Someone tell the local high school here please, they definitely won't listen to me and require that every student have a smartphone.
Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health
121–130 of 420 posts
Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Smartphones give children the ability to bully eachother at a scale unlike any other. No, social media does. I think it's important to be specific about that because a smartphone is just a tool, same as a laptop or a desktop computer is (when I was a kid there was plenty of bullying that went on via AIM!) Having access to e.g. Wikipedia is of enormous benefit to young people. Having the means to easily call your pa…
Smartphone = pushy social media in your pocket 24x7. In practice I suspect that amongst highschoolers the ratio of time spent between wikipedia and social media (and gaming as well) heavily favors the latter.
Like I said:
> It's possible to set up a child's smartphone in such a way that their access to social media is limited if not totally removed.
The problem is parents who don't care enough to get actively involved in their child's lives to this extent.
Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health
#123There is so much instant dismissal of this entire idea that smartphones are harmful in this thread, most of which is just "correlation is not causation". Yes, correlation does not equal causation. But when it makes logical sense why there would be correlation, there is no way to actually measure causation (we can't exactly give kids placebo phones), we keep seeing the same correlation over and over again, why is it b…
> Smartphones give children the ability to bully eachother at a scale unlike any other. No, social media does. I think it's important to be specific about that because a smartphone is just a tool, same as a laptop or a desktop computer is (when I was a kid there was plenty of bullying that went on via AIM!) Having access to e.g. Wikipedia is of enormous benefit to young people. Having the means to easily call your pa…
> No, social media does.
This is like the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument. Sure, smartphones are just a tool. But they're a tool used to access social media. Also, I'd argue it's not just social media causing this issue. AI filters that make you look more "beautiful" are commonplace now. Children see themselves through these filter and it may impact their self-esteem, e.g. "why do I look beautiful in the photo but not in real life"
Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health
#124This is one of those obvious correlations that for some reason everyone needs to question. It's not the cellphone itself that's the problem, it's the addictive content readily accessible therein. I'm no luddite, but it's pretty obvious that humans aren't meant to be bent over little black rectangles all day, addicted to our own insecurities.
There was a period of time from about 2011-2013 where it felt like many parents would complain about everyone being on their phone. Then they started using them too and stopped complaining.
As a parent, I’m seeing a very clear division in parenting style among my peers.
Some parents allow screen time with moderation and caution because they know what excessive use leads to.
The other group sees nothing wrong and screens are everywhere all the time.
My friend circles are exclusively in the first group, from daycare to schools to friends. So much so that at first I thought everyone was like this.
Then I stepped outside of my bubble and watched some parents hand their kids phones and tablets like they were automatic babysitters. They saw it as normal. One person explained to me that it was a “tool” to help build his relationship with his child by making them “not upset” because they were happier with the phone. It blew my mind that he didn’t realize that he was cultivating an addiction.
Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health
#125There is so much instant dismissal of this entire idea that smartphones are harmful in this thread, most of which is just "correlation is not causation". Yes, correlation does not equal causation. But when it makes logical sense why there would be correlation, there is no way to actually measure causation (we can't exactly give kids placebo phones), we keep seeing the same correlation over and over again, why is it b…
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Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health
#126There is so much instant dismissal of this entire idea that smartphones are harmful in this thread, most of which is just "correlation is not causation". Yes, correlation does not equal causation. But when it makes logical sense why there would be correlation, there is no way to actually measure causation (we can't exactly give kids placebo phones), we keep seeing the same correlation over and over again, why is it b…
> Smartphones give children the ability to bully eachother at a scale unlike any other. No, social media does. I think it's important to be specific about that because a smartphone is just a tool, same as a laptop or a desktop computer is (when I was a kid there was plenty of bullying that went on via AIM!) Having access to e.g. Wikipedia is of enormous benefit to young people. Having the means to easily call your pa…
But the form-factor of technology necessarily alters our relationship to it. Compared to a laptop or desktop PC, a smartphone is a constant presence, always in your kid’s pocket or backpack, easily snuck under a desk for a distraction from a boring lecture, easily used by friends or bullies to record you unnoticed.
Besides that, parents can learn to restrict their kids’ phones from social media use, but that seems like a weak protection (which many kids learn to break) and an unnecessary burden when you could simply give your kid a “dumb phone” for emergency use.
Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health
#127[flagged]
It is even worse because the participants in the survey were not randomly selected. They instead must choose to visit the Sapiens Labs website to complete the survey. Taking the survey is encouraged through advertising. I can't say for certain but I imagine that voluntarily visiting a website to complete a mental health survey might appeal more to those with mental health issues thus skewing the data. Also you may ha…
It's not as if the papers, and the health organizations, haven't been saying this for years now. Demand for mental health care under children and young adults has skyrocketed, and demand far outstrips supply. Is that sufficient?
Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health
#128There is so much instant dismissal of this entire idea that smartphones are harmful in this thread, most of which is just "correlation is not causation". Yes, correlation does not equal causation. But when it makes logical sense why there would be correlation, there is no way to actually measure causation (we can't exactly give kids placebo phones), we keep seeing the same correlation over and over again, why is it b…
> Smartphones give children the ability to bully eachother at a scale unlike any other. No, social media does. I think it's important to be specific about that because a smartphone is just a tool, same as a laptop or a desktop computer is (when I was a kid there was plenty of bullying that went on via AIM!) Having access to e.g. Wikipedia is of enormous benefit to young people. Having the means to easily call your pa…
I’ll be a bit hyperbolic here but this is close to saying: “Dirty water isn’t the issue, the issue is the pathogens in the water”. I mean, yeah, but it’s hard to separate.
Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health
#129This is one of those obvious correlations that for some reason everyone needs to question. It's not the cellphone itself that's the problem, it's the addictive content readily accessible therein. I'm no luddite, but it's pretty obvious that humans aren't meant to be bent over little black rectangles all day, addicted to our own insecurities.
There was a period of time from about 2011-2013 where it felt like many parents would complain about everyone being on their phone. Then they started using them too and stopped complaining.
[deleted]
Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Smartphones give children the ability to bully eachother at a scale unlike any other. No, social media does. I think it's important to be specific about that because a smartphone is just a tool, same as a laptop or a desktop computer is (when I was a kid there was plenty of bullying that went on via AIM!) Having access to e.g. Wikipedia is of enormous benefit to young people. Having the means to easily call your pa…
> No, social media does. This is like the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument. Sure, smartphones are just a tool. But they're a tool used to access social media. Also, I'd argue it's not just social media causing this issue. AI filters that make you look more "beautiful" are commonplace now. Children see themselves through these filter and it may impact their self-esteem, e.g. "why do I look beautif…
> This is like the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument.
C'mon. Guns are dumb. Smartphones are smart. It's entirely possible to set up a smartphone in a way that blocks access to certain apps, limits how many hours you can use an app in a day, etc etc.
The only way your parallel works is if guns had the ability to selectively target bad guys.