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Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

jonathanhaidt.substack.com

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

#251

Post by treeman79 »

judge2020 wrote: post #208
tough wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you could simply give your kid a “dumb phone” for emergency use. I think you got it backwards, the emergency case is just the -excuse- parents use. In reality, it is about social pressure, not emergency use, all the other kids have phones, why can't I? Real phones, with apps and games and shit. FFS most parents will shove up an iDevice to their toddlers so they can play angry birds or whatever instead of caring for…

> FFS most parents will shove up an iDevice to their toddlers so they can play angry birds or whatever instead of caring for them more actively. This is such a 2010 way of thinking. Now they just hand their kids the YouTube app (signed into their parents' account) and let autoplay babysit their kid for hours a day.

I often tell people I was raised by NES and SNES.

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

#252

Post by yamtaddle »

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…

I do think the Internet-connected pocketable camera deserves some of the blame.

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

#253

Post by cauch »

naasking wrote: post #222
cauch wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My rebuttal would be: it is not impossible to attribute causality, and THIS IS THE PROBLEM. Right now, there are two identically possible situations (well, even more, but you get the jest): A) smartphone -> depression B) depression -> smartphone But the author does not do a good job in explaining why he choose A instead of B, except "it feels logical to me". It feels like a coin toss. (and sure, the author has some a…

> Right now, there are two identically possible situations (well, even more, but you get the jest): This is misleading. They are not "identically possible", which I assume to mean that you think they are "equally plausible". There is more evidence for smartphones and social media causing issues, because we don't see those declines until after the smartphone is introduced, regardless of age. Furthermore, other factors…

("identically possible" as: as legitimately grounded. But of course, if you are convinced that people who are not convinced by your argument can only be dishonest, of course, for you, they are not identically possible)

> because we don't see those declines until after the smartphone is introduced, regardless of age.

Again, there are a lot of identically possible explanation: the whole society has changed and became globally more anxiogenic, the measurement of the decline may be biased as people are nowadays more incline to be honest with their mental health or less incline to "shake it off", or ...

> Furthermore, other factors causing both depression and social media use would have to be cross-cultural because the issue is global. Other than social media, what factors do you know of are cross-cultural? Guess what, they eliminated most of them in prior articles.

What do you mean "cross-cultural"? Isn't the study showing that it's mainly a US problem? And how can you have a cross-cultural effect when the usage of the smartphone amongst young people is so linked to cultural trends that are very different from country to country? I have the impression the argumentation jumps from one to the others according to what benefits the authors: if it happens at two places, they say "see, it proves there is no other sources", if it does not happen in other places, they say "sure, but it's just because the smartphone usage is socially different in these countries".

> Haidt and co have published multiple articles going over the data and the possibilities, so I recommend reading them all before claiming the situation is so murky.

And other experts, with similar credentials than Haidt, have been critical of the work. My position is that we should not jump to the conclusion: the jury is still out. Your conclusion seems to be "I choose to trust Haidt and to distrust equivalent scientists, just because Haidt's explanation seems more obvious to me".

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

#255

Post by kergonath »

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…

> 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!)

This sounds like a “guns don’t kill people, people do” argument. (Edit: I am not rcme, although I saw they posted along the same lines a couple of posts below.) We know that children crave validation and group belonging. They cannot avoid social media in general or anything that looks like one (from Tiktok to multi-player online games) if they have any kind of access to it.

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

It’s possible if you are mature enough to restrain yourself, or if your phone is completely locked down. The average adult does not look mature enough.

> 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.

Limitation does not change anything. The same issues will show up the second there is anything that can be used to exchange messages. Hell, people used to do it in Pokémon Go with their pokémons’ nicknames.

On top of that, you assume that the average parent is competent enough to do it, and that the average child is incompetent enough to not get the password or work around the lock. Both assumptions seem very flawed to me. Again, the pull is huge. I’ve done much more complicated than avoiding parental controls at that age with a much lower motivation.

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

#256

Post by gjsman-1000 »

boring_twenties wrote: post #240
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would actually be completely in favor on a ban on smartphone usage until about 16 years of age; which is also the age of consent in the majority of US states. Kids under 16 can possess a flip phone. It would be better for their mental health, encourage a longer childhood, reduce all kinds of social pressure, prevent TikTok-style inappropriate content serving [1] and pedophiles grooming, etc. The world is not going…

How do you define smartphone vs. tablet vs. dumbphone? Where does a laptop with an LTE radio fit in?

Easy.

"No child under 16 years of age shall possess any device with a screen smaller than 7", or any device with a screen under 11" which contains a LTE radio, unless the device's screen is no larger than 3" (edit:) and has a physical numeric keyboard without alphabetic characters."

There you go. Devices smaller than 7" (all smartphones) are banned. 7"-11" devices are permitted if there is no LTE radio (school tablets). Dumb phones almost always have screens 3" or less in size and are permitted, while anything to do with social media would be almost unusable at that size, let alone bashing out letter-by-letter on the solely numeric number pad.

And as for why smartphones specifically, smartphones are much, much harder to control impulsively. The average American checks their phone 96 times per day, and unlocks it over 150 times per day. How many times does the average American have trouble unlocking their laptop constantly per day? Laptop usage is far more deliberate and intentional than smartphone usage.

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

#257

Post by gjsman-1000 »

mordae wrote: post #247
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would actually be completely in favor on a ban on smartphone usage until about 16 years of age; which is also the age of consent in the majority of US states. Kids under 16 can possess a flip phone. It would be better for their mental health, encourage a longer childhood, reduce all kinds of social pressure, prevent TikTok-style inappropriate content serving [1] and pedophiles grooming, etc. The world is not going…

Why? Just ban the social media use below that age. And then enforce it by fining parents.

Because it would be unenforceable. What are you going to do? Unlock every child's phone for random inspection to see if they have sideloaded social media apps or not? What if they have a custom launcher that hides the apps?

Much easier and far, far more enforceable to say "under 16 + smartphone = seize and fine."

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

#258

Post by MichaelNolan »

civeng wrote: post #146

OP here. Parent of 3, ages 12, 15 and 18 navigating this issue irl. Although I believe good parents aren't super rigid on any issue, I feel pretty strongly on this one. It's the parents responsibility and it's hard since it requires your good example. No phone, age 0 to 10-12, to the Lightphone (absolutely love this product) age 13 to 16-18, to a smart phone. I believe the progression is pushed off as long as possibl…

> Lightphone (absolutely love this product)

What made you pick the Lightphone over a cheap dumb phone. Looking at their product page, the only obvious difference that stood out was the e-ink display.

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

#259

Post by treeman79 »

throwaway3838g wrote: post #149
afavour wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I’m not convinced that an enterprising kid couldn’t easily bypass these restrictions

My teenager has fake icons on her phone that say Snapchat, instagram, etc. they open up the calculator apps.

She doesn’t like being embarrassed that she’s not on social media, so she fakes it to fit in.

Her Grandma didn’t smoke, but all her friends did. So she kept a pack in her purse for years, never touched it. But had to fit in.

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

#260

Post by naasking »

makeitdouble wrote: post #55
timmytokyo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have my doubts that it's about the phones. It seems more likely that their adult problems are the student loans, the cost of rent, the lack of jobs, the corporate greed, and on, and on. That wouldn't explain the sharp reductions in mental health among girls around 2012. Something definitely seemed to be going on between 2010 and 2014. Cell phone usage patterns could be a part of it, but I'd like to see error bars…

The global economy just tanked and advanced economies were barely recovering. I would see that as enough of a cause for children to feel a bleaker future and be impacted in direct and indeect ways. https://seekingalpha.com/article/184723-an-analysis-of-the-i...

> The global economy just tanked and advanced economies were barely recovering. I would see that as enough of a cause for children to feel a bleaker future and be impacted in direct and indeect ways.

The other poster noted data points that refute your claim, mainly because this is a global trend and you've pointed out a mostly US-centric condition.

Another point to consider is that it's simply implausible that 10-12 year olds understand or call all that much about the economy or recovery.

A final point: previous generations went through literal wars with military drafts, and Cold War nuclear bomb drills which are far more direct dangers, and yet we did not see these other issues with mental health. They only arose since the advent of smart phones and social media.

Many other possible causes have been explored, but systematically eliminated because they aren't global, wouldn't preferentially affect genders or age groups, and so on. Other explanations just don't fit all of the data.

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