Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#221

Post by q1w2 » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

peterbonney wrote: post #209

I think I say this every time I see a headline like this on HN, but I'll say it again: The past decade of social science research publication has proven that provocative-sounding results should be considered fraudulent until the underlying data has been published, and then (assuming the data passes muster) should be regarded with skepticism until independently replicated with a fresh data set.

One of the most eye-opening studies I saw was that social science papers with the most citations, had the highest likelihood of not being reproducible. Meaning that Social Sciences are actually pushing out misinformation more than not.

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#222

Post by heartbeats » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #44

colordrops wrote: post #10

At this point in the pandemic we've should have come up with models that factor in the externalities of lockdown and factor that into policy decisions. That somehow still hasn't happened. People say "things are pretty much back to normal" but parents with kids in school know this is not true.

Half the problem is no one has actually expressed a goal we're working towards. Covid isn't going to go away (at least not for a while), which I think everyone at least implicitly accepts at this point. The people who are going to get vaccinated largely have (especially in a few months with the OSHA rule + booster rollout). So what are we even doing?

The goal is simple: for nobody to ever die of COVID-19, or any other cause, ever again.

Any less than this, and you'll lock down again.

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#223

Post by tehjoker » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 7:58 PM UTC

sirspacey wrote: post #129

fabbari wrote: post #16

Would love to see the raw data, but from their own plots you can see that 2017, 2018 and 2019 show a trend that would make the 2020 and 2021 data consistent with the trend. As they show data comparing 2020 and 2021 to the previous years, they could have shown a matrix to compare year over year across the data. I will wait for someone to look at the raw data and peer review the paper before jumping to conclusions. I'm…

Edit: was intended as response to a reply to this. Appreciate the caution. We took a different approach. Unlimited screen time. Our daughter’s rate of learning is incredible. She willingly explores IRL play. No battles when we ask her to put down her iPad. Roblox and Minecraft are our shared playtime. I was homeschooled with no TV. My experience of her development is similar to what I experienced with my siblings. A…

A relative of mine works in NYC schools and routinely notes that whenever he subs in a poorer district the teaching strategy basically revolves around making students sit and behave so they'll learn how to be obedient unskilled labor when they grow up. They told a six or seven year old girl that she wasn't allowed to cry when she missed her parents and toys.

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#224

Post by uniqueuid » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

fabbari wrote: post #16

Would love to see the raw data, but from their own plots you can see that 2017, 2018 and 2019 show a trend that would make the 2020 and 2021 data consistent with the trend. As they show data comparing 2020 and 2021 to the previous years, they could have shown a matrix to compare year over year across the data. I will wait for someone to look at the raw data and peer review the paper before jumping to conclusions. I'm…

Looking at the paper, the statistical story is a bit complicated.

In figure 2, the authors argue that there is a trend. But the graph seems to show the direct measurements of dependent variables with confidence intervals, and they are all non-significant. This means that there is no reason to talk about a trend, especially if the difference between significant and non-significant is not significant :)

[edit]: Would really have loved if they showed marginal effects here, removing the influence of control variables.

But the models themselves do something else: Table 3 suggests that covid was used as a binary variable to test for. So they are comparing pre-covid to covid-time and see a significant result there.

Methodologically, it doesn't seem like a bad design, but the sample size is really a bit small to have sufficient power.

Apart from that, the effect size of covid (31) seems really high, but developmental psychology is not my field so I can't say anything about that.

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#225

Post by Izkata » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 8:02 PM UTC

satysin wrote: post #219

sirspacey wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: was intended as response to a reply to this. Appreciate the caution. We took a different approach. Unlimited screen time. Our daughter’s rate of learning is incredible. She willingly explores IRL play. No battles when we ask her to put down her iPad. Roblox and Minecraft are our shared playtime. I was homeschooled with no TV. My experience of her development is similar to what I experienced with my siblings. A…

Since going [near] unlimited screen time we have seen a huge change in how our son (8yo) engages with the iPad and computer which has resulted in a much happier and healthier use of technology. As soon as the iPad/computer was no longer "special" due to time limitations it sort of lost its "power" over him. He was much more open to using it for things other than games and funny videos. I felt a bit dumb when I realis…

> As soon as the iPad/computer was no longer "special" due to time limitations it sort of lost its "power" over him.

Back in 9th grade when I was 14 or 15, we had a substitute teacher who was just out of college and our regular teacher hadn't prepared any sort of lesson plan for her, so instead of doing what we were supposed to we somehow got into a long conversation about adulthood.

The part that's always stuck with me is when one of the other students asked something like, "now that it's legal you must get drunk all the time, right?", and she described the same thing you did here about screens: All the allure was from it being forbidden, and once she was legally allowed to drink she just didn't care anymore.

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#226

Post by Ma8ee » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 8:02 PM UTC

rock_hard wrote: post #164

Ma8ee wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I think it is a valid concern even today. It’s not that there’s anything inherently bad or dangerous with books, videos or computer games. But too much of anything steal time that is needed for other parts of a well rounded upbringing. If you spend too much time in front of a screen or books, you won’t spend enough time being outdoors and being physically active, or being with friends practicing social skills and…

Some people have excessive behaviors…got nothing to do with TV, Games, Sugar, etc They just need help to learn to manage those excessive behaviors

Some behaviours are more immediately rewarding than other. It’s rare to find anyone eating too much broccoli or having problems stop rehearsing German irregular verbs.

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#227

Post by pram » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 8:03 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #148

sirspacey wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: was intended as response to a reply to this. Appreciate the caution. We took a different approach. Unlimited screen time. Our daughter’s rate of learning is incredible. She willingly explores IRL play. No battles when we ask her to put down her iPad. Roblox and Minecraft are our shared playtime. I was homeschooled with no TV. My experience of her development is similar to what I experienced with my siblings. A…

I have a friend who was always the best in his class at Uni and has become a lead doctor in a major hospital. He once told me that he used to watch roughly 2-3 hrs of television on any day when he was a kid because his parents needed to work all the time. He turned out just fine. I remember back in the day television was the bad guy in town. I wonder if iPads aren’t much better since they foster interaction and not j…

That’s how I was raised, and I turned out TV.

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#228

Post by heartbeats » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 8:05 PM UTC

gwern wrote: post #172

weeksie wrote: post #158

They claim the pandemic has dropped kids IQ scores by a full standard deviation? N=40? Hmmm. Nothing about that paper inspires confidence.

> Leveraging a large on-going longitudinal study of child neurodevelopment, we examined general childhood cognitive scores in 2020 and 2021 vs. the preceding decade, 2011-2019. We find that children born during the pandemic have significantly reduced verbal, motor, and overall cognitive performance compared to children born pre-pandemic. Moreover, we find that males and children in lower socioeconomic families have b…

That's true in the United States, but not in other countries:

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/36/e2105709118

There were statistically insignificant increases in Slovenia, Norway, Denmark, South Korea, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, and Switzerland.

Going by this, I also think that you may have the correlation wrong. If the study is correct (more generous welfare systems => less decrease in birth rates), that seems like it would mean that people who can afford it will keep having kids.

Granted, so will people who aren't in the planning business. But it's hardly cut-and-dry like that.

(extra confounder: Northern Europe had less harsh lockdowns, maybe that plays a role?)

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#229

Post by Izkata » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 8:08 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #207

pyuser583 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My daughter began an extremely unhealthy relationship with screens during COVID. She watches YouTube for hours on end, usually 15 second meme videos that alternate between vacant and toxic. She’s obsessed with memes to the point where it’s impossible for her to hold a conversation with someone who doesn’t have a similar browsing history. She’s lost a shared common vocabulary with even her closed friends. Maybe iPads…

That is fascinating and surprising; I previously considered a Darmok -like language to be implausible, but it sounds like that’s exactly what you’re experiencing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok (Edit: my inner cynic just popped up the question “are you sure she’s not just being a stereotypical teenager?” even though you didn’t mention her age).

I'd argue we've had hints of it for centuries in the form of idioms, such as "kicked the bucket".

Re: Children born in the pandemic have significantly reduced cognitive performance [pdf]

#230

Post by kbenson » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 8:09 PM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #206

mnd999 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically a deregulated, market based approach. This will work great in wealthy areas with good schools with educated and supportive parents.

The idea that poor parents don’t care about their kids’ success enough to want to choose what they perceive to be better schools is belied by the lengthy waiting lists for slots in charter or magnet schools and voucher programs. What we have now is a market-based approach, where the price of admission to a top flight public school system is a $1M mortgage.

Being poor doesn't necessarily mean you care less, but it can mean you have less time, resources and mobility to out towards finding a better school and having your child go to a better school, especially if it's not as close.

What we have now is a system where we for the most part try to remove market influences so wealth doesn't advantage/disadvantage children, but with the constant thorn of wealthier parents constantly fighting to have their resources applied to their own children, sometimes without considering what that means overall.

If we could actually separate wealth from public education, maybe we'd actually see some change.

One interesting way might be to allow free bussing up to 10 (or more?) miles for any child, and allow parents to choose whatever school they want. Those wealthier schools in nicer areas will have to start splitting those funds between more and more students. Of course this would never be allowed for long.