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Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (2017)

theatlantic.com

31–40 of 163 posts

Re: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (2017)

#31
Smartphones and social media have begun to represent this weird post-modern phenomena of the destruction of social relationships.

So few social experiences happen through a non-cybernetic medium now. The average number of interactions a person has online now must be higher than those offline. Platforms like Facebook or Twitter don't connect us with more people, they detach us from more people and connect us to their platform.

Re: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (2017)

#36
post #7

More than a mental health crisis or go outside more, the biggest harm that social+smartphone has ever done is end of creating things . The new generation is spending huge amount of time in consumption and very little in creation. This is going to be a boon for the producers (book writers, movie makers etc) who will be in short supply for much larger consumption crowd. This will eventually be reflected in massive weal…

Look at the number of musicians, photographers etc complaining they can't make a living nowadays because someone else is willing to do the same thing for free. Nobody being creative you say? Though I share skepticism on smartphones. Off to read a book to my daughter now.

Article has got me thinking that when the little one is old enough, she can have a laptop with ableton, Photoshop, Python, office tools and access to (the sfw parts of) Wikipedia

There isn't enough research out there that distinguishes between different types of screen time.

Re: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (2017)

#37
post #19
post #8

If/when I have kids, I think I'll be doing everything I can to keep them off smart phones (or at least, YouTube + social media + games like Fornite). All these platforms seem explicitly designed to exploit insecurities and encourage a mindless mob mentality. It's the antithesis of individualism and I cannot see how it could possibly improve one's life (at least, before you have the maturity to be comfortable in your…

If you don't give your kids smart phones you cut them off of people. It's a conundrum. You will only be able to keep your kids off smart phones if you live in a community not using smart phones much for example the Amish. I think parents of the one percent could also create such a community for their children if they are diligent and choose the right private school. My 6 year old son will go to a summer camp where sm…

Yeah, I suspect it really requires a community of like-minded parents.

Camp is a good start. For what it's worth, one state in Australia just announced a ban on phones during school hours - couldn't agree more.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-25/victoria-to-ban-mobil...

Re: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (2017)

#38
post #31

Smartphones and social media have begun to represent this weird post-modern phenomena of the destruction of social relationships. So few social experiences happen through a non-cybernetic medium now. The average number of interactions a person has online now must be higher than those offline. Platforms like Facebook or Twitter don't connect us with more people, they detach us from more people and connect us to their…

I don't think that's smartphones themselves. It's just social media.

Re: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (2017)

#39
post #7

More than a mental health crisis or go outside more, the biggest harm that social+smartphone has ever done is end of creating things . The new generation is spending huge amount of time in consumption and very little in creation. This is going to be a boon for the producers (book writers, movie makers etc) who will be in short supply for much larger consumption crowd. This will eventually be reflected in massive weal…

My 12 year old is very creative in Kerbal Space Program. And what he's trying to do is hard - things never work first time, and you have to spent a lot of time trying to figure out why. Sure, it's not how I learned, building go-karts and tree houses and simple electrical stuff, but it's still learning how to create and debug.

A bigger problem for me is that today's generation have no hope in figuring out how things like a smartphone work from first principles. At least when I was growing up in the 1970s, I had the fiction that I could understand how things work, and so I didn't give up trying.

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