4 ms·
I'm not a fan of smart phones or social media. No accounts anywhere except here and my phone isn't even in the room with me with now. Didn't own a phone at all
by nonameiguess 1y ago
I'm not a fan of smart phones or social media. No accounts anywhere except here and my phone isn't even in the room with me with now. Didn't own a phone at all until I was 27.
But still, not liking something doesn't mean it needs to be the cause of all social ills. These graphs don't seem to show anything. You've got trends starting in 2018, 2012, 2022, and some seeming to start before your data even begins, which was 2006, not 2007. Clearly, the only reason you picked 2007 at all is the iPhone debuted that year. The data didn't lead you to that year. These data don't seem to lead to anything. With respect to college admissions tests, the most obvious reason they'd be declining seems to also be the most mundane. With college all but mandatory and skilled trades collapsing, more people than ever are taking these tests, including people who won't do well and wouldn't have bothered in the past.
I'm not generally against the idea that smart phones and social media do real harm. The rise of at least visible and outright hostile political polarization seems related and Jonathan Haidt's arguments about mental health effects are at least reasonably provocative if not conclusive. But there is very little there there with these particular arguments. You may not necessarily be wrong, but I'd caution against starting with a conclusion and working backwards to try and find data that supports what you already believes, bending it if you can't actually find any. That isn't intellectually honest inquiry.
- 9rx 1y ago> Clearly, the only reason you picked 2007 at all is the iPhone debuted that year. The productivity figures show decline from trend in 2007 with no recovery since. Presumably 2007 was chosen for that reason. This is also the time in popular culture when things were thought to have started to go all wrong. Whereas the iPhone wasn't widely available until 2008 with the release of the iPhone 3G. The original iPhone was only available to a small beta testing group (~1 million people) in the USA. While it is technically true that some people had iPhones in their hand in 2007, it is highly unlikely that tiny number of people "destroyed the world" by it. Clearly something happened before the iPhone.