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Child Psychotherapist: Easy and Constant Access To the Internet Is Harming Kids
First time accepted submitter sharkbiter sends note that one of the UK's foremost psychotherapists has concerns that smartphones may be harmful to the mental health of children. "Julie Lynn Evans has been a child psychotherapist for 25 years, working in hospitals, schools and with families, and she says she has never been so busy. 'In the 1990s, I would have had one or two attempted suicides a year – mainly teenaged girls taking overdoses, the things that don't get reported. Now, I could have as many as four a month.'.... Issues such as cyber-bullying are, of course, nothing new, and schools now all strive to develop robust policies to tackle them, but Lynn Evans’ target is both more precise and more general. She is pointing a finger of accusation at the smartphones - “pocket rockets” as she calls them – which are now routinely in the hands of over 80 per cent of secondary school age children. Their arrival has been, she notes, a key change since 2010. 'It’s a simplistic view, but I think it is the ubiquity of broadband and smartphones that has changed the pace and the power and the drama of mental illness in young people.'”
Is evil?
Harmful?
is a concise summary of SJW-ism.
....Can we ban it altogether, please?
Can we ban it altogether, please?
has some very insightful things to say about children and social media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq8ULEfvF78
He has also written a very good book about child raising in general. I had good parents, but even so, I wish they'd had that book, or at least the insights in it, when I grew up.
So, her examples in the article include, OMG!, some kids can watch men masturbate IN REAL TIME! (And seeing it in REAL TIME is somehow more damaging??) And, surprise, kids communicates!
Well, I don't know which fairy land she lived in when she was a kid. I grew up before the Internet and boys have no problem finding and passing around porn magazines then. And lots of us have our own landline phone that we talk late into the night all the time. I guess we were already all broken beyond repair by her standards.
BTW, kids, hint: it is much more enjoyable watching women masturbate.
In New Zealand, we haven't seen any change in the data for the last 20 years.
In the States the rate has gone down
In the UK , it has gone down.
In Wales it has gone down.
In Scotland it has gone down.
In North Ireland it has gone up.
TLDR: This person is full of shit.
She seems to blame a lot of external factors for the unruliness of today's youth. I wonder if it could really be that these kids are watching their parents' generation continue apathetically watching as the world goes down the shitter, Nah, couldn't possibly. They're the ones paying her top dollar to psychoanalyze their kids, after all.
There is a reported increase in 'mental illness'
There is a massive decrease in street violence.
There is an overwhelming rise in the availability of EVERYTHING on the internet.
Go figure.
In the 1990s, I would have had one or two attempted suicides a year â" mainly teenaged girls taking overdoses, the things that don't get reported. Now, I could have as many as four a month.
Perhaps pver the last 25 years she become good at her job, and gets more referals because of that, or maybe there is some other explanation as to why she as an individual has seen more attempted suicides.
I think i know why she isnt a computer programmer
When people migrate from a small village to the city, they can't go on treating strangers with contempt and fear, instead, they have to learn to live being surrounded by thousands of strangers everyday. There is some suggestion that it's the move to cities which has something to do with the civilising process (ie. a reduction in common violence), although it also has its own kinds of stresses.
Likewise, the internet allows people to interact across cities and nations and with thousands of people and frequently, and so it may be that it is a new challenge to our social behaviour. It isn't that cell phones are the problem, it may just be that the new complexity of a wider-connected environment means people have to learn new ways of dealing with it, mainly because everyone is going to be a victim to it, so everyone will need to start extending their empathy much further, not just to their village neighbour, not just the the stranger on the city bus next to you, but to "abstract" "avatars", human beings, out there. And also learn new skills for coping.
1) These violent movies are harming children...
2) These violent video games are harming children...
3) These violent websites are harming children..
4) These Social networks are harming children...
5) These Smartphones are harming children...
Do they have any evidence to back this up which doesn't draw conclusions without a control and without drawing conclusions they pluck from the air???
There's no reason for most children to have pocket Internet connected computers.
Heck, we have our family computer in the living room. So a pocket Internet connected computer would kind of defeat the point ...
Like the automobile and the television and the cities and money, "the Internet" (whatever that may be) is totally disruptive to life and health. Easy and constant access to the Internet obviously is harming kids in some respects. It's also harming everyone else. It's just that early-life exposure is much more pervasive since you don't remember alternatives.
Most religions and ideologies are similarly absolute in their impact. Most have up- and downsides, and while getting away from the influence of everything is a lofty goal, in reality it is quite saner to focus on increasing the upsides and attenuating the downsides. Which is a recurring task of modern life in many respects.
One can make life easier by strategically locking out some alternatives and no longer waste a thought over them. Some Amish communities do that in a manner that seems comparably nice. Most people simplifying their life make it a habit of also messing with the life of others, and that soon becomes a nuisance.
Hello, Ms Evans.
'In the 1990s, I would have had one or two attempted suicides a year – mainly teenaged girls taking overdoses, the things that don't get reported. Now, I could have as many as four a month.'
It's not exactly thorough from a statistical point of view to jump to her conclusion. There could be all kinds of reasons, for her localised increase in cases, even if the change is national.
I could easily pull a counter argument from thin air if no one is going to bother doing studies... for instance phones and increased internet access could be making children more likely to reach out for help when they would not have before.
It seems the US has always had much more and worse bullying than other countries, phones and internet are not the root cause of this problem. Seems to me the underlying cause is religion.
It claims to provide absolute morality, while the morality of the abrahamic god is horrible.
It claims there is an eternal afterlife, logically that means this life is irrelevant.
In order to keep existing in the face of scientific developments, it promotes gullibility and portrays seeking knowledge as a sin.
[url=http://imgur.com/u1hWgfr][img]http://i.imgur.com/u1hWgfr.png[/img][/url]
And all of this while there is plenty of morality without religion, it has even been shown that life is shittier the more religious people are. http://www.skeptic.com/reading.... That does not mean religion makes things worse, but it does mean that religion does not make things better.
Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
And it’s not, she notes, simply a question of her reputation as both a practitioner and a writer drawing so many people to the door of her cosy consulting rooms in west London where we meet. “If I try to refer people on, everyone else is choc-a-bloc too. We are all saying the same thing. There has been an explosion in numbers in mental health problems amongst youngsters.”
Try reading. It's fairly painless and might make you look less like an arrogant computer programmer...
Old person blames imaginary worsening on things she didn't grow up with, claims anecdotal experience as evidence. I hope I don't become an idiot when I get older.
Human genetic patterns have not changed, introduction of ability to gather more data for pattern matching in our brains is not harmful.
Tie an onion around your belt you old coot, generational bitchery was never becoming of our forefathers, nor is it of us
"“When they are 15, you don’t, for example, let them go to pub..."
She's saying that our kids are killing themselves because they aren't drinking enough ... and they're depressed because they know what wanking looks like. You know, I think any kid with a mirror already knows that.
Relax, it isn't a real science.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
There will be articles saying that our kids are sick because they don't troll enough on the internet, see enough porn or play enough video games.
...Many were of the view that coming down from the trees was a bad idea...- hitchhikers guide
The world is the world.
Get adapted
No, Mrs. Julie Lynn Evans, you don't get to call smart phones "pocket rockets" in the context of children. Unless, of course, you think everybody else have a sex toy or two attached to theirs, or just are keeping the vibrating phones at the strategic area, anxiously waiting to get that next call. I think I saw a dating/call girl commercial like that once.
It's nothing compared to the harm done to psychotherapists due to easy and constant access to children.
I'm glad I taught my daughter to be careful/paranoid. I'm also glad she listened.
What we're observing here and in many other different places is the classic problem of technological advancement: Powerful tools in untrained/unexperienced hands. Each of us here has seen the internet/web grow and trivial-to-stupid data-collection services come over us like the plaque. We have a natural negative reaction to post non-anonymous content online or giving some corporation or the public all our data just because they offer a flaky lock-in version of IRC or microblogging. For most users however, that is a very normal thing to do. I cringe each time I see others exposing themselves to abuse and fraud by posting everything under their real name and data. They are one identity theft or one online stalker away from having their entire life turned into living hell.
I set up my daughters Ubuntu Netbook with two mailaccounts, one fake on with a pseudonym and one with her name. I told her to specifically use the latter only for official real-world stuff - sending in homework, applying for some course, etc. and the other for everthing else.
When she went off for a student exchange in Malaysia, she set up a another seperate pseudonymed online Facebook account for the occasion, to be able to cut it lose should things get out of hand. That's daddys smart girl.
Fake/pseudonymed accounts and a general base paranoia about all things online is a must these days if you don't want to be over-exposed to crap from immature teenagers.
I'm glad my daughter caught the drift and didn't wave off her daddys advice on this matter.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I have a 10 year old son and as much as I hate alarmism, I do find the allure of technology kind of scary.
We give our son "screen time" (PC, XBox or iPad) but we usually limit it to an hour per day. But if given the ability, he would play much more than that. It's like a compulsion. And it's often a struggle when his hour is up to get him to quit.
When we go places, I see lots of younger kids absolutely glued to a screen (iPad, iPhone usually). The touchscreen devices seem to have some kind of extra allure, which I associate with the fact that they have a tactile component different than a game controller or keyboard/mouse.
Truth time is that when you have over 90 percent of mitochondria dying due to methanol, that does not help anyone and their outlook on life.
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL717BFA7373335D1C
Proof in this video
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2E293BD77FA2B8E2
80% of kids have smartphones? I'm glad I'm not a kid today. My father was too much of a Luddite to get a color TV - no way would we have been allowed to have cell phones. much less smartphones, and he probably wouldn't have tolerated a PC or the internet in the house either. We would have grown up in a strange informationless cut off parallel universe from all the other kids.
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
I'm a millennial right on the divide with Gen X (~31 years old). My part of the generation was in middle school when the Internet started to become mainstream in the mid 90s. It was also around that time schools were permitted to adopt that adorable doctrine known as zero tolerance wherein they non-judgementally declared all parties equally guilty in utter defiance of state, constitutional and common law. Many of the pathologies that are just bewildering to many "experts" today were eminently foreseeable. Most of my own peers at the time, at the tender ages of 11-13, understood that the administration was setting things up for bullies to get worse and victims to get very nasty in retaliation.
Most of these problems from sexting to bullying happen today because there are few consequences for the people who violate social norms. Bullies don't get the shit kicked out of them by their victims for fear that the victim will be arrested and prosecuted for "victimizing their victimizer." Teens who sext don't get their social lives routinely ruined by their parents. Shit. If someone had tried sexting while I was in high school, their parents would have thrown their computer/camera/webcam in the garbage and grounded them until they turned 18. Today? Most parents couldn't even fathom doing that and if one did, they'd probably be called an abusive parent even though their child technically committed a serious felony.
I am not a parent myself but the majority of kids of friends and family around me are good kids that I think and hope will grow up to be well-balanced individuals.
The common factors amongst all of them are moderation, and exposure to adults other than their parents who take a genuine interest in them, as well as parents who make time for them. When socialising with other adults who talk to them and listen to them, they feel valued and get self-respect and self-worth.
The problem with bad kids are the parents, period. We've bred a greedy have-it-now society in the rich Western World that means adults living in credit card debt, both having to work to keep two or more cars on the drive just to "keep up with the Jones' next door", and those same selfish people decide to bring kids into the world without having the proper time to give them - the result is fucked-up kids.
I am sick and tired of hearing how computer games, violence on TV, the Internet and modern gadgets are bad for kids. Of themselves, they are not bad, but when they are all used by selfish parents as pseudo-babysitters to keep the kids occupied whilst they work to fill their houses with expensive crap, and when the kids don't get attention and a counter-active balance of real live love and experience from their parents, that's when they get fucked up. How could it be otherwise if kids are spending most of their time in virtual (possibly violent) game worlds and the Internet?
People, and especially parents, need to get their priorities right. Extreme materialism and kids are probably mutually exclusive, they need to decide what's more important and stop being greedy "having your cake and eating it" people.
Windows 10 is great - I used it to download Linux.
Should sexist opensource developers have their projects censored or removed?
Recently an opensource game release story was removed due to the game developer's open sexism(0) and harrasment(1) of women in tech.
A story posted by the editor of the popular Phoronix linux news site about a release of an Open Source videogame was later manually removed(2). The reason cited was the game developer's unacceptable views on social issues such as gender equality (3).
The release story was titled "Xonotic-Forked ChaosEsqueAnthology Sees New Release - Phoronix" and can be accessed via the google cache(4).
With the recent inclusion of a code of conduct(5) for those wishing to contribute to the Linux Kernel some questions now need to be asked and answered about the inclusion of code from people who are known to engage in or promote socially unacceptable attitudes or harrasments of those whom the free-software movement would prefer to attract in their place:
* Are the social or political views of an author of free software relevant to that software's inherent quality?
* Should the beliefs of an opensource developer weigh when when evaluating whether a piece of opensource software is worthy of any publicity or public notice?
* Should men with unpopular or "forbidden" views be excised from the opensource movement and "not allowed" to contribute, in a manner similar to that which is done in employment?
* Has the free/opensource software movement changed in these respects since its founding? If so is this a positive change?
* Should there be gatekeepers to opensource that decide who may and who may not contribute. Should abusive developers be "blackballed" to maintain proper social order and controls?
and
* What are the consequences of not doing this
Citations:
(0) Past related incident: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1310
(1) http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/...
(2) Removed story URL: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...
(3) http://www.phoronix.com/forums...
"Fortunately, the article has been removed now."
"Thanks everybody for speaking up"
(4) https://webcache.googleusercon...
(5) Linux "Code of Conflict"
.
Has the right to their opinion, and will find an audience simply to pay the bills. Psychotherapists practice psychobabble, purely and simply.
So we can go back to beating them then?
Because a lot of teenagers need to be beaten.
Cognitive bias is a self-deceptive practice in which a person (unintentionally) selects data to support his or her hypothesis. Understanding this principle is central to the critical analysis of scientific research. Is the person influenced by what they are seeing (due to their position, etc) when seeing a subset of the universe? Is the person drawing conclusions, abstracting from the subset to the whole, without realizing that the subset is not a representative one?
There are many issues for concern when reviewing this article. First, Dr. Evans is embedded in a nonrepresentative world, is seeing two changes (increased cellphone use and increased identification of issues within children), and is stating a correlation on factors that may well be coincident. Second, there is the issue of the definition of mental illness in children. For autism (a general example, not one of mental illness), the definition and boundaries have shifted over time. This has been one of the causes of the increased incidence of autism. I will hypothesize that the definitions and boundaries of "mental illness" in children has also changed over time, and this may well be a critical factor in the increased incidence of the same.
Dr. Evans proposes an interesting hypothesis (and one we have heard before). But the evidence quoted in the article is circumstantial at best, consisting of anecdotes. She does not quote any general studies. She focuses solely on the negative aspects of a changing environment, without quoting on the positive. Without baselining the definition of "mental illness", without a complete and neutral analysis of the overall impact of the *change* (both positive and negative), Dr. Evans's proposal is at best a weakly supported hypothesis.
It. Its mmision is rivalry. While
"Pocket rockets"? Uh, I'm pretty sure that term's already taken...
As Socrates once said around 500 bc : "Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers."
Pocket rocket? Seriously? We're just gonna let that one go? She wants to get pocket rockets out of the hands of young people... no one wants to say something about that? This isn't the Slashdot I remember.
...the UK trying to push some kind of "BAN IT!" mentality. What a fucking surprise.
all the crazy stuff the parents went through — and now the kids are screwed up.
is this really surprising?
She habitually wears pearls. And she's clutching them right now.
"She is pointing a finger of accusation at the smartphones - âoepocket rocketsâ as she calls them"
That's not what I know as a pocket rocket -- my girlfriend has one, and it keeps her happy when I'm not around.
http://8ch.net/gamergate/index...
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'm not sure why it seems psychologists are prone to this, or if it's just the nature of media and headline-grabbing pop-psychology, but I see these sorts of statements pretty often from this sector.
It's so very very hard to figure out what is making a person do what they're doing. We have problems figuring it out with rats in labs, and the best we have there is usually speculation and strong correlation. Humans are a whole other degree of complexity. Of course, with the rats, people are trying to do actual science: coming up with experimentally verifiable hypotheses, providing proper control and test groups, eliminating variables, and performing proper scientific testing. It's very hard to do well, and you rarely get more than confirmation of a component of a behavior.
Yet you see psychologists with years in their field making professional statements on to the nature of culture and individuals with absolutely no rigorous scientific study, with only their personally experienced anecdotal data and an obviously heavily biased opinion to support them.
There are a lot of things that have changed in the last 10, 20, 30 ... etc years when it comes the environment, manner, and culture in which children are raised. The internet and smart phones are just one part. Western nations have steadily been nurturing a culture of entitlement while removing sources of apparent confrontation and competition, which together may result in children who lack the ability to cope with difficult situations. Maybe the fact that it's now considered child abuse to spank (beat) your child? Perhaps the increased likelihood for parents to seek psychological help for their children along with a chemical fix? How about the longer and longer workday, or the increase in divorce rates? All the news about the low salaries and lack of jobs coupled with the price of education and the blame and mistrust of government and businesses, broadcast back at us 24/7 on every media available might affect one's behavior.
If we're going to claim it's cell phones, there's an awful lot of work that needs to be done to eliminate every other possibility - or at least the reasonable ones - first, and that's just not being done.
Perhaps it's unfair to label all of them, but this is one reason why people don't consider psychologists "real doctors". You see them make asinine statements like this.
You don't need to be a "scientist" or anything special to see how these devices have changed human society. It is right there for everyone to see. This aint rocket science. From my personal experience in the workplace over the last 30 years I've seen some quite interesting changes.
When it comes to those who constantly are on their phones, I call them Generation Z, for "zombie". Zombie as in their attention is glued to to their phone, having little or no idea of what is going on around them. Awareness to their surroundings, to what is happening around them, whether it is interpersonal, traffic, etc is very low on their radar.
I work with many people in their 20's and 30's. These people do not socialize at work. They are glued to their phones every second that they can be. They get their job done, so they can return to the the black mirror. Rarely is there conversation, joking or any semblance of camaraderie with co-workers, as they don't need to when they are constantly connected with their real friends, etc via their device.
I don't need to pass judgement on this behavior, as the behavior itself and its effect on human society is self evident. A colder, less humane world is what we are heading towards, but don't look away from your phone, you might miss it.
I do not for a moment believe that new communications technology are harmful. This "psychotherapist" is of the kind that doesn't hold the human-relation values they should in order to conduct their work. The devices are definitely making communication and sending one-way non-conversing messages very effortless; however this does NOT amplify the issues that are involved in the development and maintained growth of mental illness.
The cause of mental illness is and has always been the individuals induced state-of-mind from offensive/disruptive acts and intentions. In schools, one of the teacher's responsibilities is to actively seek out and eliminate such processes, and to train the students in morale. Someone is not doing their work, and with private communications technology this is difficult to achieve, but possible with enough trust and willingness on in teacher-student relations. In the major cases, the school's psychoterapist should be involved as well as in pre-emptive work.
Kids with pre-existing mental health conditions find their problems amplified by the use of smartphones and the various social media tools typically used on them?
My 12 year old daughter has a few issues (anxiety, depression, mood swings) and we wound up taking away her smartphone after it seemed to keep causing problems. (Everything from a constant stress inducer when she "forgot to charge it and it was almost dead" when we were out someplace, to forgetting where she put it, to fights over putting the phone away while we were eating at the table, to eventually catching her sexting a guy on it and having inappropriate IM chats using it.)
On the other hand, I don't see why for many kids, a smartphone is anything more than another useful tool to carry around in one's pocket?
Seriously.
The correct answer is 42.
At least 5 years ago, I heard the exact same complaint about what it looked like on your typical college campus.... Dozens of people wandering around the courtyards, faces buried in their phones.
Perhaps it only "seems very abnormal and unhealthy" because we're all part of the older generation that didn't ever have the devices in the first place?
I, too, used to think it was a "disturbing" trend ... but I often find myself doing the same thing now, when I'm grabbing lunch at work or waiting for the metro train, or just waiting someplace in line. Truth is, the younger generation really uses these things as their primarily communications tool. When it looks like they're a bunch of zombies staring into smartphone screens, they're actually *interacting* with each other via those screens -- so it is a form of being social.
And I know in my own case, I was never a very social, outgoing person in the first place. Large social settings full of strangers were always uncomfortable for me. Looking back, I would have LOVED to have a smartphone back then to pull out, instead of just holding a drink and trying to look like I was having a good time.
The whole field of psychology is an increasingly weak science.
Mostly because they can't conduct experiments. Ethical issues with fucking with people's minds. But absent that it just boils down to a lot of theories that aren't especially testable.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
We are all getting lazy. Instead of figuring something out we "Google it". This may have an impact on future generations. People no longer memorize phone numbers.. phone numbers are all stored on their phones. It kind of reminds me of an old vintage star trek episode where doctors, engnieers, lawyers.. the present generation didn't have the knowledge to solve issues on their own. They resorted to consulting an AI computer with access to the historical knowledge base.
A lot of people are getting lazy. In about 300 years who knows how lazy Man will be.
I think we should teach our kids all methods of research.
1) She's is full of it. TFA is really a saddening collection of the usual dumb clichés the "won't anyone think of the children" vomit in the pop media. Not suprising since she's a psychologist and 99.9% of psychologists are dumb nay extremely dumb. (And yes, i have experience in dealing with psychologists and psychology students since i thaught two years in a psycholgy faculty and i sometimes meet some online so it's not just my alma mater) I shudder at the idea anyone is taking her opinion seriously.
2) Only an idiot would let unsupervised children on the internet. Likewise, you don't let children unsupervised in front of the TV or picking whatever from your library. I have books i wouldn't want to be read by an average teenager else a young kid.
3) It isn't very smart to say you will never spank your children. Of course, i haven't been educated by beat ups but i knew if i crossed some lines i could get a spank. I knew i wasn't untouchable. If a kid is convinced he's untouchable he MAY not take other punishments seriously and become agressive towards others. Especially the ones he percieves as vulnerable. Likewise pretending you are non violent to the point you will never defend yourself no matter what happens only encourages assholes.
Therapyst are the cancer of modern society.. they are psycholoyst that pretend to bring our society to the middle ages, that speaks craps of computers but likes drugs and other nasty stuff, i'd like to see one that is actually able to spell "hello world" in a sinclair zx computer. Is not tech what harms society it's obsolete corporations like the therapist, schools, etc etc which are preventing progress and science while claiming to foster them, those dual sided speeches stink..
The cell phone is just a tool used in this changing psychological battle ground. The ever increase pressure to compete and constant media portrayal of a hyper-reality is the root cause. When a scientist gets to ride a float through downtown instead of a fucking baseball team is the day these problems will start being solved.
>Perhaps it's unfair to label all of them, but this is one reason why people don't consider psychologists "real doctors". You see them make asinine statements like this.
Psychotherapist does not equal psychologist. Even then, some of Psychologists have PhDs while some have PsyDs. Please don't insult those of us with PhDs.
I know I've posted this guy's stuff before in this thread, but I have to post this also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7mznfMI1T4
I've spent some thought trying to figure out why bullies do what they do in the first place, without getting any headway. This guy has got it figured out.
At an appropriately young age. U would be just as sucidal then as now.
People can't hide the dark truth and exploit you as easily with ubiquitous access to the internet and other opinions.
I don't really think the phones themselves are the problem, I mean who really wants to socialize on the public bus etc.? I think the problem is when people do not pay attention to where they are going while on the phone and run into other people, or are up to order their food and don't realize it is their turn, or where they have to check their phone 40 times while at a meal. Just have some manners and it will not seem like such a big problem.
Do you mean to tell me that a child psychotherapist, who has a vested financial interest in more parents taking their children to see child psychotherapists, raises alarm bells that The Internet may cause children to have the need to go see child psychotherapists.
Call me when a disinterested party agrees.
I was already wondering what's going to replace those dreaded "killer games" as the boogeyman.
And it's not like it's new. Somehow I can even imagine some Mesolithic father looking with worry at his Neolithic son who keeps polishing his tools long after they have reached a "good enough" state. But not quite as far back, can you imagine that what we now consider "classic literature" was once thought to ruin, twist and wreck young minds? Tom Sawyer was such a mind wrecker. But people who read it grew up and they didn't turn out to be lazy idiots, so a new boogeyman was needed. And as time went by, various things got the blame. Radio, swing music, TV, beat music, rock music (interestingly it really used to be music a lot in the not too distant past), D&D, horror movies, computer games ... did I forget something important?
Now, what do they all have in common? One, and only one, thing: They were at the time when they were demonized new technologies, discoveries or developments that were gladly embraced by the young generation but poorly understood by their parents. As these young people grew up, this boogeyman could no longer be kept alive simply because those that do the demonizing now knew that what used to be demonized was not a problem at all. But no worries, new technologies, new trends, come and young people will pick them up so you can be scared of something your kids like and you don't understand, too!
It's never been the technology. It's always been the kids. It's not the phones that turn our little angels into antisocial monsters. They ARE antisocial monsters. Think back to your time at school. And if you can't think of any antisocial assholes, well... maybe a mirror would help.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nils Loffgrin said it best:
Ain't no old school anymore.
Opinions in psychotherapy, psychology and psychiatry seem to change with the seasons, and to depend upon whom it is you ask. Such opinions should not be used as the basis for sound reasoning. End of story. Sure in some cases internet addiction is a problem, but trying to generalise from a few children with problems to all children is stupid. That said, this is what I posted on facebook a little earlier today (the relevance is stimulus addiction):
Violent video games are like hardcore porn without the sex. They're just as addictive and it is just as important that the mental discipline is learned to know fantasy from reality, and when enough stimulation is enough. It is society's responsibility to teach parents the principles of separation so that patents can teach their children. Else the bad knock on effects of explicit media will simply not go away, and will be rediscovered and reinvented time after time. Management of stimulation must be a parental responsibility and society must be structured so as not to make thus too hard a task. Right now we are having an Adhd epidemic as children get stimulus addicted and in desperation we turn to (charlatan) mind doctors and their magic pills in the hope that they will make this problem go away. Fail to manage stimulation levels, and it won't.
John_Chalisque
Therapysters today are what european banksters were in the late 1920's leading to war and violence. They're everywhere, they corrupt education, they fight technology and science and they seem to wish a freud compliant world where life is drugs and magical thinking. Since last decade mental diagnostics exploded like never before and it's not clear if there is real basis for this or we are on hands of a mental robber barons linked to big pharma. Please have in mind the DSM-5 handbook had been dismissed because it has embarrased american psychiatry whose said they would support indpendendent research. Real therapyst does not fight internet, actually they would support aspie it personnel for making it more useful for their legitimate goales, please don't let BigPsy fool you and society.
i've reading the rest of the story.. i think that its not the internet what harms, its how it's used. being a parent today i'ts not what in the 1980s.. we need proper education about internet, no psychologist saying it's harmful... child / teen wich uses internet for antisocial activity should be punished for real, but what's wrong with the ones wich use it for legitimate purposes like learning real skills? antisocial behavior on kids in part is caused by a broken society, wich has been perverted by psychologist washing brains of several generations and helping psychopats to rot and degrade our society, our lifes and our future. the key here looks like that our society is turning into a psychopat friendly one, please read "without conscience" by Robert Hare and probably you will get it better..