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

#301

Post by meragrin_ » Mon, May 15, 2023, 4:43 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…

> Smartphones give children the ability to bully each other at a scale unlike any other.

People problem.

> Smartphones give children the ability to see everyone who is smarter than they are, prettier than they are, and so on.

People problem.

> Smartphones give children a new avenue for social exclusion.

People problem.

> Smartphones make every single child afraid that what they are doing is being recorded by someone else.

People problem.

> Smartphones make every child hungry for validation from strangers, and makes them do crazy things to get said validation.

People problem.

Smartphones aren't the problem. They are just things. They don't make people do things. They just enable people to do things in a different medium.

> Writing off all of this and boldly claiming that smartphones aren't the problem, it's all just coincedental correlation, makes no sense.

It makes perfect sense when you realize the smartphone is nothing more than a tool and the people are the problem. If you take away all the assholes, are smartphones going to have the same effect?

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

#302

Post by influxmoment » Mon, May 15, 2023, 4:45 PM UTC

When I was a kid I knew people addicted to reading as an escape. Unhealthy escapism. Just saying it's not always the method of escape that's the source of the problem

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

#303

Post by canyonero » Mon, May 15, 2023, 4:47 PM UTC

civeng wrote: post #131

canyonero wrote: post #105

Giving children and teens unfettered access to social media and the internet seems to be more of a problem to me than any particular piece of hardware. The cell phone I had access to as a teen was a flip phone from Virgin Mobile that ran on "minutes". There was no web browser, no apps. I used it for texting and calling. It's up to parents to control access to the content (unfortunately, the tools and hardware that ex…

Check out the thelightphone dot com, they have already done an incredible job doing that for you.

Oh cool. This is definitely something I'd consider if it's still around by the time she reaches an appropriate age. Thanks for sharing!

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

#304

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 15, 2023, 4:47 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #150

How much of that is correlation vs causation? I don't see anything in that article mentioning obvious causes for worse mental health: - employment perspectives - even my generation that graduated right in the financial crisis knew we were in for rough, low-pay and crap job years, kids graduating these days have even worse perspectives - the looming climate crisis - everyone paying attention in a school that teaches f…

[deleted]

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

#305

Post by barbariangrunge » Mon, May 15, 2023, 4:47 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…

What can parents do about it? Cut their kids off? Will they be better off if they reach adulthood without being immersed in the tech culture of their day? They might be at first, but they might struggle as adults to thrive in the brave new world we’re creating with tech where “software is eating the world”

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

#306

Post by CatWChainsaw » Mon, May 15, 2023, 4:49 PM UTC

uptownfunk wrote: post #157

As much as social media companies like to preach about how they are trying to bring the world together, they are under a fiduciary duty to shareholders to maximize profits by any legal means necessary (including telling the world that their products are good for them to gain users, kind of like what smoking did back in the day). Remember, your usage and engagement is what drives their ad revenues, it drives their pro…

"Don't be evil" was never the company ethos, only a smokescreen.

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

#307

Post by slt2021 » Mon, May 15, 2023, 4:50 PM UTC

fatneckbeard wrote: post #221

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…

HN prob full of people who make their living off smartphones reminds me of Oil / coil industry people who dont want to talk abt climate change never easy to come to terms with your life work has to change or stop.

drug dealers always say: never get high on your own supply

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

#308

Post by nathan_compton » Mon, May 15, 2023, 4:51 PM UTC

meragrin_ wrote: post #301

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 each other at a scale unlike any other. People problem. > Smartphones give children the ability to see everyone who is smarter than they are, prettier than they are, and so on. People problem. > Smartphones give children a new avenue for social exclusion. People problem. > Smartphones make every single child afraid that what they are doing is being recorded by someone…

By this logic you'd be fine if we gave every person on earth a nuclear bomb? It doesn't take a genius to understand that various pieces of technology might either change the incentive structure of society in such a way as to produce more of certain behaviors and less of others or might enable the assholes you refer to to do more harm than they used to do and in either case undesirable outcomes might increase.

Unless you believe that the common good doesn't exist or that human's don't have any business trying to construct their society in such a way as to seek some form of it, you have to take the social effects of technology into account when making policy. Just asserting that all things ultimately come down to individual decisions is really weird. Like even if you believe it in some libertarian free market fantasy framework, the vast majority of people think differently and your comment provides no justification whatsoever for why "ultimately people are responsible" is a useful way to think about these problems.

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

#309

Post by pb7 » Mon, May 15, 2023, 4:52 PM UTC

23B1 wrote: post #299

lotsofpulp wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of your examples are inferring causation from correlation, they are just questions about how to define wet and blue.

Yes, but they're obvious things that could be dissected ad nauseam in the course of academic – as opposed to pragmatic – discourse. Water is wet, sky is blue, obsessive social media use is bad. I understand this is HN and the Internet, and so niggling academic arguments are fun and all, but sometimes it's okay for the obvious to be uncontroversial.

For what it's worth, I'm with you. Worst case is we somehow dwindle phone usage and it turns out that that wasn't the issue -- hardly a tragedy. Even if it doesn't affect mood/mental health, the time savings alone will be worth something.

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

#310

Post by iamgopal » Mon, May 15, 2023, 4:53 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…

Smartphones does all that if you don’t teach children properly all this results. We need to proactive at the same time we give them smartphones.