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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

#461

Post by RepressedEmu »

lordnacho wrote: post #235
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…

You are right to be concerned. My pet prediction is about the current generation of kids growing up. Some kids will use this thing that, as you say, allows them to access the sum total of human knowledge. There will be precocious kids who learn everything to grad school level before they reach 15. There always have been, but there will be more. There will be kids who become addicted to games and entertainment, and th…

I think this dovetails well with the idea that salaries are increasingly becoming bifurcated with the top 10-20% in any given skilled profession being paid 2-5x what the bottom 80% are. It also ties in with whether or not you are living your life "above or below the algorithm" AKA are you ordering Ubers or driving Ubers? Are you creating content and building a "personal brand" or are you mindlessly scrolling through a skinner box feed?

Its an interesting trend that I'm seeing more and more. Its much more subtle than a Black Mirror episode but its worrying nonetheless.

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

#462

Post by knowaveragejoe »

WmyEE0UsWAwC2i wrote: post #124

Recommender Systems, trained to maximize revenue, are punishing kids for being curious. I'm specially refering to YouTube here. Take for example the "cell biology" subject. In a few videos ahead you'll start getting non-scientific videos, as "recommendations". Suffices to say that those videos speak about widely discredited life theories but with nicer stories. These recommendations exploit the human brain in ways th…

This reminds me of the recent story of automated content generation for kids on youtube, some of which is borderline abuse, and a lot of which is nonsensical in its entirety(lots of money being made, regardless).

The problem is that because of this flood of automatically generated content, anyone who actually is creating content has to do similar things or else be left behind by the recommendation algorithm.

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

#463

Post by RepressedEmu »

duderific wrote: post #364
gthtjtkt wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Every time we go to dinner, there's a table nearby with a tablet planted in front of a child in a booster seat. I'm guessing you're not a parent. As the parent of a 3-year-old boy, I'd like to weigh in on this. There are three kinds of parents out there: 1) Those that simply hand their kid a phone/tablet every time they're out and about. This is probably bad. 2) Those that never let their kid use a device at a rest…

All the 1's probably think they're 3's, though.

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

#464

Post by andrewstuart2 »

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.

David Rock cites a very very similar fact in "Your Brain at Work."

I only have the audiobook currently or else I'd quote directly, but the gist is that distractions from overcommunication temporarily drop IQs an average of 10 points: 5 for women, 15 for men, supposedly. The study originally revolved around email, and presumably text/sms/chat in the 13 years since the study).

Interestingly, following up on the quote he gave led me to this blog with an exchange [1] between the blog author and the original study author.

[1] http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002493.h...

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

#465

Post by tnzn »

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…

France's new rule has yet to actually be applied though. You call it genius, I, as a frenchamn who works in a high school, question the viability of it. It's easy to make a law, but there is no framework for it.

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

#466

Post by jjjensen90 »

Diederich wrote: post #459
jjjensen90 wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How old is your son approximately? Purely out of curiosity, what are you most afraid of him doing that makes you install spyware? Are you worried about time wasting or porn or social media or what? I have friends who had parents that installed NetNanny etc on their computers and their recollections of their parents behavior around their use of technology are now mostly bitter and they ended up becoming obsessed with…

I'll answer your questions directly and then add some explanation, because neither our situation nor our son is anywhere close to normal or typical. Our son is 15 years old, and he's in his second semester of high school, a year behind. > what are you most afraid of him doing ... Are you worried about time wasting or porn or social media or what? The 'advanced', regex based spyware only arrived after he started high…

Ahh that's very interesting, and sheds a totally different light on your original post. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the thorough reply, I had not considered a more complicated situation when I was pondering your approach.

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

#467

Post by Diederich »

jjjensen90 wrote: post #466
Diederich wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll answer your questions directly and then add some explanation, because neither our situation nor our son is anywhere close to normal or typical. Our son is 15 years old, and he's in his second semester of high school, a year behind. > what are you most afraid of him doing ... Are you worried about time wasting or porn or social media or what? The 'advanced', regex based spyware only arrived after he started high…

Ahh that's very interesting, and sheds a totally different light on your original post. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the thorough reply, I had not considered a more complicated situation when I was pondering your approach.

Surely.

We actually err on the side of 'open' and 'permissive' in general, because that's how my wife and I were raised. We honestly find the steps we often have to take to influence our son uncomfortable. But it's been the only way to wedge him out of the enormous, intricate, detailed, persistent, fantastic, odd and amazing world that is in his head from time to time. He must join with society at some point.

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

#469

Post by rabidrat »

vog wrote: post #424
rabidrat wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, the general recommendation for drug addicts is to keep their drug of choice in their home and within an arm's reach, so that they can exercise their willpower for the sake of the stronger fight. Someday you'll be strong enough to break free! Keep at it!

> the general recommendation for drug addicts is to keep their drug of choice in their home and within an arm's reach, so that they can exercise their willpower for the sake of the stronger fight Is that really true? Where did you get that from? It's exactly the opposite about I've learned about how to help drug addicts. There is, however, the advice that for drugs which can't be quickly reduced to zero for medical r…

Yes, sorry, I thought I was being obviously facetious. That strategy obviously does not work for drug addicts, so how would it work for phone addicts?

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

#470

Post by tetha »

istorical wrote: post #350
tetha wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting. The situations you describe as boring, I find interesting and curious. For example, while walking to work, I usually pass one of our homeless guys down the road and give him a nod. It's worrying if he isn't there. Then there is the like 200 years old guy in his plant shop, who usually has some interesting stuff going on. Then there is a cooking school with courses in tasty stuff. Then there is th…

I constructed my argument poorly - I should have said not that those situations are boring - but that the addictiveness of devices and instant infinite content is so great that those of us who are addicted do literally nothing else but consume digital content in situations where we'd normally be observing the world around us or thinking. So I wouldn't say that the world is boring, but for many of us it's more boring…

Well I made my point poorly, too. It takes some effort, some cognitive effort and some curiosity to look at the world this way. I would say, on an everyday personal level, every choice makes sense if you listen. And listening to those choices can enrich your own live.

However, looking, thinking and listening takes effort. Not much, but it does. And I guess thats where social media wins. Social media takes no effort. It's pre-made, pre-processed choices and satisfaction right there.

Saying it like that, it's like cooking. Ordering acceptable food is easy. Making your very own, really good burger takes like 2 or 3 tries. But afterwards, it's just amazing.

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