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

#361

Post by cauch » Mon, May 15, 2023, 8:44 PM UTC

rcme wrote: post #261

cauch wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the problem is that for some, the obvious Occam's razor is that "smartphone is the cause. obviously" and for some "smartphone is a confounding effect of a deeper cause, obviously". Because it is like that, I would say both of these conclusions is not scientifically acceptable: the fact that some people believe that "obviously it's not the case" is enough to demonstrate that it is in reality not obvious.…

> or some "smartphone is a confounding effect of a deeper cause, obviously". But isn't this equally admitting smartphones are the issue? Like whatever deeper cause you're talking about existed before the smartphone. Like imagine you're a farmer and you grow crops that need a lot of water and climate change causes water to dry up in your area. What you're saying is basically "climate change didn't cause your crops to…

> But isn't this equally admitting smartphones are the issue?

Not really: a confounding effect means that there is a cause X that leads to two things: using more smartphone, and depression. If you ban the smartphone, you don't stop the cause X, and you will still have depression.

> "climate change didn't cause your crops to fail because you weren't growing drought resistant crops. Climate change is just a confounding effect on a deeper issue."

That is not a confounding effect. Confounding is: X -> A + X -> B, and if you break the link between X and A, X -> B is unaffected. Your example is X -> A -> B, with X = climate change, A = drought, B = non-drought resistant plant die.

A confounding effect with climate change would be: imagine you're a farmer and you grow crops that need a lot of water and you use the electricity from the hydroelectric central 100 miles away. What you are saying when you say that smartphone are the issue is like saying "the crops are dying and the central cannot produce electricity anymore, so if I use photovoltaic panel, the crops will not die anymore".

("crop dying" = depression, "producing electricity" = not using smartphone)

> I think what makes the discussion about smartphones unique vs. other social topics is that the adoption of the smartphone and social media was so swift that it's very easy to study mental well-being before the smartphone and after the smartphone without worrying about other changes in lifestyle.

That does not make sense: if you are arguing that smartphones increase global depression, then you are saying that smartphones induced a change in lifestyle. If smartphone can do it swiftly, then other things can do it too.

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

#362

Post by newsclues » Mon, May 15, 2023, 8:47 PM UTC

TremendousJudge wrote: post #250

newsclues wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smartphones and social media are tools. Drugs are tools. Both can be used or abused.

By that analogy, most drugs are not suitable for children, and for the ones that are it's never good to allow a child to self-medicate. It's always an adult giving ibuprofen to a child when he has a fever, not giving the child a 100 pill bottle and telling him to go play.

As a blanket rule, I wouldn't let children use drugs or social media on a regular basis. Certainly not at will.

But I also think total abstinence doesn't always work for everyone. There can be some exceptions. A child with cancer should have access to medicinal cannabis if it's appropriate for their condition for example. Some children may benefit from LSD/MDMA/mushroom assisted therapy. But active kids shouldn't be labeled as ADHD and medicated. And the occasional sip of wine at dinner with parents might help kids learn to respect alcohol and not go overboard when they go to college.

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

#363

Post by dahwolf » Mon, May 15, 2023, 8:50 PM UTC

Only now do I realize what absolute paradise my 80s childhood was.

Zero supervision, I could go wherever I want.

No need to organize anything, go to any playground and there's armies of friends (and foes). No way to communicate other than to simply show up.

No wealth to flex, less tech and toys. Far more physical play where you make your world and adventures by making it up.

A socially coherent authority where parents, neighborhoods, teachers where not at odds with each other, instead they aligned to correct your shitty behavior, which is good and needed.

Nothing about it is recorded. Nothing. Like it didn't happen.

Not a care in the world about larger issues in life. We didn't know about anything, or care about anything. Mental health? Never heard of it, what's that?

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

#364

Post by isitmadeofglass » Mon, May 15, 2023, 9:19 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…

[dead]

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

#365

Post by mixmastamyk » Mon, May 15, 2023, 9:37 PM UTC

ihadatinyturtle wrote: post #328

afavour wrote: post #100

Earlier 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…

>It's possible to use a smartphone without social media. 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. I would argue that it's very hard to limit access to the web versions of social media outlets. I would also first broaden our terms a little, as it's not just social media that's so harmful, it's the wider attention economy. If we incl…

It's quite easy to control Safari and other apps with Screen Time on iOS.

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

#366

Post by jimmyjazz14 » Mon, May 15, 2023, 9:40 PM UTC

chmod600 wrote: post #283

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious: How much were you using your phone each day before you gave it up for a week? And for what? I set a 30 minute screen time limit for social media apps on my phone because I thought I was using social media too much. Then to my surprise I almost never hit that limit. I can consume all of my social media within well under 30 minutes each day and keep up with friends, family, and even HN just fine. I’m hones…

Not a direct answer, but I think a part of it is the general anxiety caused when the phone is physically present. Maybe someone is sending me a message? Or maybe not, and of so, why not? It only takes 3 seconds to respond to a message, what are they doing that they can't respond? And Amy sent me a message four minutes ago and I didn't respond because I want to know what Dustin is doing first, but I don't want her to…

Yeah totally what worked best for me was leaving my phone in my trucks glovebox most the day, not having the phone even nearby seemed to make a big difference for me. I wasn't a huge phone user but even so the urge to just check if I had a notification or something was there even though I rarely had any. Now I try to compartmentalize my time better and at least for me it made a huge difference.

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

#367

Post by uptownfunk » Mon, May 15, 2023, 9:46 PM UTC

CatWChainsaw wrote: post #306

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.

Yes exactly, they all have their smokescreen. It is all run by executives who want their bonus at any cost.

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

#368

Post by mixmastamyk » Mon, May 15, 2023, 10:10 PM UTC

barbariangrunge wrote: post #305

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”

I never used the internet until my mid-twenties and learned to write socket code a few months later. Lots of old folks that never used a computer when younger are addicted to facebook today.

The idea that doomscrolling can't be learned later (post teens) is kinda silly.

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

#369

Post by drekipus » Mon, May 15, 2023, 10:19 PM UTC

treeman79 wrote: post #347

remarkEon wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Serious?

For starters, SNES kids can sit up and walk by themselves, so there's an age aspect.

My niece is 7 months old and is Infront of the iPhone always

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

#370

Post by makeitdouble » Mon, May 15, 2023, 10:46 PM UTC

cpsempek wrote: post #217

makeitdouble wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 author, Jonathan Haidt, has considered the global financial crisis but doesn't believe it explains the data [1], he writes "It’s not because of the Global Financial Crisis. Why would that hit younger teen girls hardest? Why would teen mental illness rise throughout the 2010s as the American economy got better and better? Why did a measure of loneliness at school go up around the world only after 2012, as the glob…

Let's step back a minute: the author strongly believes that social media directly causes mental illness in teenagers (blog written in February, wo before this one), but he's still dead on blaming smarphones in general for all the ills ?

> Why would teen mental illness rise throughout the 2010s as the American economy got better and better?

Inequality also rose in that same time period. I mean, we could go through hundreds of indicators that somewhat fit the curve. Taking any of those to ask "Why wouldn't this one fit better than the others ?" is a fine exercice, but at the end of the day we're still playing a guessing game and not progressing much.