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

#191

Post by DamnInteresting » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:10 PM UTC

alsetmusic wrote: post #180

DamnInteresting wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

> 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. The maximum volume is much lower than normal. A lock…

Is there a way to enable parental controls with an alternate phone unlock PIN? If so, then my comment is silly and I am silly. If not, then it stands. That's where the control belongs, so one can freely share a working PIN with one's kids, with no need to turn on a setting buried in menus (not to mention always remembering to do so).

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

#192

Post by ntsplnkv2 » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:10 PM UTC

bcoates wrote: post #80

addicted wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Football and Soap Operas are simply not comparable to the kind of addiction the smartphone people are able to build into their products. Facebook has an army of phds whose only goal is to make sure Facebook’s users spend another few percent of their time on Facebook. And Facebook with its social interaction, and in depth knowledge of each user, can actively drive its users to spend more time on it in ways no other me…

I think you're really underestimating the shocking amount of television people used to watch. Many baby boomers have spent most of their adult life spending almost every free moment in front of a TV.

The number is inherently less because you can't watch TV in the car, you can't watch TV on the bus, you can't watch TV at work, etc...

Now that happens everywhere. Use levels of TV vs smartphones aren't close. The comparison is simply absurd because of the nature of the technology.

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

#193

Post by ivanhoe » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:10 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #141

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…

Nowadays you can get much cheaper all-purpose computers though; if kids are tinkerers like you were, they will find a way, either on their smartphones or on a raspberry pi or whatever. And if they don't - accept it, they're not you, and they'll probably end up better off than you did.

It's more complicated than that because distractions play a huge role. If you've got access to endless stream of entertainment and games you're obviously less likely to find time to explore the other stuff that you can do with computers. I know quite a lot of tech savvy and smart people who loved tinkering with computers but never really got to the point of being able to do anything professionally because they've got distracted by too much Starcraft, WoW, etc...

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

#194

Post by Diederich » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:10 PM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #129

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…

My wife and I are going to have a son in a couple weeks. We literally were discussing today. We came to the conclusion we don't want them to have a cell phone until they are fairly old. We plan on actually installing a landline instead. We subscribe to the theory that, to some extent, we need to struggle to grow. So, I've actually convinced her to pretty much let our son (and additional children) get free access to a…

As I posted elsewhere, our teenage son has a flip phone. He always has, and he always will, until he can buy and sustain something more fancy himself.

As far as desktop, he runs whatever the latest version of Ubuntu LTS. He does not have administrative access to it.

I wrote a small program that watches the title of whatever the current/foreground window is and compares that title to a configured list of regular expressions. If any regex matches, then the program kills the process. It logs the current window name in any case.

So we basically blacklist the web sites/apps/whatever that we see in his activity log as needed.

He is required to have a 'chromebook' for school, and they provide one. But instead we got him an old sturdy thinkpad, put Ubuntu on it, and it has the same basic logging/security framework, but with a different blacklist set of regexes.

We have received very positive feedback from his teachers, who struggle to keep the rest of the class off of inappropriate (for class time...ie, time wasting) web pages.

I've been asked how this minor miracle is accomplished, but things go right downhill when I say the first thing you need to do is throw away ChromeOS and install Linux proper.

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

#195

Post by floren » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:10 PM UTC

Rudism wrote: post #166

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 device did you switch to? I tried making the same switch a couple years ago but couldn't stick to it, mainly due to missing GPS/maps (and secondly due to dumbphones making lousy mp3 players, and not being able to serve as wifi hotspots for mobile data on the rare occasions that I do want to do internet stuff on the go).

The Kyocera DuraXV (https://www.kyoceramobile.com/duraxv/) has navigation and I believe can act as a wifi hotspot, but goddamn, they want $260 for it which feels like a hell of a lot for a basic phone. Also I'm on AT&T and I think the DuraXV is Verizon only.

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

#196

Post by indexerror » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:11 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.…

Windows Phone 8.1 had an amazing feature called Kid's Corner[1]. Galaxy phones have a similar Kids Mode[2].

[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/10661/windows-phone...

[2] http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/apps/kids-mode/

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

#197

Post by myaso » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:12 PM UTC

Smartphones are much harder to lock down than a laptop. I don't know about the iPhone but Android makes it a pain in the ass -- don't suggest stuff I've looked very hard already, some things you could do are simply impractical.

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

#198

Post by jdietrich » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:12 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.…

It's a standard feature on Xiaomi phones. You can set up two user profiles, each with a different lock screen password. Each profile is effectively a different phone - different apps, different settings, even a different SIM card if you like.

http://xiaomitips.com/guide/how-to-use-miui-8-second-space-f...

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

#199

Post by Stranger43 » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:12 PM UTC

Or in the words of the ancient philosopher plato upon learning about the written textbook

"""If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks."""

And just as Plato had a point but missed a greater one something similar might be said about the campaign against the a decentralized authority free media landscape that seams to be replacing it.

Were kind of seeing a kind of trend where every new media invention goes though a cycle of hype and fear towards a new normal and usually a new political and cultural structure. And i suspect that a lot of the "fear" is at least partially a part of that process.

Not to be said that smartphones are different from for instance newspapers in having serious and dangerous problems* but it's equally dangerous to respond to new by trying to preserve an equally broken old model for information/entertainment distribution.

*Remember the Maine?

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

#200

Post by Mankhool » Mon, Jan 08, 2018, 9:12 PM UTC

Diederich wrote: post #173

DamnInteresting wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

Our teenage son carries a flip phone. Always has, always will, until he can pay for something else.

If I didn't work for a telco, I would still carry a basic phone.