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The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

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Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#111

Post by mrisoli »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #4

I am terrified about giving smartphones to my kids. France's new rule (no smartphones in schools - no exceptions) is genius, and I applaud them for that. What is a supercomputer in your pocket, with access to a significant portion of the sum total of human knowledge, good for, for most people? Playing fucking candy crush. We wish that we, humans, were better, but we are not. So what can we do about it? I have no idea…

How about applying some (survivorship?) bias here?

Smartphones and the internet make access to knowledge easier for everyone, but that is a small amount of what is otherwise cluttered with mostly useless(and sometimes damaging content), which naturally, appeal to the larger part of the population.

However, if having access to a smartphone can help some kids learn a little bit more, or maybe change someone's life by just making it easier to browse useful content, isn't it worth it? Those who won't find a good use for a phone would just have some other silly pastime if phones didn't exist.

I say just let people play candy crush, maybe while they are waiting for a life reload they might learn something on the tiny screen.

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#112

Post by catnaroek »

SamPutnam wrote: post #99

I stopped using a smartphone 2 months ago, switching to a flipphone with wi-fi calling. When I made the switch, the employees in the mobile store acted as if they had lost one of their own and outwardly displayed the 7 stages of grief for my old phone as I returned it for something without a touch screen... 1. Shock & Denial - ...I was asked if I was 'sure about this' more than 10 times during the transfer and repeat…

They were actually grieving their company's (marginal) lost profits from your decision not to use a smartphone, so it was not as irrational as you think.

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#113

Post by techman9 »

matchagaucho wrote: post #71
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #4

I am terrified about giving smartphones to my kids. France's new rule (no smartphones in schools - no exceptions) is genius, and I applaud them for that. What is a supercomputer in your pocket, with access to a significant portion of the sum total of human knowledge, good for, for most people? Playing fucking candy crush. We wish that we, humans, were better, but we are not. So what can we do about it? I have no idea…

Banning smartphones because of distracting apps is equivalent to banning guitars because of heavy metal music. It's the content, not the tool. Schools should be teaching kids how to use these tools to create content; not just passively consume.

This to me smacks of fear and really some perverse form of protectionism. The whole idea of "schooling" is built upon the premise that there is some fundamental set of knowledge that it's important for students to master before they can function in the world. However, with the advent of computers, the internet, and their miniaturization in the form of smart phones, any piece of human knowledge is instantly retrievable and usable.

What's the point of a semester long instruction in algebra or geometry still filled (mostly) with rote memorization of methods and formulas when those methods and formulas are available ubiquitously at the touch of a button. Schools see smartphones as an existential threat and rather than try to adapt their model of instruction to the tools that we all now have, they're attempting to ban them outright. I only see this leading to resentment and anger from students who are accustomed to instant, easy access to information.

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#114

Post by Theodores »

ashark wrote: post #61
doubt_me wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if we banned advertisements? How long would google, facebook or amazon last after that? All this tech is great. But we are kidding ourselves if we say we liked advertising or if it benefits anybody except the people putting them up. advertising is a literal cancer on society. If it was gone even in the simplest of forms so you aren't able to legally see advertising until you turn 21 years old. Or have our kids b…

I remember one of my professors who'd been behind the iron curtain back when there was an iron curtain saying the one thing the commies definitely got right was banning most advertising. Said when they crossed back to West Germany it was like every surface in every city was yelling at him.

I experience this in London. If I spend too long only travelling by bicycle on the paths in the parks and riversides in South West London I do not see adverts inside trains/buses or 'free' newspapers or billboards. I don't do TV and I run adblockers so it comes as a shock being advertised to for many hours when I do take a trip up town.

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#115

Post by istorical »

leggomylibro wrote: post #20

This sort of thing worries me for a bunch of reasons, but the biggest one is that it seems like most kinds of successful endeavors require three things: 1. Persistence 2. The means to set aside time for that persistence. 3. Luck Number 2 is what most people tend to lack. Especially in our current climate, most people are mentally, physically, and financially exhausted by the ostensibly simple act of getting through a…

I think the reason that the current status quo of content consumption is worse than previous generations is that in the past, even if you watched TV for six hours a day, there was a much higher chance that when you were waiting in line, when you were going to the bathroom, when you were sitting in a car or on a subway, when you were walking to work, there was a greater chance that you were bored and just...letting your thoughts wander and thinking. Today we have instant on demand entertainment in our pockets at all times. Bathroom? Let's read an article. Subway? Let's listen to a podcast. Waiting room at the doctor? I have my favorite e-book saved to my iPad. Standing in line to get a taco? Play a game.

Boredom leads to creative and introspective thought and rumination. Boredom is necessary.

Constant work or play with no time for _just thinking_ is a cancer on society.

That's the biggest danger here. People aren't thinking anymore.

I have cell phone and internet addiction and my thought has been that when my current smartphone dies I will replace it with something that can only run Google Maps, a music player, and SMS.

I think those apps are non-optional and non-addictive. Everything else I want to get rid of so that at the very least, the space when I'm in the bathroom, when I'm eating at Chipotle, when I'm on the subway, when I'm walking to work - will be a time my brain actually just thinks.

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#116

Post by almata »

djaychela wrote: post #72
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #4

I am terrified about giving smartphones to my kids. France's new rule (no smartphones in schools - no exceptions) is genius, and I applaud them for that. What is a supercomputer in your pocket, with access to a significant portion of the sum total of human knowledge, good for, for most people? Playing fucking candy crush. We wish that we, humans, were better, but we are not. So what can we do about it? I have no idea…

I don't know what age your kids are, but it'll be a difficult struggle when the time does come. I've got 4 step kids, who are 11, 13, 16 and 18. All aside from the eldest have smartphones, (they have each had them when they have gone to secondary school), and it's a constant problem - probably the thing where I have the biggest disagreements with them (I have an excellent relationship with all four of them, and they'…

Many thanks for taking the time to write such a lovely text.

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#117

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #4

I am terrified about giving smartphones to my kids. France's new rule (no smartphones in schools - no exceptions) is genius, and I applaud them for that. What is a supercomputer in your pocket, with access to a significant portion of the sum total of human knowledge, good for, for most people? Playing fucking candy crush. We wish that we, humans, were better, but we are not. So what can we do about it? I have no idea…

Even as an adult I find it hard to get out of the quick feedback loop trivial entertainment (silly games, reddit, HN, etc.) give me.

As a parent with two children who are gamers we try to limit their time but it is a struggle for them to sign off the games.

I'm going to try and model better behavior.

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#118

Post by voidhorse »

vorotato wrote: post #38
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #4

I am terrified about giving smartphones to my kids. France's new rule (no smartphones in schools - no exceptions) is genius, and I applaud them for that. What is a supercomputer in your pocket, with access to a significant portion of the sum total of human knowledge, good for, for most people? Playing fucking candy crush. We wish that we, humans, were better, but we are not. So what can we do about it? I have no idea…

Socrates felt the same way about books actually a lot of big thinkers in that era felt that writing and reading would lead to the degradation of the human memory. However the argument that kids shouldn't have books in school seems laughable. I would say they aren't wrong. Humans really can't remember entire books any more, but then they also don't need to.

Precisely. It's another form of off-loading some of our cognitive processes.

While books reduced the frequency at which we practiced memorization, and thus diminished the average effectiveness of that process in man, they also paved the way for new developments and enabled us to devote further cognitive resources to other kinds of processes (e.g. pattern recognition, experimentation, etc.).

Smart phones, I'd wager, have a similar effect, in a perhaps more extreme fashion.

In spite of this, memory remains incredibly important...somehow taking the effort to memorize something, perhaps because it requires approaching the material repeatedly, also often leads to a richer understanding of the material--at least that's what I find.

I'm constantly shocked and embarrassed at the frequent fragility of my own memory, and my own susceptibility to distraction--and I spend no time on the common distraction centers of our epoch (facebook, twitter, etc.)--still, constant, reliable, and immediate access to the internet is enough to hold your attention hostage.

Another unfortunate side effect, I think, is a general decline in the practice of self-reflection. The most impressive people I know make a point to spend some amount of time in their day doing nothing more than thinking or reflecting--i.e. engaging with their thoughts alone--an endeavor that's ever more difficult to undertake when we're constantly bombarded with alerts and entertainment. There's some merit to those old disciplines of prayer and meditation--even if some of their attendant metaphysics seem antiquated.

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#119

Post by dboreham »

Hmm. When I was a kid we were all boiling our brains by watching too much tv. Meanwhile I learned a great deal about the world and got my lust for scientific knowledge by watching tv. Mind you, channels with commercials were strictly banned in our house.

Re: The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds

#120

Post by dang »

Danihan wrote: post #5
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #4

I am terrified about giving smartphones to my kids. France's new rule (no smartphones in schools - no exceptions) is genius, and I applaud them for that. What is a supercomputer in your pocket, with access to a significant portion of the sum total of human knowledge, good for, for most people? Playing fucking candy crush. We wish that we, humans, were better, but we are not. So what can we do about it? I have no idea…

I'm not sure why all students should be punished just because because some cannot use a new tool well. Socialism at its worst, in my opinion. The irresponsible drag down those with more potential.

This sort of generic ideological flamewar is exactly what we don't want on HN, even in an abysmally politicized thread like the current one.

Since you've repeatedly abused HN this way and ignored our requests to stop, we've banned this account. (No, that's not because we're $ideology ourselves, it's because the spirit of this site is intellectual curiosity, it needs protecting, and ideological flamewars destroy it.)

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll use HN as intended in the future.

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