The growing body of evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by Rudism » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:06 PM UTC

This is what stuck out to me in the article:

> Lactation consultants in Canada and the United States have begun noticing the prevalence of women texting and scrolling through their phones while they breastfeed, breaking valuable eye contact with their baby.

Normally I'm in the skeptic camp on this issue. That screens are just the new generation's version of comic books or rock and roll rotting the minds of our youth, and headlines like these are making a mountain out of a molehill.

But that bit about mothers making less eye contact with their babies while breast feeding kind of made me do a double take. I could see real psychological damage coming from stuff like that and the broader idea that parents using devices and neglecting their kids more is the real problem (as opposed to those other boogey-men, where it was the kids' usage that was the problem).

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

#182

Post by floren » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:06 PM UTC

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…

What phone did you get? I've been considering exactly that switch myself, but finding a flip-phone which can do wifi/4G calls (some older designs are at risk of having their compatible cell towers shut off soon) and navigation (that's one convenience that's mighty hard to give up) has been a challenge. I've only found one or two suitable phones and they've all been over $300 which seems ludicrous for something that simple.

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

#183

Post by craftyguy » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:06 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #27

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…

> Playing fucking candy crush. Well, that and replying to HN posts about digital distractions...

I have a sneaking suspicion that HN users are far, far from being the majority of folks using smartphones.

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

#184

Post by wincy » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:06 PM UTC

ambivalents wrote: post #146

Does anyone have ideas as to how one could get involved in combatting these effects? I mean as a cause to fight for, where one could make an impact on others' (particularly the younger gen) lives. I'm aware of the organization Time Well Spent led by Tristan Harris, and have signed up to volunteer (but have not heard back). In the meantime, what can I do as an individual? This is something I've grown to really care ab…

I think Lenore Skenazy [0] is forming a national group dedicated to facilitating unsupervised play for children, which if you want your kids to not have phones would certainly help them. I've heard anecdotally that one of the reasons phones are appealing is it's a way to break free of being constantly monitored by modern day helicopter parents.

Another program I've heard of but don't know much about is wait until 8th [1], which is people promising to not give their children a smartphone until at the earliest 8th grade.

[0] http://www.freerangekids.com/

[1] https://www.waituntil8th.org/

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

#185

Post by javajosh » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:07 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #18

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…

> 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. This is my go to rant for the last few years. Not the fact the people do play silly games, but the whole surrounding myth "computing era is paradise of heavens, highway of information to make your life better, only need an better octocore for you…

>this computer era is problem trying to find its solutions.

I don't think this is true. I watched a local mechanic fixing my car, and YouTube was an important tool for them. Watching someone else fix a car was much more effective than reading a schematic. Finding part numbers was easy. Ordering them was easy. I strongly suspect that health care people do the same thing (but don't want to admit it and do it behind closed doors). Certainly lawyers do this, via Lexis Nexis.

For anyone doing creative technical work, the Internet is wonderful. You can find authors, papers, howtos, videos, etc. Of course a good 80% of this content is awful bordering on harmful, but that 20% is vast. For software, HN manages to capture a large fraction of that 20%, IMHO.

It's also true that smartphones have brought addictive gaming behavior to the masses. But if you can avoid this then you've got a great resource.

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

#186

Post by leggomylibro » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:07 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #45

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 difference between computer-based distractions (video games, smartphones) and those previous (television, newspapers, etc) is that the former is interactive, which leads one to feel as if they are doing something. Getting to the next level in a game or posting a comment or status that gets lots of likes and replies feels like work and reward, whereas one-way consumption doesn’t offer the same subconscious…

That's an interesting way of putting things; y'know, sometimes it seems like a false sense of accomplishment lies at the core of lots of types of addictions. But I guess that's sort of the definition of an addiction, right? Behavior which hijacks the brain's feedback loops to sustain itself over anything else. Mental cancers.

It sort of makes you wonder at what point people started to unironically view their jobs as engineering addictions. Was it around the Myspace era? Earlier? Or was Facebook what really set the mold for that stated goal?

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

#187

Post by donkeyd » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:08 PM UTC

dv_dt wrote: post #110

cableshaft wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a TI Calculator in my pocket and I learned first learned how to program on it during classes from 7th grade on. I made all sorts of text-based games: rpgs, text-based tetris, action games, fighting games (which was basically just pick an attack and a different formula with random numbers would happen that said how much hp you hurt the opponent), etc. But 'smartphones' nowadays makes it difficult for you to crea…

I understand your worry, but your TI calculator was a tinkerer niche that was similar to the openness and simplicity of early home computers. Different niches proliferate, grow, and wane all the time. After you and TI calcs, probably came a generations of web programming tinkerers, and hobby makers and minecrafters. People who are interested in programming will hopefully find their own starting niches. Hopefully we d…

> your TI calculator was a tinkerer niche that was similar to the openness and simplicity of early home computers

It wasn't in the Netherlands. A graphical calculator was required for math and many kids learned at least some programming by creating their own little programs to cheat in tests. Also, you could get code for games and then program them. The newer ones with USB cables made adding games much easier though.

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

#188

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:09 PM UTC

DamnInteresting wrote: post #159

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 am terrified about giving smartphones to my kids. Hey smartphone makers, if you're listening: Let me set an alternate PIN that unlocks the phone in a limited access mode, or "kid mode." Only pre-approved apps are available. Only pre-approved contacts can be called/texted. In-game purchases require the more secure PIN. Maybe when the phone is in this mode I can track its location easily, and make it emit a noise.…

[deleted]

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

#189

Post by 52-6F-62 » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:09 PM UTC

vorotato wrote: post #106

52-6F-62 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that there's a double-edge to it. The new advantage being that books became an extension of ourselves. Having access to printed knowledge meant we didn't have to memorize every line (and after all, we've come to learn that understanding certainly does not equate with wrote memorization). We can have a working memory of what we need to know on a regular basis, while retaining "pointers", or knowledge of wher…

I think there's a lot of value in having self-aware conscious behavior, it's important that you're doing what you want with your life. You only have one. People have definitely wasted their lives away, from their own opinion deep in a book. The vehicle by which people waste their lives is a lot less important than the awareness of what you're doing with your life, and that it's something that you actually wanted to d…

Very true. Also astute re: reading. I'm sure by now we all've heard the twilight zone trope of the isolate fellow who only wants to spend his time deep in his books, being of little value to anything or anyone else.

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

#190

Post by desireco42 » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:09 PM UTC

cableshaft wrote: post #85

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 had a TI Calculator in my pocket and I learned first learned how to program on it during classes from 7th grade on. I made all sorts of text-based games: rpgs, text-based tetris, action games, fighting games (which was basically just pick an attack and a different formula with random numbers would happen that said how much hp you hurt the opponent), etc. But 'smartphones' nowadays makes it difficult for you to crea…

This is the real problem in my view. I blame Apple for this mostly, as they are creating consumption platforms instead of creativity ones.

It is not just tinkering, these devices are made for you to consume, not to produce. Which is a great shame as they are natural creative platforms, we just need somehow to break the chains and liberate them, both phones and tablets.