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Her conclusion was basically: phone is bad. Which has been the same conclusion that older generations have come to as well.

glitchc 3y ago
Agreed. So why do they remain glued to them. Why don't they just turn the phone off and put it down?
- iris2004 3y ago
  I'll assume for a moment it's not a rhetorical question and state the obvious - phones (i.e. apps) have been designed to be addictive. It's not a failure of willpower but rather it's you losing (predictively) to decades of market research and teams of PhDs employed to exploit your brain. It's asymmetrical warfare. It's like cigarettes of the past except instead of chemists optimising addictive additives it's programmers optimising attention stealing notifications and dark patterns.
  - glitchc 3y ago
    If phones are so addictive, how come I can put mine away? I'm human too, not special. Many things are designed to be addictive: TV, alcohol, sugar and salt are also addictive. Shall we ban them all? We bring the big bad banhammer down whenever someone cannot deal with their addiction. Every ban erodes our freedoms, bit by bit. Why not just go live in China? There the authorities are happy to tell you what you can and cannot do with every aspect of your life.
    - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
      >If phones are so addictive, how come I can put mine away? You are not everybody. There are people more susceptible to addiction than you, and likely people less susceptible to addiction than you as well. Should the Sacklers have been allowed to keep lying about the addictive qualities of Oxycontin despite there being people who "cannot deal with their addiction?"
    - iris2004 3y ago
      > Every ban erodes our freedoms, bit by bit. That's basically reductio ad absurdum and a common refrain I see on HN. Restricting the worst dark patterns in software is not an affront to human freedom. Banning selling cigarettes to kids is not the same as Uighur concentration camps.
nonrandomstring 3y ago
As I read the article I thought it was written by someone my age (Gen-X) projecting onto a younger generation their own fears, suspicions, bugbears and theories about why their kid's lives suck, without really understanding. Broken hearted at what I've seen as university professor for the past 10-15 years... a generation who seem empty and bereft, I wrote a book to try to help [0]. The central metaphor of it is that the data you consume is much like the food you eat, and entreating people to be more selective about their consumption. But most of what I wrote there was dismissed by my own generation, especially fellow developers and technical people, as "Luddite". Those of us seriously challenging the "smart-phone crisis" are always dubbed marginal throwbacks and non-conformist oddballs. Yet if this article is genuine, and representative it turns out we were right all along. I am not sure if I am happy or sad. Sometimes you just really want to be wrong. I feel I should take more courage, and renewed vigour to be even more vocal in denouncing smartphones as a scourge. And yet I remain sceptical, perhaps out of hopeless optimism that this catastrophe isn't happening. Are there any articles countering this one? Written by Gen-Z who are delighted with being addicted to always-on tracking and surveillance devices that fill their minds with doom and poison? [0] Digital Vegan (https://digitalvegan.net https://digitalvegan.net)
- wtfwhateven 3y ago
  The author of OP's link has a net worth of $1.5 million. She absolutely has no idea of the problems non-millionaire zoomers have. She appears to genuinely believe taking away the phone will solve everything (it won't).
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    > taking away the phone will solve everything (it won't). Very true. Indeed, with my understanding of addiction one thing I fear we'd have to endure with a step change - like a backlash where millions of young people dump their phones, or an large scale failure of technology, is that they wouldn't know what to do with themselves. Plunged from a superficially meaningful digital holding-pen into an empty real world would be insane. Positive cultural change has to happen slowly enough. > The author of OP's link has a net worth of $1.5 million. She absolutely has no idea of the problems non-millionaire zoomers have. I don't believe wealth is a factor in understanding per se. To my eyes, the poverty of life that accompanies a smartphone lifestyle is equally hurtful to rich and poor alike.
wredue 3y ago
I mean. It’s not like young people are the exclusive demographic of doomscrollers. When I take my kids to the park or their sports, grandma and grandpa are usually the ones scrolling Facebook. There’s no shortage of “grandma, I can see you not watching! Watch!” Doom scrolling is impacting everyone. Quitting Facebook and Reddit is the best thing I did for my sanity. That shit was all bigotry and racism at this point anyway.

glitchc 3y ago

Agreed. So why do they remain glued to them. Why don't they just turn the phone off and put it down?

iris2004 3y ago
I'll assume for a moment it's not a rhetorical question and state the obvious - phones (i.e. apps) have been designed to be addictive. It's not a failure of willpower but rather it's you losing (predictively) to decades of market research and teams of PhDs employed to exploit your brain. It's asymmetrical warfare. It's like cigarettes of the past except instead of chemists optimising addictive additives it's programmers optimising attention stealing notifications and dark patterns.
- glitchc 3y ago
  If phones are so addictive, how come I can put mine away? I'm human too, not special. Many things are designed to be addictive: TV, alcohol, sugar and salt are also addictive. Shall we ban them all? We bring the big bad banhammer down whenever someone cannot deal with their addiction. Every ban erodes our freedoms, bit by bit. Why not just go live in China? There the authorities are happy to tell you what you can and cannot do with every aspect of your life.
  - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
    >If phones are so addictive, how come I can put mine away? You are not everybody. There are people more susceptible to addiction than you, and likely people less susceptible to addiction than you as well. Should the Sacklers have been allowed to keep lying about the addictive qualities of Oxycontin despite there being people who "cannot deal with their addiction?"
  - iris2004 3y ago
    > Every ban erodes our freedoms, bit by bit. That's basically reductio ad absurdum and a common refrain I see on HN. Restricting the worst dark patterns in software is not an affront to human freedom. Banning selling cigarettes to kids is not the same as Uighur concentration camps.

nonrandomstring 3y ago

As I read the article I thought it was written by someone my age (Gen-X) projecting onto a younger generation their own fears, suspicions, bugbears and theories about why their kid's lives suck, without really understanding. Broken hearted at what I've seen as university professor for the past 10-15 years... a generation who seem empty and bereft, I wrote a book to try to help [0]. The central metaphor of it is that the data you consume is much like the food you eat, and entreating people to be more selective about their consumption. But most of what I wrote there was dismissed by my own generation, especially fellow developers and technical people, as "Luddite". Those of us seriously challenging the "smart-phone crisis" are always dubbed marginal throwbacks and non-conformist oddballs. Yet if this article is genuine, and representative it turns out we were right all along. I am not sure if I am happy or sad. Sometimes you just really want to be wrong. I feel I should take more courage, and renewed vigour to be even more vocal in denouncing smartphones as a scourge. And yet I remain sceptical, perhaps out of hopeless optimism that this catastrophe isn't happening. Are there any articles countering this one? Written by Gen-Z who are delighted with being addicted to always-on tracking and surveillance devices that fill their minds with doom and poison? [0] Digital Vegan (https://digitalvegan.net https://digitalvegan.net)

wtfwhateven 3y ago
The author of OP's link has a net worth of $1.5 million. She absolutely has no idea of the problems non-millionaire zoomers have. She appears to genuinely believe taking away the phone will solve everything (it won't).
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  > taking away the phone will solve everything (it won't). Very true. Indeed, with my understanding of addiction one thing I fear we'd have to endure with a step change - like a backlash where millions of young people dump their phones, or an large scale failure of technology, is that they wouldn't know what to do with themselves. Plunged from a superficially meaningful digital holding-pen into an empty real world would be insane. Positive cultural change has to happen slowly enough. > The author of OP's link has a net worth of $1.5 million. She absolutely has no idea of the problems non-millionaire zoomers have. I don't believe wealth is a factor in understanding per se. To my eyes, the poverty of life that accompanies a smartphone lifestyle is equally hurtful to rich and poor alike.

wredue 3y ago

I mean. It’s not like young people are the exclusive demographic of doomscrollers. When I take my kids to the park or their sports, grandma and grandpa are usually the ones scrolling Facebook. There’s no shortage of “grandma, I can see you not watching! Watch!” Doom scrolling is impacting everyone. Quitting Facebook and Reddit is the best thing I did for my sanity. That shit was all bigotry and racism at this point anyway.