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Spoiler: They don't. The phones are hostile to experimentation and the social media apps they will use to kill time are designed to get them stuck in an infinit

Spoiler: They don't. The phones are hostile to experimentation and the social media apps they will use to kill time are designed to get them stuck in an infinite loop of watching pointless "content" and as many ads as possible.

xp84 2y ago
^ (+5, insightful) Yeah. This hurts how true it is. I’m an early-mid millennial, very modest social class so I got some access to dial-up at age 14 and broadband at about 16. We were just explorers back then. The sophistication aimed at us was no fancier than that of the Saturday morning cartoon ads. I’m sure the people at Yahoo and AOL wanted us to use their IM program and watch some of quaint banner ads. But most of the Internet then was exploring knowledge and fandoms, and connecting with those around the globe who spoke your language and also loved what you love. Most of the most fun social activity back then for young people spun out of places like music chat rooms and music/band forums, because 14-year olds believe their music taste is the deepest and most personal thing about them. Contrast to today: kids now, many from near birth, are test subjects in a million experiments every day, designed by hostile bots and even more hostile humans to addict them and feed obsessions all in service of revenue optimization. The biggest experiment of all is the meta one: what will happen to this generation raised in this unprecedented way?? Btw — nothing would make me happier than Gen Alpha being super successful. So I hope I’m Old Man Shakes Fist At Cloud here.
Aachen 2y ago
> designed to get them stuck in an infinite loop of watching pointless "content" and as many ads as possible Wouldn't TV have been the equivalent in the era OP is talking about? Going on the internet and seeking out coding tutorials, as the article describes, is a choice most people didn't make back then; it's the most nerdy of kids doing this outside of school. While an addiction takes that choice away or makes it much harder, most kids are not addicted (~90% aren't in UK, ~55% aren't in India, for 11- to 14-year-olds per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problematic_smartphone_use#Prevalence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problematic_smartphone_use#Pre...) If you have a credible source on phones in 2024 providing fewer learning opportunities than computers in the <2000s, either anecdotal (kids who you observe are otherwise curious but don't seek out non-entertainment content) or by looking at a large enough sample to have some measurable difference in the population, I'm interested. It sounds like an assumption based on the (justified) negativity around social media as a concept rather than an actually observed effect

xp84 2y ago

^ (+5, insightful) Yeah. This hurts how true it is. I’m an early-mid millennial, very modest social class so I got some access to dial-up at age 14 and broadband at about 16. We were just explorers back then. The sophistication aimed at us was no fancier than that of the Saturday morning cartoon ads. I’m sure the people at Yahoo and AOL wanted us to use their IM program and watch some of quaint banner ads. But most of the Internet then was exploring knowledge and fandoms, and connecting with those around the globe who spoke your language and also loved what you love. Most of the most fun social activity back then for young people spun out of places like music chat rooms and music/band forums, because 14-year olds believe their music taste is the deepest and most personal thing about them. Contrast to today: kids now, many from near birth, are test subjects in a million experiments every day, designed by hostile bots and even more hostile humans to addict them and feed obsessions all in service of revenue optimization. The biggest experiment of all is the meta one: what will happen to this generation raised in this unprecedented way?? Btw — nothing would make me happier than Gen Alpha being super successful. So I hope I’m Old Man Shakes Fist At Cloud here.

Aachen 2y ago

> designed to get them stuck in an infinite loop of watching pointless "content" and as many ads as possible Wouldn't TV have been the equivalent in the era OP is talking about? Going on the internet and seeking out coding tutorials, as the article describes, is a choice most people didn't make back then; it's the most nerdy of kids doing this outside of school. While an addiction takes that choice away or makes it much harder, most kids are not addicted (~90% aren't in UK, ~55% aren't in India, for 11- to 14-year-olds per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problematic_smartphone_use#Prevalence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problematic_smartphone_use#Pre...) If you have a credible source on phones in 2024 providing fewer learning opportunities than computers in the <2000s, either anecdotal (kids who you observe are otherwise curious but don't seek out non-entertainment content) or by looking at a large enough sample to have some measurable difference in the population, I'm interested. It sounds like an assumption based on the (justified) negativity around social media as a concept rather than an actually observed effect