Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#221

Post by rdlecler1 » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 8:13 PM UTC

woolvalley wrote: post #139

ashark wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your parents had eliminated screens when you were very young (including theirs) save maybe one publicly-placed crappy terminal for wikipedia or looking up business hours or maps or learning you some programming or whatever, but loosened the reigns on hang-outs and travel, do you think you'd have still felt isolated because all your friends were still online most of the time? Asking as a parent with three young kid…

Keep on going! It can be pretty hard to be screenless although when it's a single child. You are their playmate pretty much 24/7 unless you can schedule other kids, which can be a good amount of work unlike siblings because of today's legal structures.

If they’re old enough you can introduce them to reading and find them playmates.

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#222

Post by wu-ikkyu » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 8:13 PM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #180

westmeal wrote: post #9

I know, I know this is anecdotal 'evidence'. I happen to be 21 which fits me right in this generation and the main reason this occurs is due to parenting. My parents wouldn't let me go _anywhere_ by myself until I was at least 17. By that time I was completely and utterly addicted to computing to just let go and 'hang out'. As a matter in fact most of my friends are online rather than 4 real friends in real life. It…

> most of my friends are online rather than 4 real friends in real life I think it's time to stop thinking of online as something less real than meatspace, and online friends as somehow inferior to face-to-face friends. (Cue copious evidence of amazing friendships and happy marriages started online.)

There is nothing wrong with having online friends, but there is an obvious deficit in richness of communication and experience between online and meatspace interactions.

Perhaps in years to come VR will overcome that deficit, though.

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#223

Post by gowld » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 8:19 PM UTC

kenning wrote: post #82

ashark wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your parents had eliminated screens when you were very young (including theirs) save maybe one publicly-placed crappy terminal for wikipedia or looking up business hours or maps or learning you some programming or whatever, but loosened the reigns on hang-outs and travel, do you think you'd have still felt isolated because all your friends were still online most of the time? Asking as a parent with three young kid…

Some research suggests excessive restriction on screen use may be worse, and it's not abnormal for boys to use devices more than girls http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-12-14-children%E2%80%99s-scree...

The article drums that line, but the research cited says that screen time is irrelevant. They also didn't measure screen time, they relied on parents self-reporting which may be very high or low (reflecting parental self-image,not actual screen time). And the research didn't look at long-term effects, only short-term. And it waved off that high screen time may be merely correlated to poverty and unengaged parenting, not literally strictly screen time. The research isn't an endorsement to let little kids stare at tablets all day.

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#224

Post by pwaai » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 8:19 PM UTC

mnm1 wrote: post #188

westmeal wrote: post #9

I know, I know this is anecdotal 'evidence'. I happen to be 21 which fits me right in this generation and the main reason this occurs is due to parenting. My parents wouldn't let me go _anywhere_ by myself until I was at least 17. By that time I was completely and utterly addicted to computing to just let go and 'hang out'. As a matter in fact most of my friends are online rather than 4 real friends in real life. It…

I grew up in the 90's like this after my family moved to the US, coming from a culture that was the complete opposite, where I went anywhere in the city at seven years old by myself. I figured it was just because my parents were super paranoid immigrants who went through hell back home and for years to get to the US. I know what you say is anecdotal, but I too have seen it in some of my other friends' families also.…

When I was like 5 or 6 we roamed freely in South Korea during the early 90s and when we came to Canada, we still used to hang out in the apartment complexes, playing hockey, riding bicycles, building tree forts....looking back we lived in a notorious low class white ghetto with regular police & k9 units with few attempted home invasions...it just got worse as we neared year 2000 and past...Gang became a fad and by then we stopped hanging out as a whole...even walking to school sometimes felt a bit unnerving because my friends would be targeted by ethnic affiliation.

I understand why parents don't want their kids out in environments like that. If I have kids it's going to be a struggle to let them out into that scary world...but growing up in the ghetto doesn't come without life lessons.

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#225

Post by gowld » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 8:23 PM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #132

toyg wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the thing: I’m very tempted to let my kids roam the neighborhood, like I did in Italy in the 80s. Where we live now, streets are pretty tight and have speed bumps, so it’s fairly safe. But if anybody gets nosey and calls child protection, I’m in a world of hurt from which I’ll probably never emerge. Yet another bit of the world ruined by Sun and Daily Mail.

There is a (painful, annoying and unfair) way around this. Actively socialize a lot with people in your neighborhood. Including the old lady next door, local cops, teachers and shop owners. And once you know 50 persons around by name and they have your phone number, tell them one by one that you intend to let your child going out more and more out by him/herself to learn autonomy. Ask them to not worry, but to keep a…

You mean, integrating your children into society makes them safe when they spend time out in society?

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#226

Post by wu-ikkyu » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 8:24 PM UTC

BjoernKW wrote: post #191

cutler wrote: post #87

Society is sick, let's face it, and technology is largely to blame. We just can't see the danger in technology so long as we're blinded by everything shiny. Human beings are primarily social beings and no, that does not mean peering at each other through the alienating window of a mobile phone screen. In 1969, at the age of 9, I could be left to play with my friends and wander several miles from home without any sens…

> Society is sick, let's face it, and technology is largely to blame. [ ... ] > In 1969, at the age of 9, I could be left to play with my friends and wander several miles from home without any sense of danger. How's technology to blame for helicopter parenting, fear of terrorism and crime in general, the notion there seemingly is a nonce behind every street corner and similarly irrational ideas and behaviours rampant…

>How's technology to blame for helicopter parenting, fear of terrorism and crime in general, the notion there seemingly is a nonce behind every street corner and similarly irrational ideas and behaviours rampant today?

It seems obvious that this is the result of fear mongering-profiteering in the news media.

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#227

Post by gowld » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 8:24 PM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #154

hrktb wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s not just that. For instance 20 years ago there was public phone booths everywhere. A kid would just need a few coins and the house number to do a call, now you’d need a cell phone, and giving one to a 5~8 year kid is still not practical. Or I remember shopping at local shops enough to know their faces and names, or ask shop owner if the other kids where nearby. I don’t think my kid knows anyone other tha…

There are still shops everywhere, who will let a child use a phone. Or teach the child to approach a stranger; a random stranger is very unlikely to be a threat. (A less random one even better: a woman with young children.) Not trusting the police for problems a child is likely to encounter seems paranoid.

> a woman with young children.

because she's already at her quota of kidnapped kids for the day?

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#228

Post by pwaai » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 8:25 PM UTC

kthejoker2 wrote: post #68

Nothing new under the sun ... ___________________________________________ Human contacts have been so highly valued in the past only because reading was not a common accomplishment and because books were scarce and difficult to reproduce. The world, you must remember, is only just becoming literate. As reading becomes more and more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people will discover that books…

> As reading becomes more and more habitual and widespread, an ever-increasing number of people will discover that books will give them all the pleasures of social life and none of its intolerable tedium.

spoken like a true hermit....material objects cannot replace human connection...the author of that quote is escaping that harsh truth which I'm sure he realized towards the end like so many others that came before him.

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#229

Post by gowld » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 8:25 PM UTC

toasterlovin wrote: post #135

hrktb wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s not just that. For instance 20 years ago there was public phone booths everywhere. A kid would just need a few coins and the house number to do a call, now you’d need a cell phone, and giving one to a 5~8 year kid is still not practical. Or I remember shopping at local shops enough to know their faces and names, or ask shop owner if the other kids where nearby. I don’t think my kid knows anyone other tha…

You might be surprised by the number of 5-8 year olds with cell phones. And I fully expect smart watches to eventually end up on the wrist of every single kid that spends significant time away from their parents.

smart watches are peripherals, not communications devices, right? you still need a phone to make your smart watch communicate

Re: Teens Aren’t Partying Anymore

#230

Post by lowracle » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 8:26 PM UTC

vorotato wrote: post #126

cutler wrote: post #87

Society is sick, let's face it, and technology is largely to blame. We just can't see the danger in technology so long as we're blinded by everything shiny. Human beings are primarily social beings and no, that does not mean peering at each other through the alienating window of a mobile phone screen. In 1969, at the age of 9, I could be left to play with my friends and wander several miles from home without any sens…

This argument has been made every single decade. Socrates even voiced concerns about writing and how it creates an illusion of understanding. It's been wrong every decade since and is wrong today.

If we are talking about the same thing, Socrates actually said that writing an argumentation was bad because words are fixed and your adversary can give them interpretations that don't fit what you had in mind. I don't think he was against the technology of writing, he just made a point that is still true today. And it is not because technology has been beneficial in its infancy, that it will keep helping us. Current concerns about technology are supported by scientific facts. Before, it was mainly fearmongering and rumors. (Or was it ? If you have scientific study about the negative effects of technology back then..)