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Childhood disrupted: is the internet damaging young people’s development?
(yorkshirebylines.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
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I dunno, I have a teenager, and they have friends. I have a teenage niece, plus dozens of little cousins with devices.
While it can seem like that constant access is a negative, and I've seen a study somewhere about it being really bad for vision over time, what I don't see is anything worse than what TV, gaming, hobbies, or phone calls did to my generation.
The key difference is that the kids can do all of that with one thing, from the couch. So, with a bit of willpower to enforce exercise, and limits on time to allow for family time, I think all claims about harm (unless there's good data the back up a claim) are no better than the bullshit about gaming, or arcades, or heavy metal, or d&d, or any of the other stupidity that has been claimed to be ruining kids over the years.
Kids, teenagers in specific, can require a bit more effort to shift their attention when they have a device in hand, this is true. But people don't remember how damn pissy teenagers got when being pried away from a TV. If my grandparents stories about my parent's generation are true, even before TV was everywhere, teenagers were assholes about shifting attention from their focus of the moment.
From what the one great grandparent I grew up with said, my grandparents' generation was different only in access to distractions. And, for the most part, for a kid back before TV existed at all, radio and books were just as difficult to pry an ear or nose out of.
Now, I will say that most teenagers can end up boring as fuck because they get lazy about using/doing non device things. When every interest is tied to absorbing entertainment in some form, you end up with monomanias in cycles that I don't recall from being a teenager among teenagers. Not that they didn't exist, but you'd see more diversity in interests on average. But, have you seen fucking adults now? It's getting harder and harder to find adults that aren't locked into their device in one way or another. Adults are boring as fuck too, just in different ways, and often were in the past.
Anyway, point is that until there's good data compiled, the whole "kids these days" is just as bullshit as it always has been.
Where I think kids are being negatively affected is the ubiquity of tech in general. Where, even when I was a kid in the 90s/early 2000s, I was let out of the house and would be gone all day. My parents couldn’t call me, they didn’t really know where I was. I had freedom and privacy.
Two things kids these days are sorely lacking. No privacy, from the time they’re babies. Their phones have daddyspy tech on them, their rooms are being monitored by smart devices, some of them even grow up under security cameras.
I read a study a while back about the effect of knowing there’s a possibility you’re being watched alters behavior on a subconscious level. And definitely on a conscious level. I cannot and do not want to imagine what it must be like to be constantly reachable your entire life, to be trackable, to be constantly monitored. That, I believe, is fucking up kids as they develop. These kids almost don’t understand how little privacy they had.
And even my parents were more overprotective than kids experienced in the 80s, 70s, 60s. But I still got a good hefty dose of privacy in my childhood. These poor kids today have no idea.
Gen Z here. I was given the freedom you described, but I don't really think having a dumbphone with you on a walk is restrictive (unless your parents check on you constantly). That's far from "spy apps and cameras around", like you described. I knew my mother wouldn't call me unless it was really necessary, and would myself warn her that everything's alright if I was returning late. Most of the time I could leave the phone at home with mother none the wiser, but did take it when I went far and/or late.
Well obviously they're not talking about you. I, for instance, was given an iPhone by my parents with Qustodio on it that monitored my screen time, location, search history and even gave my parents the ability to lock my device remotely so I couldn't use it.
That is, indeed, crazy. My point was that presence of a phone by itself is not unhealthy (even though I'd indeed opt for a dumbphone for a young child).
In my opinion, some of your comparisons are a bit off. For example, I'd say there's a significant difference between D&D, arcades yada yada as these were generally social activities, where as you stated phone access can be completed from the comfort of their couch.
I anticipate there will inevitably be a large increase in vision impairments, neck/ upper back pain, likely social isolation and obviously reduced attention spans.
TVs didn’t have algorithms to keep people stuck to the screen. Problem is you can easily end up in a negative feedback loop with TikTok and YouTube Shorts where the algorithm starts to only show potentially harmful content. I’ve heard stories of teens who developed eating disorders because TikTok kept showing videos to these teens that were about dieting and pills made by people who were basically anorexic.
That's the key. Over the generations media (from books to smartphones) got more sophisticated in grabbing our attention to the point that addiction really has become a problem. While everything fun can be somewhat addictive we now have corporations optimizing their products in that way.
I'm sure kids can develop healthy habits with phone and internet consumption but I also believe they need help by restricting exposure in order to play "conventionally". It's similar to sweets - if you leave kids to just eat whatever whenever they want, they'll stuff themselves with candy until they vomit repeatedly.
I don't have kids. And I respect the Kids These Days perspective...
But aren't you concerned about how quickly YouTube and Facebook are known to show new users radical content? Have you read studies about how social media may be related to unprecedented mental illness in kids?
Aren't algorithms and social media at least a little different than books and television? Aren't they razor focused on making us sad and addicted?
Fewer kids are going to church to learn about who to hate, so I think it balances out.
I'd like to see those studies.
If I post some links you will probably decide that they aren't satisfactory. You could just look into it yourself, or perhaps provide the reason you don't like those studies generally.
There is lots of research looking at mental health affects of social media.
"no, I won't provide a source for my claim, because my source is not good/non-existent"
FTFY
They didn't say they don't "like" the studies though, in fact they actively said they were interested in seeing them. What's the point of asking someone to explain why they don't like something that they haven't even seen yet. Sure they could go find some random related studies and then critique those but that seems pretty pointless.
Edit: since I'm whining about lack of sources, I should probably give some myself
Here's a paper investigating the correlation (or more specifically, lack of correlation) between social media usage and mental health outcomes for young adults:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11126-017-9535-6
Yes I'm being a little lazy, but I'm not a research scientist. Gooogling some thing like "mental illness social media" is pretty easy. There's lots of studies finding at least a little corelation.
I'm not shocked your linked study says that there is very little evidence of social media causing mental health issues. I wouldn't even be shocked if it's true.
It still doesn't mean that good parenting and social media access go hand in hand.
Just trying to have a conversation and not get a PhD in the process.
I am interested in the methodologies. I would like to see what studies use for a baseline in comparisons, whether they are comparing data collected today to data collected in the past, who is making the determination about whether a child has a mental illness or not, what role parents play in these sorts of studies, what sort of mental illnesses the studies look for or find, and the magnitude of the impact found by the studies.
I would also like to see exactly what you referred to as "unprecedented mental illness in kids."
Ah, that's down to content control. The same way my dad had to bust my ass if I was watching skinemax too much, parents have to be aware of such and take steps to both monitor and educate.
Unfettered access is risky. Unsupervised access is risky. But cooperative, communication driven access becomes a very, very powerful tool for a parent. You start using YouTube to teach things, give them the critical thinking skills to parse bullshit for themselves.
But fuck Facebook. It's usefulness is long gone, so I just block that are the router and have done with it.
Also, I have read studies about social media risks. The studies showing harm are dubious. That's why I emphasized good data. When the study doesn't involve good control participants, it's almost meaningless. When a study pulls from a limited group, it's kinda sketchy. Worse, when a study completely disregards other issues, it's junk from the beginning.
So the studies are only good when it conforms to your "good data" biases. got it.
Then why block facebook, oh so "communication driven parent"? Or you're kind of parent that buys themselves "#1 Dad" hat and start lecturing other parents on how your kid made it for you.
Was your dad also busting your ass as you read 100 different annecdotal "parenting tips" from strangers on TV? Was your TV in your pocket 24/7 for supervised access and did your parent supervised and communicated about every nook and cranny of the internet?
Technology has well surpassed what differentiated you and your parents. If you think you've got it all figured out, you might be in for a big wake up call.
Go fuck yourself if that's the way you're going to be
That sort of impatience really doesn't bode well for your parenting skills.
OK..... Good parenthood doesn't invalidate the idea that the modern internet is bad for some/many kids.
Smoking is bad for kids, even if you don't let your kid smoke, smoking hurts the health of kids who do. Right?
with a bit of teaching what to avoid and having the proper perspective, I don't see why it's a terrible thing.
I certainly wouldn't compare it to smoking, however.
I'm not comparing it to smoking.
If someone's response to "social media is bad for kids", then to me "I keep my kids away from it, easy peasy" is not a response that invalidates the original argument. It actually supports the idea: social media is dangerous, therefore I intervene as a parent.
I didn't say to keep kids away from it. I said teach them how to be safe while online. The internet can be a fantastic resource for kids in most circumstances.
by your logic, walking down the street is dangerous for a child so obviously the solution is to never let them walk down the street ever. rather than walking beside them and teaching them how to be smart and avoid dangers.
the phrase "social media is bad for kids" is too broad for it to really mean anything without context anyway.
if you want to look at it that way, most things that exist are bad for kids.
Scroll up and see what Southern Samurai said
I did. I agree with them.
OK, so what does what happens in one person's family have to do with all children?
Again you might teach your kids to walk safely on the sidewalk, but if something changes and ten of thousands of kids just start walking off the sidewalk..... Wouldn't that be an issue worth considering?
I don't think it's quite the world ending issue you do. That seems to be the basis of our disagreement.
Do whatever you feel you need to do to protect your children from whatever.
But the intensity of your argument for a simple clickbaity article is a bit too much for me to want to continue talking about it in this manner. sorry, bud.
All true, however there is some truly depraved shit available online and I would argue prior to the internet you would have a much lower chance of getting exposed to that. And thats the stuff that can change you in not so good ways.
I mean, 2 girls 1 cup would have never been on any TV station. Real decapitations probably not either. Some of the graphic war footage we see today, some of it might be on TV but the real gory stuff, not really.
I know these are maybe outliers, but still, you can get to experience a lot more freaky shit these days than back in the day with no internet. And a lot easier or worse, by accident.
Edit: also being exposed to stuff like TikTok these days is a bit different than reading magazines about the latest looks. Selfies were not a thing before you had phones with cameras (and internet) either. There are a lot of differences from back then to now.
That stuff was available. You just had to go out of your way to go see it. The same mostly applies to today's internet.
Did your parents let you run off into a garbage dump? No. Well, mine didn't.
People seem to think that there's only a two position switch for devices: unfettered access, or none.
If you aren't supervising and communicating with your kids, you really shouldn't let them have internet access. It isn't the internet that's the problem there, it's adults not taking the time to do their job. It's absurdly easy to block or otherwise limit access to unwanted sites/services. That's the bare minimum a parent needs to learn. But it's still the beginning. You always, always communicate with your kids. You do the job, or it's on you.
And, having grown up reading crap like Cosmo and Elle, and the teenage versions of them, saying that tiktok is worse is joke. The invasive data mining is, but the content isn't. Hell, Cosmo in particular is a major stain on the beauty standards of the world. Besides, it is absurdly easy to block specific services if a parent puts in a half hour of work.
None of which matters. The point is that it isn't "the internet" or "that phone" that's the problem. If a parent isn't going to put in the minimum effort to teach their kids, the kids are fucked way harder than by anything they'll see online.
I'm only 19, so I'm part of the generation that grew up with phones. Me and my friends all saw 2 girls 1 cup and that gore stuff but I don't feel like it really had any lasting negative effect on us. At the end of the day, it was still just videos. I think watching that stuff was just kind of showing the others how tough or manly you were.