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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

#341

Post by marttt »

tough wrote: post #338
marttt wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In reality, it is about social pressure, not emergency use, all the other kids have phones, why can't I? Straightforward, caring, non-judgemental talk might work: you shouldn't have it because your brain is at a too early developmental stage and you cannot cope with the addiction. This is how we explained it to our son. A relative had given him an old smartphone in 1st grade (I never appreciated that gift!), but we…

There's great that there are some parents like you, but we can't expect the majority of normies to care.

Ha, I wonder what's the societal tipping point for dumb phones to become the new normal?

"In sociology, a tipping point is a point in time when a group—or many group members—rapidly and dramatically changes its behavior by widely adopting a previously rare practice." [1]

Do we need 10% of population to stubbornly use dumb phones, and then, voila. :)

"Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10% of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of people who simply change their beliefs if their last two social interactions agreed with a new one." [ibid]

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipping_point_(sociology)

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

#342

Post by pavlov »

rootusrootus wrote: post #176
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 commo…

I’ve never really understood this argument. The American states are not homogenous either, and Finland would be a mid-size state (its population is somewhere between South Carolina and Minnesota).

Not everything that works in Minnesota would work in another state. Not everything that works in Finland would work in Minnesota. But surely neither is a categorical impossibility.

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

#343

Post by DiggyJohnson »

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 take your point, but would like to ask about:

> Having the means to easily call your parents if you end up in an emergency situation is beneficial.

In a true emergency, yes this is of course beneficial.

But in general, I'd bet the ability for a parent to always be in touch with their child is not as obviously beneficial. I know first-hand about the types of parents that are always calling or texting to check-in with their kids - it can stress the kid out (let alone the parents), and I imagine that never being disconnected from the parents can be a bad thing for the child.

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

#344

Post by civeng »

obtusifolia wrote: post #292
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…

I'd love to hear more on how this has been working out for you and your kids. Do they seem to grasp why you have these rules in place? Was there any pushback from their side? Did they ever complain about being left out of social circles because of these rules? I'm not a parent, but this seems an awfully important issue to get right when it comes to children.

100% they get it because we talk about it all the time, however it doesnt mean they agree but I would say they understand. There is pushback as age increases and social pressure DOES increase as well, this is why we think the transition is key. Our 15 y old son just drew up a contract in order to get a smart phone with things like a list of apps he would install, acknowledgement that we "own" his device, agreement that it will not be in his room. We will try to strike a balance between trust and micromanging, hopefully closer to the trust side of the spectrum! We expect him to fail a few times and thats ok, its all part of learning to use it responsibly by the time he turns 18.

This is a much larger issue than just a phone. Awareness of the great damage that can be caused by social media of all forms is just the first step.

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

#345

Post by civeng »

bvsrinivasan wrote: post #322

I'm not sure if someone has already posted this here, but Cal Newport had a nice presentation summarizing what we know about the effects of social media usage on children. https://youtu.be/VN5lrKMeAOs I showed this to my teenaged daughter and while she was irritated, she reluctantly agreed that it made sense.

Our family is a huge fan of Cal Newport with respect to these matters, he is an inspiration and part of the solution!

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

#346

Post by remarkEon »

treeman79 wrote: post #251
judge2020 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You do understand the difference between these mobile touchscreen devices and their apps and the UX/UI of NES/SNES, right?

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

#347

Post by treeman79 »

remarkEon wrote: post #346
treeman79 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You do understand the difference between these mobile touchscreen devices and their apps and the UX/UI of NES/SNES, right?

Serious?

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

#348

Post by m463 »

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

kids find a way, and some solutions aren't solutions.

Sort of like in school where they took off all the bathroom doors. "problem solved!"

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

#349

Post by sylens »

kergonath wrote: post #288
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotta love the correlation is not causation crowd. Do they think Haidt and others haven't considered that? It's like the first thing that everyone considers. I personally think that HN dismisses these ideas because it would mean dire consequences for their high paying entrenched employers.

I think it’s a reflex because we care about this sort of devices. In the same way as gun enthusiasts are overall again any kind of gun control even in dangerous cases. “It cannot be dangerous because I like it”. We need some kind of cultural shift so that people who give their kids a smartphone are shunned like people who give their kids cigarettes or beers.

But to that I ask - don't we all feel these same types of effects ourselves? Does anyone here feel happy about how much they look at their smartphone? And we're adults with fully developed brains - I cannot fathom the havoc it's wreaking on the adolescent (and younger) mind.

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

#350

Post by kergonath »

sylens wrote: post #349
kergonath wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a reflex because we care about this sort of devices. In the same way as gun enthusiasts are overall again any kind of gun control even in dangerous cases. “It cannot be dangerous because I like it”. We need some kind of cultural shift so that people who give their kids a smartphone are shunned like people who give their kids cigarettes or beers.

But to that I ask - don't we all feel these same types of effects ourselves? Does anyone here feel happy about how much they look at their smartphone? And we're adults with fully developed brains - I cannot fathom the havoc it's wreaking on the adolescent (and younger) mind.

I think so. Adults can get addicted very easily. It’s compounded by the fact that we don’t generally think of the dopamine hits provided by social media as something that can be addictive, so we are not very careful.

But similarly as with alcohol and marijuana, the effects on a developing brain seem much more profound.

(Caveat: I am not a specialist, but the limited reading I did from the literature and my limited experience point to that direction.)

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