161–170 of 304 posts
Well, personally I don't sit staring at a screen, I watch movies, play games, talk to people, build stuff and learn new things. You wouldn't say reading a book is "staring at paper" would you?
Well, personally I don't sit staring at a screen, I watch movies, play games, talk to people, build stuff and learn new things. You wouldn't say reading a book is "staring at paper" would you?
Such a good point. I had a small existential crisis watching programmers on YouTube/Twitch because I was focusing on the sounds of the keyboard typing and realizing that they are sitting in front of a screen typing for hours on end and how pointless it was. The second part of my crisis was that I was no different. After a few months of dealing with this I remembered that actually they are engaging with an entire worl…
I mean I don't stop, because money, but I'd love to be able to take weeks- to months-long breaks from screens.
Average adult will spend 34 years with a miracle portal into infinite knowledge and possibility.
Well, personally I don't sit staring at a screen, I watch movies, play games, talk to people, build stuff and learn new things. You wouldn't say reading a book is "staring at paper" would you?
Funnily enough, I remember talking to a historian who said centuries ago, reading a book was considered "mindless entertainment", much as we think about our smartphones now. Eventually, reading evolved into being considered something generally "smart" people did.
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Is that really supported by empirical trials? A short search online seems to point to that being somewhat disputed. I'm all for contradictory evidence though if you have some I missed. Yeah sure a screen is emitting light which maybe makes it worse for the eyes to look at in some ways and situations than a paper page, but "looking at light" is almost an oxymoron - isn't that what eyes do?
Eyes usually look at diffusely reflected light, which has a different impact than direct light. A white reflective surface (whiteboard) in direct sunlight is 1.6cd/cm^2. Consumer monitors are ~300cd/cm^2 (I'm not sure how much bearing this actually has on eye health, this is just to illustrate how looking at a monitor and at a piece of paper is significantly different)
Well, personally I don't sit staring at a screen, I watch movies, play games, talk to people, build stuff and learn new things. You wouldn't say reading a book is "staring at paper" would you?
I really wish this was discussed more often. As a parent, I am constantly bombarded with people telling me I should limit my kids' "screen time." Generational skepticism of new technology is played out. Can we move on yet?
One of my kids thrives on screen time because she actively seeks out creative and informative non-passive activities. She is in control of her technology usage rather than the other way around. And even though we keep tabs on her, we trust her completely to manage her own time.
The other gets limited screen time because if we don't put strict limits on it, he has absolutely immense self-control issues. He throws temper tantrums, claims to be bored all the time, picks arguments with others, refuses to follow simple instructions, and won't stay in bed for anything at bed time. Put simply: he displays all the hallmarks of chemical addiction with even a moderate amount of daily screen time. All of this is greatly decreased and comes very close to being a model citizen when we reduce his screen time down to only that which is required for his school work.
And somewhere in there is the fact that human adolescent brains were not designed by evolution to sit indoors all day look at screens or books.
If you spend the majority of your life staring at a screen, don't take your eyesight for granted. As you age, it will deteriorate, and it's really not fun, especially when your career/livelihood depends on you being in front of a screen.
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I really wish this was discussed more often. As a parent, I am constantly bombarded with people telling me I should limit my kids' "screen time." Generational skepticism of new technology is played out. Can we move on yet?
Maybe those people telling you to limit screen time have different observations than you. It really depends on the individual child and my wife and I have first-hand experience with both ends of the spectrum. One of my kids thrives on screen time because she actively seeks out creative and informative non-passive activities. She is in control of her technology usage rather than the other way around. And even though w…
But for those observations, is the problem the screen or what is on the screen? As a society, I'd like us to focus less on the former and more on the latter.
A screen is just a window that become anything, and I don't see why it should be inherently more or less educative than any other experience.
Let's say in the future we get perfect VR headsets that can perfectly replicate every sense. Would the conversation be different?
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This might be field dependent. All my research is based on scientific journal articles and reviews, which are electronically available, and books are more vanity affairs
Surely you started with textbooks.
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I really wish this was discussed more often. As a parent, I am constantly bombarded with people telling me I should limit my kids' "screen time." Generational skepticism of new technology is played out. Can we move on yet?
Yeah me too. Anecdotally with my two children, they make huge educational jumps every time we increase their screen time. Screen time for us was playing games with an educational value and watching TV with at least some educational value. Recently we've started letting the five year old watch TV purely for entertainment, and the three year old sometimes watches too, but even then, both of them suddenly got a lot bett…
When using the tablet they are playing educational games about sorting/identifying shapes and colors, painting by numbers, solving puzzles, etc.
Or watching/listening to songs that are teaching them colors, numbers, letters, etc. And dancing around because they like the music.
These are drilling home lessons in a fun and repetitive way that we simply could not do for our child otherwise. And we've seen educational jumps from it too.
Plus, let's be real, I make my living through a screen. So why is "screen time" stigmatized as a bad thing?
I've come to the realization that screens are not an evil thing to be minimized at all costs. They are the most powerful tool of the modern age.
It's just important to get some exercise and fresh air too.