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We’re going to look back and see smartphones as kids smoking cigarettes.
by robg 2y ago
We’re going to look back and see smartphones as kids smoking cigarettes.
- drewcon 2y agoPretty sure we can do that right now.
- bravetraveler 2y agoCould even practice by watching The Cable Guy I don't say this to make a false equivalence, mainly in jest - I recognize TV is fairly mild and internet is a firehose by comparison. Yet, we keep ignoring parents... and really, personal responsibility and simply the environment/impact that has. He raised himself like many of us do today. This movie was a bit of a warning, then - decades ago. Except now we have phones, schools are even closer to day care/prison, and so on.
- schmidt_fifty 2y agoBringing up personal responsibility always struck me as avoidance of addressing the problem at all. People will always be irresponsible. If you want to address the problem some part of the answer will have to come from society compensating for poor individual decision making. To avoid doing this will just perpetuate the idea that a child is the property of the parent and deserves to be the victim of their failings.
- bravetraveler 2y agoI think I edited since you saw/replied, I added a bit about the environment. We can't control everything, but we can control how we react to it. He's a product of his environment, parents, and choices. That's not to discount disadvantage. I get it. None of this is final or complete, it's a fucking movie metaphor
- baal80spam 2y agoYes, but I believe kids doing drugs is a more apt comparison.
- paulcole 2y agoPeople like to say this about everything they personally dislike — big cars, added sugar, McMansions, sports betting, sitting, whatever. But outside of us uppity coastal elites, America doesn’t even look that badly on cigarettes. People still smoke them — over 10% of adults! You can buy them in nearly every gas station. If we hated them that much they’d be banned.
- schmidt_fifty 2y agoCigarettes are much easier to regulate than phones are because you need continual consent from regulated businesses to continue the habit. So regulation isn't really possible, and parents will never be perfect, so society needs to provide an alternative to whatever problem is being solved by giving these kids phones. Framing this as a moral failing just seems like a way to avoid suggesting any kind of improvement on a societal level.