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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

#331

Post by cableshaft »

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…

I'm sure they still exist, but like I mentioned further down, none of those are very portable. When you're a kid, you're often forced to be away from home and your computer, because of parents or school or other things, and having something onhand to create with was wonderful when I was a kid, no matter where I was. I carried around pretty much everywhere.

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

#332

Post by mrisoli »

cortic wrote: post #239
mrisoli wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 j…

curious, but what do you mean by 'damaging content'; Or would it hurt me if you told me?

Well, we have useless content, which might be entertaining but otherwise provide no real benefits to the user, by damaging I mean content that influences people in a negative way(fake news, hate speech, etc). Maybe the right word here is "harmful", but English is not my first language to be 100% sure.

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

#333

Post by u801e »

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.…

> Let me set an alternate PIN that unlocks the phone in a limited access mode, or "kid mode." Only pre-approved apps are available.

Come to think of it, there should also be a border mode when one is traveling.

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

#334

Post by lanstin »

istorical wrote: post #115
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 yo…

I always took books with me to the bathroom/out on chores; bank line - oh good, I can finish the chapter. Is reading substantively more beneficial than internet? Hard to say. I wasn't only reading calculus books or histories of ancient times, I had a lot of pulpy genre fiction as well. I'll read the ingredients on cereal boxes if that's all. While I can spend some time on social networks that seems pretty useless, reading about the low-level details of Spectre has felt fairly educational. Taking Facebook off of my phones has been useful, but I'd be so sad without Wiki access. I think it's an unknown experiment, but we shouldn't idolize the boring past too much.

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

#335

Post by lanstin »

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…

Honestly, i'd have to guess that reading a long form book/essay demands more of me mentally than just scrolling thru a bunch of stuff.

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

#336

Post by vtange »

u801e wrote: post #333
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.…

> Let me set an alternate PIN that unlocks the phone in a limited access mode, or "kid mode." Only pre-approved apps are available. Come to think of it, there should also be a border mode when one is traveling.

Good idea. Though the phone will have to look like it's not hiding/restricting the officer in any way for this to work.

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

#337

Post by floatboth »

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'…

> isn't enriching yourself, it's flicking through instagram posts like a cat pawing at a washing machine

How is looking at cats not enriching yourself though?

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

#338

Post by reubenswartz »

I've been thinking a lot lately about this Herbert Simon Quote:

"In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it."

Btw, this was from 1971. ;-)

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

#339

Post by barbs »

MichaelDickens wrote: post #300
powrtoch wrote: post #170

An article about a "growing body of evidence" that fails to link to a single study. Great. "Smartphone use takes about the same cognitive toll as losing a full night's sleep" Would love to see this study, since it sounds completely implausible (but really important if true). Without looking at the research, the only reasonable course of action is to assume it's false.

"Smartphone use takes about the same cognitive toll as losing a full night's sleep" What does this even mean? Does it mean your cognitive performance after using a smartphone daily is reduced to the level it would be at if you hadn't slept at all the previous night? Does it mean cumulative smartphone use is as harmful as cumulatively skipping a full night's sleep? (Which is clearly false, but to me sounds like the mo…

That quote frustrated me too. "Smartphone use" is such a vague term here.

They seem to reference this again later in the article, but it doesn't seem to clear things up much.

"All that distraction adds up to a loss of raw brain power. Workers at a British company who multitasked on electronic media – a decent proxy for frequent smartphone use – were found in a 2014 study to lose about the same quantity of IQ as people who had smoked cannabis or lost a night's sleep."

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

#340

Post by ausjke »

Human race always needs time to digest/adapt to new stuff, such as smartphones.

Unlike previous new gadgets(TV, even internet), smartphone is so powerful that nothing in human history can match, basically, it stretches our very brain with this little super computer in the pocket at all fronts: be it knowledge, games, constant-on social network, it is just too much for the young.

They're as addictive as drugs to kids' brains, especially when considering teens should be learning the world around them at their age, now they stare at the little screen as much as they could. it makes kids dumber, more lonely, while feel good, the way how drugs work.

The phone makers, the router makers, the cellular operators need work together to give us a few kids mode for their online life, as soon as possible.

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