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The solution is unironically just to do what China does. Create restrictions on how long kids can use the web and what they can use. It won't be perfect but it will be the biggest influence towards better habits and cultural norms.
Are Chinese people happier then Americans or Europeans?
Sadly contentment doesn't sound as good, but is a better measure of emotional state.
The solution is unironically just to do what China does. Create restrictions on how long kids can use the web and what they can use. It won't be perfect but it will be the biggest influence towards better habits and cultural norms.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't get how phones became acceptable in schools. Imagine bringing a GameBoy into class in the 90s. It'd be taken away instantly.
Helicopter parents and PTA Karens that just have to be able to connect to their kids at all hours. But also, 80s/90s stranger danger and all the school shootings.
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It's mobile devices, not electronics in general. Social networking was around before widespread mobile computing, e.g. MySpace, but it was a supplement to offline social interaction, not a replacement. Back then, you had to make a conscious decision to use the computer and log in. Having the device in your pocket at all times drastically changes how it's used.
I mean how much time is spent on electronics and away from people overall. Mobile devices increased that a lot, but they aren't the only part. There are way more PC gamers than before, for example. My classmates also used early Facebook more on PCs, maybe because some features didn't work on iPhones (Flash content?). They'd just sit at home on the PC all night. I'd even count remote classrooms/work. In 2020, people d…
The big difference was: At least the youth was at home together with others doing so. You went over to your neighbor to watch some TV show for example.
What changed quite lately are indeed the always online smartphones. You don't need to go to your neighbor, even if you want to "do something together" (of course online, like everything nowadays).
Also people don't even call each other. The default is chat, or very often voice messages. But no real talking.
So no, media and electronics aren't the main driver here. It's the always online devices everybody uses everywhere the whole time. Human minds likely aren't constructed to be always connected (or one could argue, actually disconnected) in such a way.
It's not primary the quantity, it's the quality of media consumption that significantly changed. Also the media is the first time completely interactive and personalized. Compare to for example TV (which was back than "the devil who destroys the morale of our youth" according to some elder people). You didn't get targeted personalized ads the whole day on your TV…
The psychological manipulation that the pre-smartphone media could possibly exercise on individuals was much more constrained compared to what's possible (and actually gets executed) today. Smartphone apps are a great example as they're now mostly constructed to induced addiction (the companies selling ads call it "engagement").
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Are Chinese people happier then Americans or Europeans?
Do you think that the only factor to that variable is the usage of social media?
I dont think so, but seeing how chinese people under those circumstances view their lives and satisfaction with their social lives, etc would be one more data point in a complicated problem
If parents really want to set a good example, they ought to also quit their smartphones and Social Media--or at least hide it better. Kids are really good at identifying hypocrisy. When they see their parents glued to their phones and scrolling Instagram all day, after being told "Oh, don't do that, it's not good for you" they know their parents are full of shit. And, the trouble is: Most of these adults are addicted…
If the kid has an emergency, the teacher can call the parents. If the parents are having an emergency, the can call the school.
I'm sceptical of the claim that social media is causing teen mental illness. I've thought about this quite a bit, but never wrote my thoughts anywhere so I guess here and now is as a good time as any. I think Haidt's assertion that social media is to blame for the rise in teen mental illness is likely indirectly true, but from what I've observed personally even kids that don't frequently use social networking apps st…
You might be interested in the book 'Bad Therapy' by Abigail Shrier. It's well worth a read. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/198332459 Also 'Free Range Parenting' https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6250260-free-range-kids-...
The author took a real paradox ("More treatment but no less depression: The treatment-prevalence paradox") and chose the explanation least supported by evidence: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027273582...
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I don't get how phones became acceptable in schools. Imagine bringing a GameBoy into class in the 90s. It'd be taken away instantly.
Helicopter parents and PTA Karens that just have to be able to connect to their kids at all hours. But also, 80s/90s stranger danger and all the school shootings.
I think phones got through the "back door". When the first cell phones came around, not many kids took them to school, but the only thing they could actually use them for was contacting their friends/parents during breaks, so there was no reason to ban them. A Gameboy was specifically an entertainment device, an old cell phone was more like a flashlight or a watch, something which could presumably be used as a toy, but usually was not.
Then, cell phones got cheaper, more kids got them, but they also got more advanced. In the feature phone era, a lot of kids had phones already, but the balance of genuine communication versus amusement was still leaning towards communication. This changed very rapidly, and at a time where phones in schools were already ubiquitous, though their use in class might not have been.