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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

#471

Post by tonyarkles »

roganartu wrote: post #363
tonyarkles wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I particularly agree with this, but I've seen it enough to recognize it as a use case. You're at a restaurant with your kid, and they're bored because you're having adult conversations with your friends. You give them your phone and they play whatever game for a while, while you have no need for your phone because you're in a conversation. Or, alternatively, you're sitting around the house and they want to p…

K prisms You're at a restaurant with your kid, and they're bored because you're having adult conversations with your friends. Call me old fashioned, but my parents just used to make us sit there and be quiet. Bored? That's life, learn to deal with it. Both the parent and the child in your example are lacking discipline. The parent unable to tolerate a bored child and the child unable to tolerate boredom. This is a pa…

I don't disagree, and I think I made that clear at the start. Looking around though, it happens quite a bit, and since the discussion was about "what's the use case for this?" I think it stands ok.

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

#472

Post by photojosh »

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…

I can only speak for the iOS side. (I understand Android has fewer limitations on what can be done.)

Have a look at Pythonista for a full Python environment, or Coda for a web dev environment. There's also all the web-based tools, hopefully some are optimised for smaller screens. On iPad you have Playgrounds to run all sorts of Swift code. For kids, there's other simple environments in apps like Scratch.

So as you might imagine, I disagree with your statement that "'smartphones' nowadays makes it difficult for you to create on them", and think that's just a case of nostalgia on your behalf.

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

#474

Post by lerpa »

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.

What matters is that it ressonates with a common oppinion that smart phones are bad, so as long as it supports that somewhat popular position it doesn't need to be checked.

We all have biases, and in fact I don't use a smart phone because of some of the issues I have noticed using one previously, but if truth matters to you, you cannot just accept stuff just because you agree with it.

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

#475

Post by ckosidows »

rdruxn wrote: post #317
ckosidows wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've told this to a lot of people around me... unfollow everyone on Facebook. This does two things: 1. No more facebook feed 2. No more facebook ads You still get to keep messenger as an extended contact book, people can still tag you in stupid things and pictures, you don't have to have that awkward conversation telling people you're no longer on facebook. I guarantee you'll never feel like you miss your feed. Nobod…

Why not just get a browser extension to hide your newsfeed? Seems like a much simpler solution than unfollowing your entire friend list.

Because that doesn't work on chrome for mobile, as far as I know.

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

#476

Post by cortic »

mrisoli wrote: post #332
cortic wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

i see, thanks for explaining that. I suppose 'disinformation' would be the most apt word for what you are meaning.

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

#477

Post by Dirlewanger »

dragonwriter wrote: post #315
Dirlewanger wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Atlantic did an article a couple months ago on the harm that smartphones are doing to today's teenagers, and they provide plenty of graphs and studies to back it up. I totally get your reticence to believe the FUD, but the Golden Age of Greece didn't have the scientific method and the means to conduct study after study demonstrating the negative effects of writing. We do for smartphones, and the evidence is overw…

> The Atlantic did an article a couple months ago on the harm that smartphones are doing to today's teenagers, and they provide plenty of graphs and studies to back it up. The Atlantic piece is not without significant criticism for abusing the available data to draw unwarranted conclusions. See, e.g., https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/once-more-feeling/20170...

Thanks for this

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

#478

Post by JSoet »

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.

I'm pretty sure it's referred to later in the article:

>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.

Still not a reference, but you could probably find the study given that information if you wanted to. Or I'm sure the author would respond if you tweeted and asked him or something. If you really want to find out I'm sure it's possible.

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