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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

#211

Post by lr4444lr »

gthtjtkt wrote: post #101
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. I am terrified by the fact that so many other people don't think twice about handing their toddler a smart device. Every time we go to dinner, there's a table nearby with a tablet planted in front of a child in a booster seat. "There's no evidence that it's harmful", people say, but how could the evidence possibly exist? It would take 16+ years to do a thorough st…

If you need to come armed with facts:

https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/pages...

Scroll down to "Among the AAP recommendations" for the tl;dr.

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

#212

Post by Skunkleton »

lennydizzy wrote: post #130

Is hacker news one of the digital distractions?

Probably not as you have to manually remember to check in on it, there are no notifications for comment replies, and no real reward system for participating.

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

#213

Post by mkl »

jakobegger wrote: post #207
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.…

I‘m pretty sure Apple won‘t do that, because they want you to buy your kids their own iPhone. Why doesn‘t the iPad have this sort of multi-user mode? An iPad is the perfect device for sharing. But no, if you don‘t want your kids to read your emails, you need to buy them their own iPad.

Buying kids their own phone is what this leads to. The kid only knows the kid-mode PIN for their own phone.

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

#214

Post by noirbot »

jf wrote: post #161
peatmoss wrote: post #108

I've been wondering about the new cellular Apple Watch. In particular, I wonder if I could get away with just having that, and use it to train myself out of idly reading the news during periods of micro-boredom. The main thing keeping me from trying it as an experiment, is that I use my phone primarily for mobility (transit schedules, Car2go, ReachNow, lyft, bikeshare, etc.). And it appears that the majority of the s…

I bought a Series 3 Apple Watch with LTE for this exact reason. I'm on day 5 of going phone-less and while it isn't a seamless transition, I expect to go without a phone for the foreseeable future. What works without a phone: - SMS/iMessages - Phone calls via AirPods - Checking weather reports - Turn-by-turn navigation - Setting timers - Getting my focus back What I wish worked without a phone: - Updating contacts Ot…

Can you do this without having a phone at all? Or does it have to have an iPhone "base station" to check in with at home?

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

#215

Post by dragonwriter »

igravious wrote: post #169
dragonwriter wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you read the article, it did mention Socrates warned about writing. Maybe Plato did say it as well. All the saying attributed to Socrates are by way of Plato's writing in which Socrates is used as a mouthpiece, and are more properly attributed to Plato. So, the references are probably to the same thing.

This is absolutely strictly correct but I think (in the Phaedrus) it's accepted that the injunction against writing thing is Socrates' idea (because Plato's work survives to this day in written form – Plato wrote stuff down) but that the injunction against art/theatre/drama (is it?) is all Plato's and is to be found in the Republic, the reason being that that which is representational is twice removed from the truth…

Well, yeah, it's pretty hard to take seriously the idea that Plato adhered to an injunction against writing (given how we have access to his written works), but quite plausible that Socrates did (since we have access to him only through Plato's written works.)

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

#216

Post by [deleted] »

vinniejames wrote: post #66
vorotato wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly this. Even the title is misleading as "damaging" the brain, certainly there are changes, but jumping to the conclusion they are damaging and not beneficial to the human race in the long run is near sighted.

[deleted]

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

#217

Post by kashyapc »

Funny happenstance that I had to see this thread just as I come back from my Dutch language class. Tonight I had to debate (of course in Dutch) for 15 minutes, as part of an interim exam, with my co-debater about "Are smartphones making us dumber?"

Where we quoted studies and statistics in turns—"Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One's Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity"; in 2017, people spent over 4 hours a day (86 hours a month) staring at their phones, and so on.

I ended it with my favourite tip (that I've been exercising for 2 years): Put every goddamned thing and everyone on mute (i.e. no notifications), except your partner / "person you like the most" / SO.

The restored peace has been clarifying.

Edit: I barely use any applications, besides tools like train schedule look-up, English-to-Dutch dictionary, Maps and occasionally camera. And no "social media", besides the reasonable exception of limited HN minutes. (My phone—a four-year-old Nexus 5, which just underwent a battery replacement surgery by yours truly, saving a handsome 45€, and good to go for three more years with LineageOS.)

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

#218

Post by TeMPOraL »

Diederich wrote: post #210
Mankhool wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The thing I really, really love about having a Google Pixel phone is the camera, and its with me all the time. I was riding my bicycle to work on Friday and saw the sunrise...it was quite beautiful: https://www.realms.org/pics/IMG_20180105_072614_1.jpg Besides that, I have very few apps installed on my phone. I basically use it as a mobile web browser from time to time.

That's a pretty picture. I wonder though, the beautiful Voronoi-like patterns between the leaves are an intentional effect, or camera quality issues rendering as something nice by accident?

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

#219

Post by cavanasm »

donkeyd wrote: post #187
dv_dt wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In my public high school in the US, it was required for all my math classes past basic algebra, but I only knew one person who ever tried to code anything on it themselves (although people transferred games pulled online frequently; this was early 00s, transfer was this weird USB to something that looked like an headphone jack to connect to computer), and there were either test calculators, or an instructor would clear RAM.

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

#220

Post by excalibur »

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.

I tried to buy my son the most basic phone available. $5-$10, no camera. I wanted it to do phone calls, texts, and that's it.

Turns out it still had a rudimentary browser. And because the phone was only capable of 3G, his basic line had unlimited data. He spent a ridiculous number of hours watching YouTube on that tiny 1.5" screen.

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