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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

#11

Post by dvdkon »

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 motivational articles or against critiques of modern smartphone usage, but this one seems to be to be mostly an emotional appeal with the wrong arguments. Paraphrased, "if you use phones, you won't make it anywhere in life, and you don't want that, right?"

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

#12

Post by raverbashing »

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 for longer (most of them, which is probably not so much the demographic here, even for older HNs commenters)

I see how a lot of people behave today and it's how I behaved and felt for a good amount of time. But that wasn't on the hate melting pot of Facebook, it was on more spread out and on more niche sites.

Or spoken in other words: some things are better left on a pub brawl table not as a hard statement on social media.

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

#14

Post by skrebbel »

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 rolled his eyes at.

The message should've been to create more and consume less. A phone let's you do either, the device is hardly related at all. You can't see what a person is doing when they're bent over their phone.

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

#15

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

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…

While you're right, the addictiveness of social media makes it extremely difficult to self-regulate once exposed to something that gets you hooked.

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

#16

Post by leg100 »

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…

How does the older generation getting off their phones help them to understand "what goes on Fb", let alone help them gain critical skills (which seems far fetched)?

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

#17

Post by dudul »

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 seen the exact opposite.

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

#19

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

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.)

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

#20

Post by throwmylifawy »

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.

I am not Indian, but I feel like he is talking to me as well. I spend about 5-6 hours online and I am not accomplishing my goals. I don’t even have goals. Ultimately it is not the fault of the internet companies, the blame lies on me.
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