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I have kids. This is absolutely an overblown moral panic. I'm sure screen usage is a problem in extreme cases, just like TV watching was back when it was the mo

I have kids. This is absolutely an overblown moral panic. I'm sure screen usage is a problem in extreme cases, just like TV watching was back when it was the moral panic du jour. For most kids, it's just not gonna have a huge effect, and at any rate I'm not convinced it'll be a net negative. Just like with so many other iterations of "X is ruining kids these days", if X fills a void it's probably better to focus on the void instead of X.

doubled112 3y ago
I'm with you here. It'll get worse as my kids get older, I suppose. With any luck I've taught them well enough by then. Didn't kids get in trouble for staying up to late reading books? Then it was TV. Then it was those damn video games making us all violent. Now it's smart phones? Like most things, don't abuse it and it's not a problem.
- tempsy 3y ago
  none of those other things were personalized with algorithms and psychological hooks designed to keep you in app for longer
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    You don't play many video games, I take it.
    - tempsy 3y ago
      modern video games are much more akin to social media than games 20-30 years ago, especially internet based ones. and many have a gambling element to it which makes it even worse in some aspects.
      - doubled112 3y ago
        This is likely why I play a lot of older or single player games. I've certainly noticed a difference with what the kids want to play. Random garbage, daily drops, pay to win. Even the pacing is different.
        tempsy 3y ago
        I have a hard time believing I'm talking to someone arguing in good faith when they say books are just like social media a few decades ago.
        doubled112 3y ago
        I don't recall saying books are like social media. I was only vaguely stating that kids and their media of choice have been "a problem" for a long time. Is this one different? Certainly, but every new problem is different. I'm positive we'll figure it out. The world never collapsed when GTA came out. Part of me reads these no differently than those articles where "nobody wants to work anymore". If you change a few words, you could have written the same piece 100 years ago.
  - idle_zealot 3y ago
    Smartphones aren't personalized with algorithms to hook you. Social media and gacha games, which can be installed on smartphones, are. A smartphone is just a pocket computer. It's an extremely powerful tool and forbidding the next generation from learning to use it effectively would be terribly misguided. Purposeful psychological attacks could do with some regulation however.
    - tasuki 3y ago
      Even the linked article blurs the two. I tried to read it to find out why smartphones were bad, and it only talked about why social media is bad. I know social media is bad, everyone does by now!
life-and-quiet 3y ago
This will come off as passive-aggressive in text, but it's a sincere question: How do you make sense in the rapid increase in mental health issues, including suicide, that seems to correlate so closely with the adoption of smartphones? I'm absolutely not saying that it's conclusive proof of the article's position, but I do think it's a powerful data point.
- EMIRELADERO 3y ago
  https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2024/happiness-and-age-summary/ https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2024/happiness-and-age-summ... > In many but not all regions, the young are happier than the old. But in North America happiness has fallen so sharply for the young that they are now less happy than the old. By contrast, in the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the young are much happier than the old. In Western Europe as a whole happiness is similar at all ages, while elsewhere it tends to decline over the life cycle (with an occasional upturn for the old). This seems to be a phenomenon uniquely present in the Anglosphere. I don't think smartphones are the culprit.
- lazyeye 3y ago
  When it comes to understanding kid's mental health and trying to improve it, Silicon Valley is probably the last place on earth we should go to for advice.
- QuantumG 3y ago
  The denial of the parental right to shield their children from the harshness of the outside world and the human condition, until an appropriate age and level of education. Homeschooling was one form of backlash, along with the alt-parenting movements, and all the rest. All doomed to failure, but the resistance continues. Started long before smartphones. Encyclopaedia salesmen used to have to contend with the "I don't want my kids getting wise too fast" problem. We'll say the same thing about implants. The exo-cortex is good, actually.
- randomdata 3y ago
  Even if we can ultimately attribute it to the smartphone, that does not imply screen time is the culprit. What about, for example, the loss (or stagnation, as it is sometime thought of) of culture we've seen since the smartphone? I think it is fair to say that the smartphone – or a closely related technology – is why that has happened. Take music as a prime example: When I was young, you pretty much had to listen to the same music as everyone else as it was very hard to discover anything beyond. The music everyone was listening to defined a culture. These days, with the change in technology, we could very easily never hear the same song. But someone who has never touched a smartphone in their life is not excluded here. There is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that suicide rates are higher amongst those who don't find a shared identity. Interestingly, youth suicide rates also dropped precipitously during the COVID period. I expect screen time shot through the roof during that phase! But, perhaps, knowing that everyone was dealing with the same COVID experience provided something to identify with.

doubled112 3y ago

I'm with you here. It'll get worse as my kids get older, I suppose. With any luck I've taught them well enough by then. Didn't kids get in trouble for staying up to late reading books? Then it was TV. Then it was those damn video games making us all violent. Now it's smart phones? Like most things, don't abuse it and it's not a problem.

tempsy 3y ago
none of those other things were personalized with algorithms and psychological hooks designed to keep you in app for longer
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  You don't play many video games, I take it.
  - tempsy 3y ago
    modern video games are much more akin to social media than games 20-30 years ago, especially internet based ones. and many have a gambling element to it which makes it even worse in some aspects.
    - doubled112 3y ago
      This is likely why I play a lot of older or single player games. I've certainly noticed a difference with what the kids want to play. Random garbage, daily drops, pay to win. Even the pacing is different.
      - tempsy 3y ago
        I have a hard time believing I'm talking to someone arguing in good faith when they say books are just like social media a few decades ago.
        doubled112 3y ago
        I don't recall saying books are like social media. I was only vaguely stating that kids and their media of choice have been "a problem" for a long time. Is this one different? Certainly, but every new problem is different. I'm positive we'll figure it out. The world never collapsed when GTA came out. Part of me reads these no differently than those articles where "nobody wants to work anymore". If you change a few words, you could have written the same piece 100 years ago.
- idle_zealot 3y ago
  Smartphones aren't personalized with algorithms to hook you. Social media and gacha games, which can be installed on smartphones, are. A smartphone is just a pocket computer. It's an extremely powerful tool and forbidding the next generation from learning to use it effectively would be terribly misguided. Purposeful psychological attacks could do with some regulation however.
  - tasuki 3y ago
    Even the linked article blurs the two. I tried to read it to find out why smartphones were bad, and it only talked about why social media is bad. I know social media is bad, everyone does by now!

life-and-quiet 3y ago

This will come off as passive-aggressive in text, but it's a sincere question: How do you make sense in the rapid increase in mental health issues, including suicide, that seems to correlate so closely with the adoption of smartphones? I'm absolutely not saying that it's conclusive proof of the article's position, but I do think it's a powerful data point.

EMIRELADERO 3y ago
https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2024/happiness-and-age-summary/ https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2024/happiness-and-age-summ... > In many but not all regions, the young are happier than the old. But in North America happiness has fallen so sharply for the young that they are now less happy than the old. By contrast, in the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the young are much happier than the old. In Western Europe as a whole happiness is similar at all ages, while elsewhere it tends to decline over the life cycle (with an occasional upturn for the old). This seems to be a phenomenon uniquely present in the Anglosphere. I don't think smartphones are the culprit.
lazyeye 3y ago
When it comes to understanding kid's mental health and trying to improve it, Silicon Valley is probably the last place on earth we should go to for advice.
QuantumG 3y ago
The denial of the parental right to shield their children from the harshness of the outside world and the human condition, until an appropriate age and level of education. Homeschooling was one form of backlash, along with the alt-parenting movements, and all the rest. All doomed to failure, but the resistance continues. Started long before smartphones. Encyclopaedia salesmen used to have to contend with the "I don't want my kids getting wise too fast" problem. We'll say the same thing about implants. The exo-cortex is good, actually.
randomdata 3y ago
Even if we can ultimately attribute it to the smartphone, that does not imply screen time is the culprit. What about, for example, the loss (or stagnation, as it is sometime thought of) of culture we've seen since the smartphone? I think it is fair to say that the smartphone – or a closely related technology – is why that has happened. Take music as a prime example: When I was young, you pretty much had to listen to the same music as everyone else as it was very hard to discover anything beyond. The music everyone was listening to defined a culture. These days, with the change in technology, we could very easily never hear the same song. But someone who has never touched a smartphone in their life is not excluded here. There is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that suicide rates are higher amongst those who don't find a shared identity. Interestingly, youth suicide rates also dropped precipitously during the COVID period. I expect screen time shot through the roof during that phase! But, perhaps, knowing that everyone was dealing with the same COVID experience provided something to identify with.