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I find it odd that this is has became such a pandamoniom now. As an elder millennial I can remember everyone being absolutely glued to MSN Messenger in seconda
by martinald 1y ago
I find it odd that this is has became such a pandamoniom now.
As an elder millennial I can remember everyone being absolutely glued to MSN Messenger in secondary school. This was back in the dialup days so it was stopping your parents making phone calls!
Regardless, I feel that it the debate needs to be about what children are doing. Probably like many here I spent a lot of my childhood devouring technical content on the internet, which I would say has given me the chance to work on incredibly interesting projects (and make friends with people across the world). If I had been time restricted on my computer (and a lot of my friends were) it would have significantly altered my career trajectory.
If you are scrolling endless garbage tiktok or YouTube videos for hours a day, yes the utility is pretty low (though again, watching hours of trashy cable TV back in the day doesn't feel that different to me).
That doesn't mean that many won't learn and find out about their passions in a way that was unthinkable a few decades ago.
- alephnerd 1y ago> As an elder millennial I can remember everyone being absolutely glued to MSN Messenger in secondary school. This was back in the dialup days so it was stopping your parents making phone calls! Computers were nowhere near as accessible (physically or UX wise) in the 1990s or 2000s compared to smartphones today. A $70 Android smartphone today would have been the equivalent of buying a top-of-the-line workstation in the 2000s for $40, so it is much easier to access a computer device at a much earlier age. On top of that, UX research has enhanced massively since the 2000s with an enhanced understanding into user reward mechanisms and psychology, and this kind of reward mechanism is being added in every kind of application (from enterprise B2B to social media) We shouldn't be Luddites, but limiting access to high sensitivity media (be it TV or smartphones) for those who are pre-adolescence should be an important part of parenting.
- martinald 1y agoMy point was more despite all the limitations people were spending 8+ hours a day on MSN messenger after school. I'd agree that (younger) children should have limits on social media - that's obvious for many reasons. But why smartphones in general? If they're reading a book or similar on it, what's the harm in that? My main point is it's not really the medium, it's the content.
- bonoboTP 1y agoI think you can also get addicted to constantly refreshing the news, the live coverage of the current big thing (it's the Iran thing right now). I think it's the constantly available Internet in your pocket. If you have a smartphone without internet and put 10 ebooks on it, that won't cause this kind of thing. Though there are also much more addictive mobile games now, compared to grays ale snake we grew up with. The visual flashes and dings...
- bonoboTP 1y agoMSN wasn't social media, there were no likes and as I remember, most chats were 1on1. You didn't post publicly, there was no algorithmic feed etc. It was just chatting, basically texting. And actually yeah, texting was already a thing on dumb phones, remember all the abbreviations, emoticons, etc. Teens were glued to that too, especially girls, as well as guys texting with girls. But that's absolutely different from the fomo and "keeping up" and public likes and algorithms thing today. I think as millennial we don't really appreciate how deeply ingrained it is, compared to back then.
- 12ian34 1y agonumber of myspace/facebook friends was an important metric for us early teens
- d_chae 1y agoNot that I disagree with this sentiment, but comparing MSN messenger to tiktok seems like comparing alcohol to heroin