this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
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(page 2) 9 comments
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[–] [email protected] 66 points 9 months ago (9 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

they get lazy about using/doing non device things.

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.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago (18 children)

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?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 9 months ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Glad we got that over with

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