Slashdot Mirror
Half Of Teens Think They're Addicted To Their Smartphones (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A new poll confirms just how much teens depend on their phones. Fifty percent of teens feel they are addicted to their mobile devices, according to the poll, which was conducted for Common Sense Media, a nonprofit focused on helping children, parents, teachers and policymakers negotiate media and technology. A larger number of parents, 59%, said their teens were addicted. The poll involved 1,240 interviews with parents and their children, ages 12 to 18. "Technological addiction can happen to anyone," said digital detox expert Holland Haiis. "If your teens would prefer gaming indoors, alone, as opposed to going out to the movies, meeting friends for burgers or any of the other ways that teens build camaraderie, you may have a problem."
What does gaming indoors have to do with smartphones? Oh I get it, a "digital detox expert" is trying to make a buck doing nothing with their life.
"If your teens would prefer writing poetry, alone, as opposed to going out to the theater, meeting friends for rolls or any of the other ways that teens build camaraderie, you may have a problem." - ancient Rome ~ 0AD
If you're addicted, by all means seek treatment, but honestly, most of this is simply another round of how decadent kids are, and this has been going for many thousands of years, probably since the first ever sucessful hunt. Furthermore, most of this is pales to a real addiction - if your symptoms are that you don't like being around others, how about we talk about being addicted to books? Being addicted to movies? Being addicted to schoolwork? Hell, being addicted to being an introvert? The symptoms are all the same. Undoubtly there are people who truly suffer from this, I'm not saying there aren't, but I suspect much of this to be overblown out of proportions.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Gaming indoors is the modern teen camaraderie:
- Invites communication & collaborative strategy
- Experiencing win/lose attitudes
Movies are the epitome of anti-social:
- sit silently in the dark, opposing all who talk, to be indoctrinated.
Driving age is over 18 in many areas, or over 19 with passengers, so how are the "teens" supposed to get to this burger place?
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
I survived being grounded, without long-lasting repercussions. They'll survive.
Kids need to learn that there are consequences for their actions, while those consequences are relatively minor.
As a parallel, I ended up getting a better job at work because the guy that was the lead tested several of us out, "borrowing" us for some larger jobs. One of the guys that lost-out did so because he couldn't stop texting to focus on the damn job.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Teens build camaraderie through online interaction and not going out to movies these days.
To an out of touch parent it may appear your child is gaming alone. In reality they likely have a chat and/or voice connection to their friends and are playing a game together through the net. This is no less social or camaraderie than sitting in a room playing a board or video game together but parents would see one as social interaction and the other as isolation.