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Let Teenagers Sleep In

nytimes.com

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Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#51

Post by mysterydip »

hrzn wrote: post #48
RustySpottedCat wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yea but we're not in tribes, are we? People take this evolutionary bullshit way too seriously, like we still run around with sticks and stones. None of that crap matters when we live in a modern society. Teenages are going to "socialize with themselves" whether they sleep in or not, no matter what, because, guess what, that's what people do in modern times. They can choose.

What they meant is that we evolved in a way that made teenagers having shifted cycles, going to sleep later and waking up later. We're not living in tribes anymore, but evolution is slow and we still cary these biological traits. It therefore hurts teenagers to wake up as early as adults. The point here is not about leaving them more time to socialize in the evening.

Wouldn't accommodating them make evolution slower? Those that have traits making them able to wake up earlier should be "rewarded" if you want to bring change.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#53

Post by lordnacho »

This teenager sleep cycle thing is a bit of a revelation to me. I thought I just had bad habits, but when I was that age, I'd play games most of the evening, maybe do one or two bits of homework at 10om, and then possibly stay up to 1am with some essay that I'd procrastinate on for ages. I'd wake up at something like 7am and sleep on the train until I got into school, and then sleep after getting home at about 4pm for an hour or two.

It would have been a lot more comfortable getting in for maybe 10am and leaving at 5pm. I remember sometimes you'd have a special day in the week where there were no classes in the morning, meaning you started late. And then maybe an extra lesson or activity in the evening. But similar length of day, shifted, felt much better.

Having worked for longer than I went to school for now, I think the school calendar needs an overhaul. There's no reason to take a huge holiday in the summer. In fact, why have any holiday at all? Just have school on all the time, and let people take holidays whenever they want, like at work. You won't forget things as easily taking week or two week holidays as against 8 week ones. Also it means parents won't have their holidays dictated by the school.

Within the day, I also wonder about the frequency of context switches. You might be taking 6 classes a day: PE, French, Math, English, History, Physics.

Now image you are coding, and you do this: Troubleshoot the rendering issue on the website, install a lock free ring on your trading system, write a SIMD function in CUDA, fix your cmake file dependencies, add unit tests to your CI script, and set up Kubernetes.

Would you do those things one at a time, or in little pieces where you have to pick up where you left off arbitrarily?

It seems you should have large blocks, maybe just morning and afternoon, rather than dozens of little classes each week.

But then possibly as a teenager concentration is an issue, I don't know. I certainly think it's better to focus on one thing at a time, quite a long time, before changing contexts.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#55

Post by watwut »

hrzn wrote: post #48
RustySpottedCat wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yea but we're not in tribes, are we? People take this evolutionary bullshit way too seriously, like we still run around with sticks and stones. None of that crap matters when we live in a modern society. Teenages are going to "socialize with themselves" whether they sleep in or not, no matter what, because, guess what, that's what people do in modern times. They can choose.

What they meant is that we evolved in a way that made teenagers having shifted cycles, going to sleep later and waking up later. We're not living in tribes anymore, but evolution is slow and we still cary these biological traits. It therefore hurts teenagers to wake up as early as adults. The point here is not about leaving them more time to socialize in the evening.

We evolved to be remarkably adaptable species. Our social and environmental conditions influence so much, that there is zero reason to assume that any particular behavior in prehistoric time is fixed and not just adaptation.

Moreover, half of those "past evilutionary people were like this or that" is guess made out of flimsy evidence at best. It is best we have maybe, but not accurate. (For that matter, majority of popular "past people were x" is wrong even for periods where we have a lot of documentation of).

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#56

Post by lordnacho »

rerx wrote: post #18

One of the many fascinating facts I learnt from Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep" is that the biorhythms of teenagers are shifted to later hours compared to those of adults in all human cultures of the globe, even in those rare societies hardly affected by technology. In evolution this was likely beneficial to make it easier for teenagers to socialize among themselves without adult disturbance, which was necessary to d…

> was necessary to drive their tribe out of its ruts, to pioneer innovation and adaptation to changed conditions

Surely teenagers could scheme among themselves while adults were awake? All they'd have to do is walk somewhere else. It's not like the adults would constantly be in their way.

Also, those functions may as well be done by adults. For instance startup founders are not all kids right out of college.

Anyway, I'm not disagreeing with the idea that teenagers sleep later, just sceptical about why it is so.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#57

Post by sorisos »

RustySpottedCat wrote: post #41
rerx wrote: post #18

One of the many fascinating facts I learnt from Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep" is that the biorhythms of teenagers are shifted to later hours compared to those of adults in all human cultures of the globe, even in those rare societies hardly affected by technology. In evolution this was likely beneficial to make it easier for teenagers to socialize among themselves without adult disturbance, which was necessary to d…

yea but we're not in tribes, are we? People take this evolutionary bullshit way too seriously, like we still run around with sticks and stones. None of that crap matters when we live in a modern society. Teenages are going to "socialize with themselves" whether they sleep in or not, no matter what, because, guess what, that's what people do in modern times. They can choose.

agree. also, it could just be a "evoulutionary side effect" related to something else and not for a reason.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#59

Post by rerx »

darkerside wrote: post #39
rerx wrote: post #18

One of the many fascinating facts I learnt from Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep" is that the biorhythms of teenagers are shifted to later hours compared to those of adults in all human cultures of the globe, even in those rare societies hardly affected by technology. In evolution this was likely beneficial to make it easier for teenagers to socialize among themselves without adult disturbance, which was necessary to d…

Just as likely that teenagers would then be able to stand watch for predators, attacks by other tribes, or hunt for nocturnal prey.

Sure, having some variation in circadian rhythms among the members of a group makes it easier to have guards at most times of day and night. But such variation exists independently of age: There are "owls" and "larks" at all stages of life. I find it interesting that, on top of that, teenagers specifically and consistently have their individual rhythms shifted towards the later hours.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#60

Post by annywhey »

rjbwork wrote: post #32
QML wrote: post #23

I wonder if it'd just be easier for high schools to convert over to a college model: students are free to pick courses corresponding to their preferred times, and to leave and enter campus on will. Of course, there will be incentives to consider -- why would a high schooler attend their classes if they're not paying directly out of pocket? In contrast, a school district would try to maximize the attendance rate as th…

Drastically reduce administrators. Give the kids something like 25 to 50 cents per class attended.

Honestly, direct pay for attendance would be a great incentive for the poorest demographics. A few dollars can be make-or-break at the margin and even greedy parents that misuse the funds would end up wanting to get the kid showing up and not getting in fights - the bare minimum for a school day to go by undisturbed.
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