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Let Teenagers Sleep In

nytimes.com

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Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#141

Post by true_religion »

matwood wrote: post #90
coding123 wrote: post #7

Or you know have them go to bed at 10 instead of let the play video games until 2am.

I don't think you should be downvoted, but there are parts missing to your comment. Teenagers have more distractions than ever, so it's easier to stay awake later. Teenagers also do less exercise than they have in the past. Just going outside and running around with friends is often a thing of the past. Whenever someone tells me they have a hard time going to sleep, my first question is always to ask if they exercise…

To add an anecdote, when I was a teenager I was on varsity track which meant 8 mile warm up runs, followed by 2 hours of practice, with 1 hour of weights afterwards.

Then I would head over to theatre which gave to more hours of backstage construction work.

Despite all that 'exercise', I still stayed up till 1am at a minimum, and sometimes didn't fall asleep till 3am.

So anecdotally, what worked for you, didn't work for me as a teenager.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#142

Post by newnewpdro »

chefkoch wrote: post #134
newnewpdro wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're mixing a modern model of family structure and sexual relations with evolutionary timescales. It's very unlikely anyone gave a damn about who was having sex with who and at what age before our population sizes reached levels where paternity mattered.

Isn't who has sex with whom the primary issue in most animal groups?

Across the entire animal kingdom? I'm no expert, but that seems obviously to not be the case.

Edit:

Just look at our close relative the Bonobo for an interesting example of what human sexuality might have looked like in the past:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo#Sociosexual_behaviour

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#143

Post by corndoge »

Angostura wrote: post #139
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…

> In evolution this was likely beneficial to make it easier for teenagers to socialize among themselves without adult disturbance, Any evidence to put this down as a 'likelihood'?

Agreed, seems like a nice theory but without sources of any kind I could come up with another ten such plausible theories

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#144

Post by yurishimo »

noobermin wrote: post #137

>Three out of every four students in grades 9 to 12 fail to sleep the minimum of eight hours that the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends for their age group Do 3/4 teens fail in life? Do they develop debilitating disorders and such? I guess I've heard for years we need more sleep yet we don't sleep and we continue living. May be certain things like stress and work are troublesome and such but that seems mo…

It’s not necessarily that they become failures but rather that they are being deprived of the mental capacity to reach their full potential every day.

They would be more successful if they got more sleep, so it makes sense to give teens a couple more hours to benefit society as a whole, even if only marginally.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#145

Post by monocularvision »

matwood wrote: post #90
coding123 wrote: post #7

Or you know have them go to bed at 10 instead of let the play video games until 2am.

I don't think you should be downvoted, but there are parts missing to your comment. Teenagers have more distractions than ever, so it's easier to stay awake later. Teenagers also do less exercise than they have in the past. Just going outside and running around with friends is often a thing of the past. Whenever someone tells me they have a hard time going to sleep, my first question is always to ask if they exercise…

My 15 year old son has had incredible difficulty going to sleep at a reasonable hour until recently when he started running with me. Now his problem seems to be gone. Go figure.

Teenagers are near their peak physical capability, yet most get very little physical activity.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#146

Post by zo1 »

annywhey wrote: post #60
rjbwork wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd be all for that, as long as there were negative penalties as well. E.g. Disturbing class = no points. Failing homework = no points. Failing test = losing all accumulated points. Failing end of year exams for the subject = lose all money for that subject. I.e. Attendance is only part of the equation, actually fostering learning/growth is what you really want, even if it's semi-artificial. Otherwise you're just making another perverse incentive for kids to keep their butts in the seat and not really engage.

And then further on, only give the money back in the subsequent year, month to month. Make it a long-term commitment with a pay-off.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#147

Post by Reedx »

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…

> easier for teenagers to socialize among themselves without adult disturbance

We've also disrupted this with younger kids. They never really get to play without adults in the mix.

I think this is actually one of the reasons why Minecraft was so successful, especially with kids. It gave them a way to explore the wilderness (also rare these days) and a way to interact without adult supervision. They got to be masters of their domain and learn how to cooperate and resolve disputes among themselves.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#148

Post by noobermin »

yurishimo wrote: post #144
noobermin wrote: post #137

>Three out of every four students in grades 9 to 12 fail to sleep the minimum of eight hours that the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends for their age group Do 3/4 teens fail in life? Do they develop debilitating disorders and such? I guess I've heard for years we need more sleep yet we don't sleep and we continue living. May be certain things like stress and work are troublesome and such but that seems mo…

It’s not necessarily that they become failures but rather that they are being deprived of the mental capacity to reach their full potential every day. They would be more successful if they got more sleep, so it makes sense to give teens a couple more hours to benefit society as a whole, even if only marginally.

I don't think my point is clear so let me restate it. 75% is a majority of people. 75% of people aren't deficient in some way, as far as I know, staying up all night as teens and living a life didn't make them maladjusted or deprived in some sense. Moreover, I don't know or feel like there is evidence that high performers in society sleep more than anyone else.

The whole "sleep more" mantra feels like the "eat less fat" mantra of the 90s which turned out to be not only false but detrimental to public health as fat became replaced by sugar.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#149

Post by paulie_a »

vinay427 wrote: post #65
baxtr wrote: post #26

That’s probably a good reason to stick to wintertime in winter and not summertime (the EU decided to drop time ch ages 2x a year)

There isn't even a definite proposition yet for eliminating DST shifts. There is still a long way ahead for something like this to happen.

Half of my last year is dealing with bugs related to dst. It needs to go away completely. It is a stupid and unnecessary concept. The proposition is very simple "we won't be shifting the clock by an hour, deal with it"

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#150

Post by IC4RUS »

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…

This sounds like of a 'just so' story, as evolution is not usually considered to act at the group level, but instead at the individual level: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection

And some evolutionary biologists, like Dawkins, argues that it really acts on genes rather than the individual.

So, I might be missing some of the claim, but I find it unlikely that teenagers would stay up later to be away from adults and drive the tribe out of its ruts.

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