I believe 200 years ago people were asking if books were destroying a generation.
My parents generation wondered if video games was destroying mine.
Now it's smartphones.
Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (2017)
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Re: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (2017)
#52We're also getting better at helping young people grow and diagnosing their issues.
That may be a reason behind the numbers from health, before they were just dumped on society without a higher education.
Re: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (2017)
#53Smartphones 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…
On the other hand.....surely there is some value to being able to communicate instantly with people from vastly different geographies and backgrounds? Like, I'm talking daily to two guys from about 4000km away, and I don't even know what they look like - we just help each other on a gamedev group. If I have an issue with my car I can go to a dedicated group for that model on FB and ask literally hundreds of owners a…
This point always gets made in any similar discussions. I think on it's face it makes sense; why wouldn't a freer flow of information be good? But I've come to believe that maybe this is too simplistic a view of the actual effects. History teaches us that people are strongly tribalistic. While it's true that disparate groups can sometimes come together and augment their success, it's also true that proximity often causes conflict. There's probably a strongly evolutionary mechanism behind this. So while it might feel like the free availability of information and the free availability of empathy are one and the same, they really aren't. And might it turn out that such a misconception could do real harm?
Re: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (2017)
#54>I call them iGen. Everyone else on planet earth calls them Generation Z or Zoomers. Dammit this is that author who makes up her own words for things that already have well-established monikers isn't it. I knew she'd make it back on here at some point.
iGeneration is a long established term for Gen Z. This author among many others claims to have coined the moniker but has done so since at least 2006.
Re: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (2017)
#55I don’t think it’s smartphones, I think it’s the fact that the entire ecosystem of our most used apps is a walled garden. Our entire experience is made up of proprietary corporate apps. We have little choice to change or create our own information flows - everything is dictated by hidden code/algorithms. If I can’t see the code, I am not the one doing the controlling, I am being controlled. The most detrimental app w…
I don't think it's smartphones either. I think it's a philosophical issue with digital systems in general. The over-simplified abstractions, physical distancing, and flattening of affect lead to superficiality and constant unfocused distraction.
Open/closed isn't even an issue compared to the limitations of the medium itself - because there is no such thing as a truly open digital system.
Only the smartest people can create industrial-scale digital systems by definition, so the idea that opening up the source code will somehow change this is very hard to take seriously.
Re: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (2017)
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have a source for that? Young people have way more access to creation tools than ever before. Blogs (writing), memes (photo editing), vlogs (film creation), Instagram (photography)... Not to mention YouTube is the most incredible source of tutorials on just about every topic imaginable. The internet and smartphones have made all these cheaper/freer than ever before. Anyone with a creative itch has a ton of ave…
There's more creation but virtually all of it is ADHD-driven - shallow quick-hit micro-entertainment designed to drive analytics. And a lot of it is interchangeable and repetitive - like all those Instagram photos taken in the same popular locations with the same few stock poses. The same thing applies to music (generic watered-down techno with bass-drum-under-samples and maybe a bit of synth), visual art (digital pa…
This reeks of "things were so much better in my day". 20 years ago teenagers would watch copious amounts of TV, anime tropes were already around, it was the decade of shitty superhero movies and trashy TV shows. I give you the gamefied dopamine releasers, but it was never so easy to participate in online communities, find maker spaces, set up a kickstarter/patreon and go nuts creating whatever you feel like.
Re: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (2017)
#57This article/researcher makes claims that: a) there is a mental health crisis among teenagers which is not parallel to other comparable generations, and b) that crisis is linked to mobile phones. I'm not convinced by either claim. In my experience of working with teenagers over the last couple of decades, there is a general trend that they are now better at communicating their emotional needs and emotional state. If…
What a great summary. Tho I think the part about issues our society faces is a lot bigger than those few examples. Educated people have more than ever reasons to be depressed now:
- pollution
- economic stagnation
- inflation
- antibiotics failing
- global warming
- debt
- automation and artifical intelligence
- politics failing to tackle those issues (its a circus in some countries)
- issues like Brexit
- natural disasters
- hard manipulation via mass-media
- addiction algorithms in modern games/medias/programs
- goverments cutting expenses on healthcare and education
And many more. Im surprised young ppl still have hope, thats very brave of them.
Re: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (2017)
#58This article/researcher makes claims that: a) there is a mental health crisis among teenagers which is not parallel to other comparable generations, and b) that crisis is linked to mobile phones. I'm not convinced by either claim. In my experience of working with teenagers over the last couple of decades, there is a general trend that they are now better at communicating their emotional needs and emotional state. If…
I do think smart phones affect people. However what people don't ask when the speculate about the young is whether you are better off otherwise. It isn't really a smart phone, college debt or even housing crisis. It is an opportunity crisis. The prospects for people who don't engage in these activities are generally worse. People >40 don't generally understand this because they are already established, so forgoing these things doesn't have much of an impact on them.
Re: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (2017)
#59This article/researcher makes claims that: a) there is a mental health crisis among teenagers which is not parallel to other comparable generations, and b) that crisis is linked to mobile phones. I'm not convinced by either claim. In my experience of working with teenagers over the last couple of decades, there is a general trend that they are now better at communicating their emotional needs and emotional state. If…
What a great summary. Tho I think the part about issues our society faces is a lot bigger than those few examples. Educated people have more than ever reasons to be depressed now: - pollution - economic stagnation - inflation - antibiotics failing - global warming - debt - automation and artifical intelligence - politics failing to tackle those issues (its a circus in some countries) - issues like Brexit - natural di…
I wouldn't overemphasis the troubles of the world. The main issues is that people don't get to enjoy progress to the extent necessary to create a sustainable prosperous society. Decommodifying housing, education and health care would solve 90% of the issue. Almost anything else can then be dealt with. Automation for example isn't a bad thing unless you also have accelerating inequality. Climate change isn't bad unless building a more energy effective society affects some people disproportionally. Etc. That people don't understand this is what will cost them.
Re: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (2017)
#60Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." [0]
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...