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Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts

arstechnica.com

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Re: Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts

#471

Post by mindslight »

dpndencekultur wrote: post #91
imoverclocked wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful of a possible false dichotomy; People don’t need to have a drug.

Indoctrination into a dependency mindset fits the "buy a solution" model that our societies run on. We are already primed for this indoctrination from the moment mother puts a pacifier in our mouths. Then constantly looking up at her approval, that constitutes the beginning of our need of approval from the women in our lives. We are programmed and primed from day 0.

A human baby is helpless and "primed" for dependency on others - there is simply no other way they could be (without a drastically different evolutionary path). This whole thread is about the modern difficulties of teaching children to become independent in spite of that beginning and the corporate machine that wishes to keep us there ("commoditize your complements"). So uh, welcome to the conversation and try not to be so fatalistic.

Re: Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts

#472

Post by herval »

tremon wrote: post #356
jorvi wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m very much for legalizing and regulating (almost) all drugs, but watch out with the confirmation bias of “everyone in my social circle who used recreationally turned out fine.” I can’t find it right now but I read a great comment on legalization that pointed out that a kid experimenting with weed and cocaine in college is doing so for a radically different reason than a kid doing it escape the daily misery of his…

> with them having seen people close to them destroyed by drug use. But isn't this a false correlation, then? Were they destroyed by drug use, or by the daily misery of their ghetto neighborhood?

I think poor people in the US are against legalization mostly due to the decades of “war on drugs” propaganda or other forms of conservatism (eg religion), not because they’ve seen people close to them being destroyed by drug use

Re: Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts

#473

Post by fullspectrumdev »

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #453
bluejekyll wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary reason to legalize isn’t to make it easier to do drugs, it’s to not use the justice and court system for dealing with addiction problems. Our goal should be to legalize use and then take the money saved from police enforcement and funnel that into programs that get people off drugs. In the US an issue is that the latter part is part of the healthcare system, and we all know that has a lot of issues in ser…

Several states have tried that. Some have already repealed the laws because they were a disaster.

Those states half arsed it.

They did the decriminalisation step and then never bothered with the “redirecting savings from policing into services” step.

They also fucked it in other ways.

For an example of where it does work - see Portugal.

Re: Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts

#474

Post by fullspectrumdev »

alecco wrote: post #85
vouaobrasil wrote: post #6

I wonder if the new drug of choice is actually technology. In some ways I think that the addiction to technology has some similar mellowing effects as drugs. Some research indicates that smartphone addiction is also related to low self-esteem and avoidant attachment [1] and that smartphones can become an object of attachment [2]. The replacement of drugs by technology is not surprising as it significantly strengthens…

Gen Z was conditioned with algorithmic timelines and loot boxes (gambling).

I wonder if that’s why there’s now such a fucking problem with sports betting…

Re: Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts

#475

Post by qwertox »

etimberg wrote: post #447
qwertox wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve seen kids not even 3-4 years old already hooked to smartphone screens. Even toddlers around 1 year old with an smartphone mount in their stroller. Now imagine that they would not be engaging with silly YouTube videos, but with an AI trying to get them to interact with them in order to learn to speak, to learn about the world. Things which parents can't dedicate enough time to. Then also give the kids ideas for…

I assume you don’t have kids because as the parent of a toddler this is a terrible idea. The last thing a toddler needs is AI hallucinations “teaching” them

I don't have kids, but I am not talking about contemporary AIs which love to hallucinate.

Re: Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts

#476

Post by sudosysgen »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #244
sudosysgen wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teenagers can fairly easily have credit cards in the US and Canada. I had my first credit card at 15. They can also have debit cards from childhood.

It’s not very common though.

In my experience it is nowadays. I'm Gen Z, by 14 all my friends had credit or debit cards.

Re: Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts

#477

Post by qwertox »

jader201 wrote: post #439
qwertox wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve seen kids not even 3-4 years old already hooked to smartphone screens. Even toddlers around 1 year old with an smartphone mount in their stroller. Now imagine that they would not be engaging with silly YouTube videos, but with an AI trying to get them to interact with them in order to learn to speak, to learn about the world. Things which parents can't dedicate enough time to. Then also give the kids ideas for…

Please no. While what you describe may be better than YouTube/TV, there is no replacement for development through human interaction and contact. Let’s not give parents another excuse to have devices babysit/raise their children. EDIT: and if your post is being upvoted -- and it seems to be -- I hope it's by people that don't have children, and will later realize how bad of an idea this is once they do have children.

> there is no replacement for development through human interaction and contact.

The issue was that he has seen these kids being entertained by smartphones. This kind of implies that they were not in daycare or any other position where they could interact with humans, unless the parents wanted to interact with them, which they obviously didn't (or couldn't, for whichever reason). That was the context.

Re: Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts

#478

Post by iteria »

qwertox wrote: post #431
tirant wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear the (negative) impact of our current technological drugs goes beyond the impact of traditional drugs. I’ve seen kids not even 3-4 years old already hooked to smartphone screens. Even toddlers around 1 year old with an smartphone mount in their stroller. Main impact on kids is lack of socialization, lack of emotional regulation and a complete impact on their capabilities to keep their attention. Those used to b…

> I’ve seen kids not even 3-4 years old already hooked to smartphone screens. Even toddlers around 1 year old with an smartphone mount in their stroller. Now imagine that they would not be engaging with silly YouTube videos, but with an AI trying to get them to interact with them in order to learn to speak, to learn about the world. Things which parents can't dedicate enough time to. Then also give the kids ideas for…

First off, kids that young learn best in context and with tactile feedback. Until AI have bodies, they will not fill that niche.

Secondly, there is a while cottage industry of young kid's videos to just show kid's the world and engage via a screen with it and explain it. A 3 and 4 year old knows so little, they don't want even know what questions to ask because they know nothing. The value of slop like Blippie or even Ryan's World is alerting kids to the fact that things exist in a digestible way. And they need to loop it. They need to be exposed to the information many, many times to truly get it. Early education is in no way shape or form a good candidate for AI. I'd argue that the repetitive videos we have now are about as ideal as we can get once we filter out the surreal nonsensical videos targeted at kids.

Re: Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts

#479

Post by vouaobrasil »

hamburga wrote: post #426
vouaobrasil wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we have tied all of the smooth functioning of society to producing new technology, so regardless of its negative effects or its diminishing returns, we develop it. It's a strong piece of circumstantial evidence for technological determinism, not to mention many advancements are clear-cut cases of the prisoner's dilemma (arms race), such as computer security vs. hackers.

I’ve been looking at it more from an ecological angle. “We have tied all of the smooth functioning of society to producing new technology” — this implies it was a deliberate decision. Whereas in reality, there’s a selection effect where leaders who embrace technology the most aggressively simply get rewarded in money and power, and they go on to promote accelerationist views with that power. With the logical conclusi…

> “We have tied all of the smooth functioning of society to producing new technology” — this implies it was a deliberate decision. Whereas in reality, there’s a selection effect where leaders [...]

No, it doesn't imply a deliberate decision. I've never said it was deliberate. It's more of an emergent phenomenon.

> I don’t know the answer, but I refuse to accept determinism (despite not believing in free will, separate conversation), and I think that framing this as an ecological competition between species — humans vs machines — is clarifying.

True, but determinism shouldn't be thought of as inevitable. And that's not the case in the philosophical literature either. Technological determinism is more of a force like gravity that can be overcome, and can be measured (theoretically, some have tried) numerically. The large the force, the harder it is to overcome, but overcoming it is not impossible obviously. Feel free to email to discuss further.

Re: Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts

#480

Post by formerly_proven »

_qbxi wrote: post #53
oortoo wrote: post #18

Another aspect here I think is the generalized fear and anxiety present in young people. Having spoken to some family members in the 15-18 age bracket, the message they seem to be receiving is that they are without a future... they won't be buying homes, they won't be getting high paying jobs, and that the system is not going to work in their favor. I think people of this age are uniquely feeling mortal and vulnerabl…

First-time home owners have increased in age[0], the middle class is shrinking[1], education costs have vastly outpaced inflation[2] as have medical costs[3]. Perhaps the generalized fear is not so much about "coddling", but concrete realities. I do not envy them. [0] https://www.axios.com/2023/11/20/american-housing-market-old... [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-a... [2] https://www.usn…

> education costs have vastly outpaced inflation[2] as have medical costs[3].

This is basically a law of nature. Anything that's done by humans and can't be scaled will necessarily get more expensive in real terms over time. See: Baumol effect.

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