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An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#21

Post by strategyanalyst »

tgv wrote: post #3

Quick link for info on the author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chetan_Bhagat , an investement banker turned novel and screen writer, who also writes about the Indian society. I had never heard of him, but "He was included in Time magazine's list of World's 100 Most Influential People in 2010."

Chetan Bhagat is like a low brow JK Rowling of India. Most Indian authors in 90's wrote with aim of trying to win a Booker by writing needlessly esoteric prose and themes which appealed to Western readers, he wrote books in simple English with Indian urban characters. He is probably the most popular author alive in India right now.

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#22

Post by julianlam »

skrebbel wrote: post #14

I think this is a good message, but by making the phone the problem I fear the author misses a fundamental connection to the youth he addresses. The issue is what you do on a phone, not the phone itself. In fact, phones make it a lot easier to create and not just consume, than televisions did back in the author's youth. And I bet there were similar anti-TV op-eds in newspapers in those days that the author would have…

> The message should've been to create, not consume.

This needs to be said more and more with each passing year. I became aware of this phenomenon back in the early 2000s, with Facebook gaining popularity among my friends, and blogs were gradually losing steam -- people aren't creating anymore, but simply consuming media, and therein lies the problem: how can you express independent thought when your media consumption habits dictate your beliefs?

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#23

Post by julianlam »

dudul wrote: post #17
raverbashing wrote: post #12

No, it's not the youth that has to get off their phones It's the older generation. They are the ones lacking critical skills and ability to understand what goes on Fb, etc Edit: I don't see why this is so controversial. Younger people do stupid stuff on their phones, but they're more open to learning from their mistakes The older generation has a more inflexible mindset and hasn't been on the internet/social media fo…

I actually think that the generation that was born with a technology also barely understands it. How many kids really understand what FB is made of? How many of them really understand what the internet is? They don't, it's always been there, who cares? There is this misconception that just because a kid can swipe and type super fast on their phone they are "tech literate". As someone who taught tech in school I've se…

The scary part is those same individuals who have grown up with Facebook, et al. being ubiquitous, believe Facebook is the entirety of the internet.

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#24

Post by reedf1 »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #19
dvdkon wrote: post #11

I don't like how the author pits "using phones" and "success in life" against each other. I get his point, people who don't put any time into furthering their career aren't likely to be in a good position later in life, but there are many who have obtained their career goals while "consuming" media for hours each day and there are also many who don't use their phone much and are still as poor as ever. I'm not against…

Social media and video games are addictive in the same way that cigarettes, alcohol, etc., are. Worse, video games and social media are now explicitly targeted by big business to get kids addicted as early as possible. It's a mess and we're heading for a huge shakedown and re-orientation in a generation. (At one point cigarettes were seen as a "not big deal" too.)

Everything is addictive, what matters is when the addiction subverts your intrinsic goals.I think what people need to be spared is some moralism about what your intrinsic goals "should" be. Some people's intrinsic goal is to be part of the culture of their time, and games do that just like books, movies, comics, what have you.

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#25

Post by bJGVygG7MQVF8c »

skrebbel wrote: post #14

I think this is a good message, but by making the phone the problem I fear the author misses a fundamental connection to the youth he addresses. The issue is what you do on a phone, not the phone itself. In fact, phones make it a lot easier to create and not just consume, than televisions did back in the author's youth. And I bet there were similar anti-TV op-eds in newspapers in those days that the author would have…

> The issue is what you do on a phone, not the phone itself.

This neglects to consider essential differences between people and the ensuing distributional effects of a particular treatment applied across such heterogeneity.

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#26

Post by phenkdo »

Ensorceled wrote: post #6
phenkdo wrote: post #2

why just Indian youth? This is a global phenomenon and I am not sure this is such a bad thing. Very similar things were said about books, movies & TV, humanity adapts and moves on.

Because he’s Indian, writing a message specifically targeting Indian youth, in an Indian paper. Please take your “what about” somewhere productive.

icymi, i was trying to be rhetorical. Please take your holier-than-thou sanctimony somewhere productive.

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#27

Post by jhbadger »

I'm old enough to remember when it was TV that was supposedly wasting the time and destroying the youth. Before that, it was comic books. And movies. And even in the 19th century people were complaining about novels. Yes, in theory it is better if people do something constructive rather than just enjoy entertainment. But people can't be 100% in productive mode 100% of the time.

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#29

Post by onion2k »

tgv wrote: post #3

Quick link for info on the author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chetan_Bhagat , an investement banker turned novel and screen writer, who also writes about the Indian society. I had never heard of him, but "He was included in Time magazine's list of World's 100 Most Influential People in 2010."

I had never heard of him...

This says more about your lack of knowledge than his lack of fame.

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#30

Post by lostgame »

Doom scrolling is a terrifying problem for me, personally. I have only recently realized just how bad it is.

I have recently gotten headfirst back into turntablism/vinyl DJ’ing, and leaving my iPhone in my room, just wearing my Apple Watch with me to tell the time and to do a quick voice reply to someone if it’s important enough. I’m trying to start reading books again. It’s scarily hard to keep that level of attention span again.

I’m an iOS developer for a living, and I think screen addiction should perhaps start to be considered a workplace hazard.

Worse off for me - previous to DJ’ing, my hobbies have been game/homebrew development and hardcore audio production / editing / engineering - all on my MacBook, of course, staring at a screen.

Looking at the actual ‘Screen Time’ reports became jarring. I actually still have a dopamine response that tells me to look at my phone when it’s in the other room. Thank God the watch can’t do HN or Reddit.

It’s like a signal in my head, wired there, like ‘hey; you’ve gotta use the bathroom’ but instead it’s ‘hey, pick up your phone and start scrolling.’

I’ve had issues with substance abuse in the past that I’ve moved past and worked through.

‘Doom scrolling’ has, by no exaggeration, been harder to kick for me than any substance or even cigarettes, which I smoked for almost ten years - it’s going to take years to unprogram what it took years for the developers of things like Facebook/IG/Reddit to program in the first place.

It’s messed up to think that people who have never faced addiction before may deal with this as their first go. It’s going to be a hard recovery for a world buried unproductively with devices in their faces all the time giving them a much quicker and more consistent dopamine response than cigarettes ever could.

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