this, and I don't feel myself sucked into the mindless addictive patterns on my PinePhone (although that may be because Firefox can be sluggish on it.)
- zabardasth 6y agoThe neoluddite take is kind of like beating a dead horse. Smartphones are a tool; how you use this tool is entirely dependent on how disciplined your mind is. Not everyone who has their first sip of alcohol will become an alcoholic. It is the same for smartphones. The article’s take on China is weird too; do they not have smartphones? The author probably wrote the article on a Huawei phone that the vast majority of Chinese people use every day.
- xnyan 6y agoThis not only came off as condescending, but also desperate and whiny. The first paragraph (paraphrased) “I am writing in a BIG newspaper, and I was taught that when someone writes in A Real Serious Newspaper, I deserve to be read” I look at newspapers like churches. Churches and newspapers are businesses in some ways, they exist because they meet the needs of their customers. I went to church as a little kid but I don’t as a man because it does not meet my needs, I have community in other places and I don’t need old white dudes yelling at me that I am living my life “wrong” (aka, not the way they think life should be lived). Also, from an intellectual level this argument is extremely boring and stale. It has literally been made continuously throughout time since the Greeks and the beginning of our records of recorded discourse, and was probably made too before we have records.
- will4274 6y ago> I don’t need old white dudes yelling at me that I am living my life “wrong” I don't think the author of this article is white. Does that make you more receptive to his argument that folks who use their cell phones are living their lives "wrong"? That's all to say - how are old white dudes relevant to this thread?
- Gokuldas027 6y ago"smartphone" doesn't destroys anyone. It's the "how" someone chose to use it.. I'm a programmer, from India, learned to code from the Internet, spend most of the time in front of the screen, and I guess, it would've been better if the letter suggested some ways to prevent the "destruction". Step 1: Turn off the notifications, will help you take control. Step 2: stay away from the Facebook empire. ...
- ipsocannibal 6y agoDidn't the inventors of the smartphone and internet startups do exactly what the author is suggesting? How would those ventures be successful without a large segment of the population addicted to the products they provide? Let us not overly worship the power of creativity. While creativity can produce the smartphone it also produces the consequences of smartphones being successful.
- commonturtle 6y agoIt honestly seems like technology affects older generations more than newer ones. Look at the people most susceptible to fake news online, vast majority over the age of 50. Younger people understand how the internet works; you can’t trust everything you read online.
- chandmk 6y agoWhen I was kid, I remember my parents yelling at me playing 'useless' games at the end of the street with my 'good for nothing' friends. When I was a teen, I remember them not liking me watching "too much" of TV and grumbling about reading 'no good' fiction magazines. Now this.. "get off the phone" advice. The key is, the choice must come from with-in, like Diogenes of Snopes[1] tells Alexader the great to stand out of his sun. Until the kids are capable of making the choice or until the kids turn into adults, parents and schools must create an environment that shows descent maker's alternative to phones. This needs lot of work on behaf of schools and sacrifices on behalf of parents. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes_and_Alexander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes_and_Alexander
- known 6y agoSmart phones will/can whittle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry I think due to smart phones nobody is buying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chetan_Bhagat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chetan_Bhagat novels :)
- boruto 6y agoSurprisingly I was told in my youth by many not to read this authors books because they were a waste of time