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A majority of US teens are taking steps to limit smartphone and social media use

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Re: A majority of US teens are taking steps to limit smartphone and social media use

#11

Post by hammock »

misterbowfinger wrote: post #10

Uhhhh... what? This particular survey featured interviews with 1,058 parents who belong to the panel and have a teen ages 13 to 17, as well as interviews with 743 teens Link: http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/08/22/teens-and-screen-time-... I get that surveys are really hard, but.... 743 seems like a ridiculously low number. Looks like the surveys are through the "NORC AmeriSpeak panel". Pew links to this about AmeriSp…

Something like this, any sample size 300 or above (assuming it was drawn in a representative way) is generally regarded as legit.

Source: I run and analyze surveys for a living

Re: A majority of US teens are taking steps to limit smartphone and social media use

#12

Post by siruncledrew »

newfocogi wrote: post #3

Believing something is bad for you and actually successfully changing it are two very different things.

That’s the problem of addiction. Changing established behavior is really hard and takes a ton of self-discipline and self-control.

Re: A majority of US teens are taking steps to limit smartphone and social media use

#13

Post by hammock »

vinceguidry wrote: post #4

It's important for people to remember that humans are still intelligent creatures that are capable of recognizing, eventually, what's good for them and what isn't. How many of you guys remember the 70s and 80s, when TV and video games were supposed to turn us all into zombies? What happened? We eventually learned how to see these things as the tools that they are. Humans get fascinated by the new and shiny. This fasc…

>remember the 70s and 80s, when TV and video games were supposed to turn us all into zombies? What happened? We eventually learned

Did we? A third of teens haven't read a book in the last year. And we "binge" on TV shows now which didn't really exist in the 70s.

Re: A majority of US teens are taking steps to limit smartphone and social media use

#14

Post by misterbowfinger »

hammock wrote: post #11
misterbowfinger wrote: post #10

Uhhhh... what? This particular survey featured interviews with 1,058 parents who belong to the panel and have a teen ages 13 to 17, as well as interviews with 743 teens Link: http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/08/22/teens-and-screen-time-... I get that surveys are really hard, but.... 743 seems like a ridiculously low number. Looks like the surveys are through the "NORC AmeriSpeak panel". Pew links to this about AmeriSp…

Something like this, any sample size 300 or above (assuming it was drawn in a representative way) is generally regarded as legit. Source: I run and analyze surveys for a living

Thanks for correcting! Good to know!

AmeriSpeak seems to have national representation, so I can only assume it was drawn randomly throughout the nation.

Re: A majority of US teens are taking steps to limit smartphone and social media use

#15

Post by evincarofautumn »

mc32 wrote: post #9
ams6110 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Books, of course have been thought of as subversive in earlier times. Even not that long ago. Book burnings, calls to ban particular books, all have occurred in living memory. Literacy itself has been seen as a threat.

Were not detractors of books usually unlearned people; people who didn't base their opinions on studies of the effects, but rather based on their feels? On the other hand studies can be flawed and can be purposefully biased, so we have to watch for that. But if we have credible studies indicating harm from all the ways content producers and other want to retain eyeballs, then that's different, I think.

Usually, perhaps, but learned people had their objections to reading & writing as well.

This one’s pretty well known, although couched in a few layers of rhetoric that mean it’s usually presented without context (and misattributed to Socrates). In Phaedrus, written by Plato around 370 BC, the character of Socrates tells how when the Egyptian god Theuth gave the gift of writing to King Thamus, Thamus replied:

“…this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.”

Re: A majority of US teens are taking steps to limit smartphone and social media use

#16

Post by coffeeandjunk »

vinceguidry wrote: post #4

It's important for people to remember that humans are still intelligent creatures that are capable of recognizing, eventually, what's good for them and what isn't. How many of you guys remember the 70s and 80s, when TV and video games were supposed to turn us all into zombies? What happened? We eventually learned how to see these things as the tools that they are. Humans get fascinated by the new and shiny. This fasc…

remember the 70s and 80s, when TV and video games were supposed to turn us all into zombies? What happened? We eventually learned.

So they turned TV to Netflix.

Re: A majority of US teens are taking steps to limit smartphone and social media use

#17

Post by flukus »

hammock wrote: post #13
vinceguidry wrote: post #4

It's important for people to remember that humans are still intelligent creatures that are capable of recognizing, eventually, what's good for them and what isn't. How many of you guys remember the 70s and 80s, when TV and video games were supposed to turn us all into zombies? What happened? We eventually learned how to see these things as the tools that they are. Humans get fascinated by the new and shiny. This fasc…

>remember the 70s and 80s, when TV and video games were supposed to turn us all into zombies? What happened? We eventually learned Did we? A third of teens haven't read a book in the last year. And we "binge" on TV shows now which didn't really exist in the 70s.

> And we "binge" on TV shows now which didn't really exist in the 70s.

Isn't that an improvement overall? You decide you want to watch something and you watch until it's finished. Media consumption habits in the TV era were much more passive and a lot of people would watch a show just because it was on. "There's nothing good on TV" used to be a common lamentation, I wouldn't be surprised if this generation is better at switching off entirely if there isn't content they want.

> A third of teens haven't read a book in the last year

I doubt it makes up the short fall, but does anyone know how well the audio book industry is doing since sites like Audible cropped up? I haven't read a book in some time now but I've listened to several because they have several advantages over reading and the only disadvantage I can think of would by for someone trying to improve their reading ability.

Re: A majority of US teens are taking steps to limit smartphone and social media use

#18

Post by adventured »

maxxxxx wrote: post #5
newfocogi wrote: post #3

Believing something is bad for you and actually successfully changing it are two very different things.

This reminds me a little of obesity. A lot of people have recognized the problem and are doing something but in the end the average still gets fatter and fatter.

That's not correct however. Recognition can and often does lead to correction.

In the US, the percentage of children five years of age and under that were obese, dropped from 14% to 10% over ten years (2004-2014). That's due to first recognizing a terrible problem and then acting against it.

US obesity rates have stabilized. [1] I think we can be fairly certain that's in no small part due to increased knowledge and awareness of the problem over the last decade. The next step is to begin moving the needle the other direction, even if it's a slow process.

People think obesity in the US is a very old problem, when in fact it started just 30 years ago and wasn't a serious issue until the late 1990s. In 1985 no state had an obesity level over 15%. Today, 46 states exceed 25% obesity. I doubt the US will ever go back to 1985 obesity levels, however if it can change negatively that much in less than two decades, then you can plainly see meaningful improvements in a similar amount of time.

[1] https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/articles-and-news/2017/08/ne...

Re: A majority of US teens are taking steps to limit smartphone and social media use

#19

Post by rumcajz »

vinceguidry wrote: post #4

It's important for people to remember that humans are still intelligent creatures that are capable of recognizing, eventually, what's good for them and what isn't. How many of you guys remember the 70s and 80s, when TV and video games were supposed to turn us all into zombies? What happened? We eventually learned how to see these things as the tools that they are. Humans get fascinated by the new and shiny. This fasc…

Yes, there have been a lot of concern about novels spoiling girls.

Re: A majority of US teens are taking steps to limit smartphone and social media use

#20

Post by coffeeandjunk »

A majority, 54% of teens, said they spend too much time on their phone, and nearly that many – 52% – said they are trying to limit their phone use in various ways.

Knowing is one thing and actually getting rid of it is a completely different ball game.

There's a gulf between the planner and the doer. The far-sighted "planner" in us knows that social media/Netflix/cigarettes are bad for us. When you conduct a survey, we are conscious and reasonable people who know what is good from what is bad and hence 54% of use agrees that we spend too much time on useless stuff.

But when it actually comes to doing, the myopic "doer" part of us keeps on snoozing that alarm clock in the morning and goes to Facebook to check the number of likes & comments received every five minutes.

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