Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health • Hacker News Board

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#171

Post by colinrand » Mon, May 15, 2023, 3:35 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #100

alexb_ wrote: post #45

There 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…

Having a teenager, I've seen the bullying and caustic behavior without social media. One classic example is for a group of friends to be on a iMessage thread together, and suddenly nobody posts to it anymore because they've created another thread and left you off.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#172

Post by swayvil » Mon, May 15, 2023, 3:36 PM UTC

alexb_ wrote: post #45

There 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…

Nobody wants to be a lemming heading for the cliff. Nobody wants to be a stoneage troglodyte drinking from a lead cup.

So I have this semiconscious reaction. The logical refutations appear in dozens, without even having to think about it. Automatic reality editing.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#173

Post by jader201 » Mon, May 15, 2023, 3:37 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #100

alexb_ wrote: post #45

There 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…

> It's possible to use a smartphone without social media.

Unless you can block all of them, then I don't think so. And blocking them is a game of whack-a-mole, where every time you block one, they find another one.

And even if you manage to block them from engaging with social media, a lot of similar "damage" can still be done via read-only sites (e.g. Twitter and Reddit).

> 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.

You can't rely on technology to block social media. In addition to the whack-a-mole problem, most parental control integrations are buggy and hackable. My personal experience with Screen Time has been pretty bad. At best, it's very easy to work around, and at worst, it's completely broken.

I'm wondering if you may not have teens with phones, as you may have come to the same conclusion yourself otherwise.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#174

Post by marcodiego » Mon, May 15, 2023, 3:37 PM UTC

When I was a teenager, my mother, family and friends tried to lure into using a cellphone. They said that it would help them to contact me whenever they wanted and that it would help me to go out with them and have a good time and some fun.

I knew my helicopter mother well enough and knew that the only functions a cell phone would get was to call me to tell me it was time to go home, ask where I was, what I was doing, who I was with... I then, consciously, refused to get one.

That probably saved my younger self from getting addicted to smartphone and social networks. Smartphones are addicting to a young audience because they work like drugs: the more you use it, the more you need it. If you make something less attractive it will probably be less addictive.

I'm not a parent and not planning to become one anytime soon, but maybe a way to get teenagers not wanting a smartphone is to make it not a instrument of dopamine rush but a bringer of sadness that at any moment you may receive a call from your parent telling you it is time to go home or asking inconvenient questions.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#175

Post by doublerabbit » Mon, May 15, 2023, 3:37 PM UTC

adastra22 wrote: post #166

alexb_ wrote: post #45

There 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…

My kids don’t have phones. They are the only ones among their peers who don’t have a phone. I told them they can get one when they write an app and get it listed on the App Store, not before. Most people I tell this to are impressed. The only time I got crucified was the last time I mentioned it on HN. This seems to be a particular bone to pick that HN users have.

How are they suppose to write an app when they have no phone?

And which AppStore? Apple, Google, Sourceforge?

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#176

Post by rootusrootus » Mon, May 15, 2023, 3:37 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #93

After moving back to Finland from the US, I noticed that seemingly everybody gives their kid a SIM-equipped phone at age 7. That's the age when school starts (a year later than in most other countries), and a lot of children become fairly independent quickly, e.g. walking or biking to school on their own. It's just too convenient to be able to call and track the child by the phone. In America, the smartphone seems to…

> maybe there's something American parents will be able to learn from Finnish-style phone parenting practice eventually.

Keep in mind that Finland's total population is comparable to a small US state. You are generalizing cultural differences spanning several thousand miles and 330 million people. At the risk of doing exactly the same thing the other direction, I'd like to mention that this seems to be a pretty common European mistake.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#177

Post by nvrmnd » Mon, May 15, 2023, 3:38 PM UTC

adastra22 wrote: post #166

alexb_ wrote: post #45

There 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…

My kids don’t have phones. They are the only ones among their peers who don’t have a phone. I told them they can get one when they write an app and get it listed on the App Store, not before. Most people I tell this to are impressed. The only time I got crucified was the last time I mentioned it on HN. This seems to be a particular bone to pick that HN users have.

My oldest got a phone this year, the real issue is that we need to communicate with her when she goes to a friend's place, soccer practice, and so on. Primarily for safety reasons.

I imagine for most people their children will reach an age where they are more autonomous and require a phone for safety well before the kiddos are writing iOS applications.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#178

Post by parthianshotgun » Mon, May 15, 2023, 3:38 PM UTC

adastra22 wrote: post #166

alexb_ wrote: post #45

There 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…

My kids don’t have phones. They are the only ones among their peers who don’t have a phone. I told them they can get one when they write an app and get it listed on the App Store, not before. Most people I tell this to are impressed. The only time I got crucified was the last time I mentioned it on HN. This seems to be a particular bone to pick that HN users have.

Why an app? Doesn't seem terribly related, it's not like writing an app signals any sort of maturity. Maybe having them read Kant might be better, or...maybe just don't give them an out, be firm in the totality of the ban, lean into it without illusions.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#179

Post by joshspankit » Mon, May 15, 2023, 3:38 PM UTC

IceHegel wrote: post #49

Clubber wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's the addictive content readily accessible therein. That should be questioned too. We don't know what's causing it. It might be the parents consuming of polarizing / doomsday politics effecting their interaction with the kids. It could be parents forced to work more because of costs. It could be the after effects of Covid. It could be that therapy became normalized and kids were always this way, but it's much mor…

> We don’t know what’s causing it. Speculatively, I’d say it’s social media for girls (instagram, tiktok, snapchat) and porn for boys.

You might be surprised by how much boys are affected by social media

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#180

Post by vlovich123 » Mon, May 15, 2023, 3:38 PM UTC

alexb_ wrote: post #45

There 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…

When I was growing up I was told all sorts of shit like this just about whatever was new tech at the time (e.g. TV rots your brain, Wikipedia is not a reliable source, you're going to get molested if you're not careful on chat rooms). "It feels good" is particularly dangerous for things like this because humans are terrible at making conclusions like this at scale.

It could also be that people in bad situations develop phone addictions and otherwise would be doing drugs. So from that perspective are smartphones causing bad mental health or are kids not being taught good coping strategies & would otherwise be displaying other negative symptoms? Is it possible that the vast majority of people don't do a good job regulating their kids' smartphone use & are the same people who use the TV/iPad/smartphone as a babysitter to quiet the kid whenever they get fussy and then those kids are the ones who develop problems with smartphones? This is extremely complex & hot takes lead to reactionary changes that don't move us forward as a society.