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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

#51

Post by flatroze »

kruczek wrote: post #28
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…

> I'd be flat out surprised if books didn't have their detractors back in the day. They most certainly did have. This reminds me about Socrates' take on books: "for 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…

"And so it happens that the person who reads a great deal — that is to say, almost the whole day, and recreates himself by spending the intervals in thoughtless diversion, gradually loses the ability to think for himself; just as a man who is always riding at last forgets how to walk."

Source: https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/essays/...

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

#52

Post by koboll »

afarrell wrote: post #36
coffeeandjunk wrote: post #20

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,…

The best way to approach this is to start by mechanically removing the possibility of doing the thing you wish to avoid. In the cases you mention: - An alarm clock without a snooze button: https://www.amazon.com/Travelwey-Clock-Outlet-Powered-Operat... - An app that you can use to block facebook and other sites from your phone: https://freedom.to/ There are people who claim that this sort of thing is 'a crutch'. Thes…

Of course it's a crutch. A crutch is a device used to help you heal, without with healing would take much longer or be much more ineffective.

We need to stop demonizing crutches.

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

#53

Post by empath75 »

coffeeandjunk wrote: post #20

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,…

One definition of addiction is ‘continuing an action in the face of rising negative consequences.’

Continuing to use the phone when you know it’s harming you seems like it fits.

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

#54

Post by matty_makes »

stef25 wrote: post #26
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…

You could probably make a better case for social media being much worse for your own mental health than video games. Everything's about instant gratification, creating and maintaining persona for the outside world to see and then hoping for approval thereof from your peers. The video game world is disconnected from reality, involves long story lines, planning, strategy, skills that you can learn. Maybe I'm wrong. If…

My kids are really into a couple online games.

The games are geared towards mixed levels of instant gratification and longer gratification, creating and maintaining an online character/persona, getting approval from peers as you climb the hierarchy of loot (character skins, rare items, etc.)

We limit their time and they are in other activities like sports which take time to develop skills.

Just be careful because some video games hire psychologists to help engineer a game to hit those neural pathways at the right intervals to get players to keep wanting to come back.

Getting really into video games can involve helping build a PC or maybe letting them create their own games.

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

#55

Post by JumpCrisscross »

rtpg wrote: post #37
hammock wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

I like reading books, but there's nothing inherently good about getting knowledge through books. Especially a lot of the "entrepreneur" or "productivity" books, where you have 80% padding because nobody wants to buy a 40 page book.

> there's nothing inherently good about getting knowledge through books

Strongly disagree. Reading a book requires patience and comfort with delayed gratification. Not only does it require it; I think it also develops it.

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

#56

Post by Jaruzel »

afarrell wrote: post #36
coffeeandjunk wrote: post #20

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,…

The best way to approach this is to start by mechanically removing the possibility of doing the thing you wish to avoid. In the cases you mention: - An alarm clock without a snooze button: https://www.amazon.com/Travelwey-Clock-Outlet-Powered-Operat... - An app that you can use to block facebook and other sites from your phone: https://freedom.to/ There are people who claim that this sort of thing is 'a crutch'. Thes…

> An alarm clock without a snooze button: https://www.amazon.com/Travelwey-Clock-Outlet-Powered-Operat....

'cept that one DOES have a snooze button?

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

#57

Post by CM30 »

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.

To be fair, I think 'binging' on TV shows started the minute videos became a thing. It wasn't as instant as it is now, but people were marathoning TV box sets from the very first time they were introduced.

And it wasn't exactly exclusive to that either. Oh sure, TV often had a mix of shows which stopped you watching the same thing all day long, but:

1. There were still many, many people who watched TV nearly non stop, as their main form of entertainment every day.

2. Many TV shows ran marathons of a particular series for hours/days/weeks at various points of years.

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

#58

Post by ddingus »

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #21
ddingus wrote: post #2

I found it notable the "Ready Player One" movie, featured the group decision to close "The Oasis" on Tuesdays and Thursdays. -->Because reality is real.

I found that irritating. I mean, what if Tuesday and Thursday are my only days off?

Right?

As executed, it is irritating. And broken in ways several mentioned here up thread.

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

#59

Post by weliketocode »

This underscores why I'm almost inherently biased against most regulations. In a lot (not saying all) of cases, we figure out what's bad for us and make decisions to help solve it. Social, legal, and economic issues in our society often appear to work themselves out when left to their own devices.

Yet, so many have the opposite gut reaction: Teens using too much social media? Regulate the industry! Tax them! Take away their phones!

I'm glad to see things working themselves out with social media usage and hope its successes help increase our ability to avoid expensive and fruitless regulations in the future.

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

#60

Post by froindt »

JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #43
afarrell wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way to approach this is to start by mechanically removing the possibility of doing the thing you wish to avoid. In the cases you mention: - An alarm clock without a snooze button: https://www.amazon.com/Travelwey-Clock-Outlet-Powered-Operat... - An app that you can use to block facebook and other sites from your phone: https://freedom.to/ There are people who claim that this sort of thing is 'a crutch'. Thes…

As someone who's pretty pathetically addicted to the internet at times, having Freedom on my laptop and phone has been a huge plus. I'm sure I could work around it very easily (I know I can on the laptop) but the shame factor involved is enough to stop me generally and I'm surprised there isn't a huge market for this kind of thing. Been gradually limiting my usage of certain sites down to tiny windows of the day and…

> Along with that, it's largely removed those sites from my reflex routine of checking for updates... several of them I've just dropped entirely.

Removing the Facebook app from my phone and logging out when I was done with a session on the computer was a great improvement in my life. Even the barrier of typing the password in was enough for me to avoid mindlessly browsing through stuff whenever I finished a small task.

It's been about 6 years since I took these steps, and I don't regret them. Since the Cambridge Analytica stuff came out, I've been dabbling with dropping FB entirely, but there are some people who I like receiving updates from, but they are only on FB.

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