Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

medrxiv.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 348 posts

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

#281

Post by oh_sigh »

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #3

How the toddlers of today growing up with fully masked teachers during their institutionalized education will manage to develop normal social skills without being able to see people’s faces is beyond me.

Actually, toddlers will all have great super social skills, because they will not believe that "smiling = you're happy", which is totally wrong. They'll need to figure out emotions using tone of voice and the look of the person's eyes and maybe upper cheeks.

So I disagree with your point entirely. And I've provided even more reasoning than you did about why today's children will be even better at social conduct than their predecessors.

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

#282

Post by newsclues »

rock_hard wrote: post #160
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…

We also have a unlimited screen time policy with our kids It’s been nothing but great! They turned into information sponges with a huge amount of knowledge about the world, way ahead of their peers. Our son watches a lot of extrem sports YouTube content which always inspires him to push harder to get better at those sports himself. He is the only one in his class who will tackle the large half pipes at the local dirt…

What has the key to having them focus on “good” online content? Lots of discussion?

How have the kids not been consumed by unlimited screen time? How do you keep them interested in real activities as well?

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

#283

Post by PsylentKnight »

lilyball wrote: post #246
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…

It sounds like she’s seeking stimulation that she doesn’t get otherwise. The iPad isn’t the cause here, it’s just the tool of the moment.

I'd argue that the more you're stimulated, the greater your need for stimulation becomes.

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

#284

Post by rock_hard »

Grustaf wrote: post #249
rock_hard wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also have a unlimited screen time policy with our kids It’s been nothing but great! They turned into information sponges with a huge amount of knowledge about the world, way ahead of their peers. Our son watches a lot of extrem sports YouTube content which always inspires him to push harder to get better at those sports himself. He is the only one in his class who will tackle the large half pipes at the local dirt…

"Bicycles bad"? I don't think anyone has said that since Victorian times. Probably not then either. If your son hadn't been into BMX/MTB/Cross (are you sure you mean halfpipe?) before the unlimited screen time policy, don't you think he might have ended up obsessed with computer games or youtube instead?

We have never had a screen time policy. I was always unlimited. He also watches a bunch of dumb crab on YouTube…but hey, I enjoy my stupid TikTok memes too…so why wouldn’t I let him.

I make fun of him when I think he does something stupid…but it’s in good spirit. My job as a parent is not to manipulate him into the life I think he should live…my job is to enable him to live his!

And Yes, our 5y old takes a full size dirt park half pipe…has done so ever since he has been 3y or so. I wouldn’t do that myself…but he does

He also is into skateboards, snowboards, plays basketball, soccer and what not. He got me into skateboarding at 40…don’t worry though, I wear a helmet :)

In this moment I am watching him race an RC car with 30-40mph across a meadow

Earlier today he was had. oculus headset strapped on and was playing job simulator

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

#285

Post by Jarwain »

heartbeats wrote: post #220
Jarwain wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might sound a little callous, but I wonder if it's a long term net positive. In the short term, it's a detriment; they will have to struggle more and will encounter more difficulties in socialization. But that's not necessarily a Unique problem, there have always been kids with these kinds of problems, if not at this rate. And on this short term we're decreasing mortality from covid and hopefully keeping hospita…

I think the problem you're missing is that these are two different groups. Mortality is decreased, sure, and people get social problems, sure, but the people getting the increased social problems are not the ones getting the lowered mortality.

Well yeah, it's a trade off. Maybe mentioning the mortality thing distracted from my point;

The Point is that in the short term there's an increase in the number of people who have trouble socializing, but in the long term society develops better support systems and tools to help people who have trouble socializing, because there's an increased need. These tools help both people who developed problems as a result of the pandemic, And people who would Normally have problems socializing not just now but in the future as well.

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

#286

Post by rock_hard »

newsclues wrote: post #282
rock_hard wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also have a unlimited screen time policy with our kids It’s been nothing but great! They turned into information sponges with a huge amount of knowledge about the world, way ahead of their peers. Our son watches a lot of extrem sports YouTube content which always inspires him to push harder to get better at those sports himself. He is the only one in his class who will tackle the large half pipes at the local dirt…

What has the key to having them focus on “good” online content? Lots of discussion? How have the kids not been consumed by unlimited screen time? How do you keep them interested in real activities as well?

I grew up having unlimited access to candy

Unlimited meaning whatever I could find in the house

My wife on the other side grew up not having unlimited access to candy

Guess who of the two of us as adult now can control their candy consumption and who if there is candy in the house will eat every last bit of it with 2/3 days?

Forced limiting of anything won’t teach a person how to deal with it…quite the opposite

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

#287

Post by Grustaf »

rock_hard wrote: post #284
Grustaf wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bicycles bad"? I don't think anyone has said that since Victorian times. Probably not then either. If your son hadn't been into BMX/MTB/Cross (are you sure you mean halfpipe?) before the unlimited screen time policy, don't you think he might have ended up obsessed with computer games or youtube instead?

We have never had a screen time policy. I was always unlimited. He also watches a bunch of dumb crab on YouTube…but hey, I enjoy my stupid TikTok memes too…so why wouldn’t I let him. I make fun of him when I think he does something stupid…but it’s in good spirit. My job as a parent is not to manipulate him into the life I think he should live…my job is to enable him to live his! And Yes, our 5y old takes a full size…

How do you ride a dirt bike in a half pipe? I think you're mixing up terminology here. And he must be very big for his age if he can ride a full-size dirt bike.

> My job as a parent is not to manipulate him into the life I think he should live

That happens to be exactly what your job is. Children don't know what's best for them, that's why they have parents.

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

#288

Post by cabalamat »

cco wrote: post #257
teloli wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to find a discipline with “science” in its name that is actually a science.

Perhaps a new corollary to the axiom that no country with "democratic" in its name is a democracy?

In general, the more that someone is trying to push the point of view that something is true, the more likely it is to be false.

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

#289

Post by jpeloquin »

uniqueuid wrote: post #224
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 r…

> 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.

From the Figure 2 caption, I'm pretty sure it's showing standard deviations (of the sample) not 95% confidence intervals (of the mean). Two samples may have overlapping ± 1 s.d. intervals despite having significant different means.

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

#290

Post by cabalamat »

howdydoo wrote: post #262
cco wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a new corollary to the axiom that no country with "democratic" in its name is a democracy?

And no country with "United" in its name is actually united.

For example, all 3 of the non-English parts of the UK have separatist movements that are big enough they have MPs elected.
Post reply on HN