Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Slashdot Asks: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? (theatlantic.com)

Posted by msmash on from the blame-game dept.

Teens today are more likely to be lonely, depressed and immature than any previous generation, according to analysis published in The Atlantic. According to the professor of psychology who did the analysis, who also has been researching generational differences for 25 years, the culprit is the smartphone. From the article: The advent of the smartphone and its cousin the tablet was followed quickly by hand-wringing about the deleterious effects of "screen time." But the impact of these devices has not been fully appreciated, and goes far beyond the usual concerns about curtailed attention spans. The arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers' lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health. These changes have affected young people in every corner of the nation and in every type of household. The trends appear among teens poor and rich; of every ethnic background; in cities, suburbs, and small towns. Where there are cell towers, there are teens living their lives on their smartphone. What do you folks think?

11 of 330 comments (clear)

  1. Television...Radio...Books... by qeveren · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The theme repeats. :)

    --
    Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
    1. Re:Television...Radio...Books... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm all for having real data and robust analysis, but it doesn't take a science paper to tell me not to experiment with walking off a cliff or holding my hand in a fire. It also doesn't take a science paper to tell me that it's not a healthy situation when a generation of young people are so obsessed with their phones that they don't get proper sleep, can't concentrate on anything important, lack even a basic level of fitness, and would rather spend a huge proportion of their lives communicating with their "friends" in short messages punctuated by emoticons than doing anything more constructive.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    2. Re:Television...Radio...Books... by TWX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not even that, it's the fact that the devices are used for bidirectional communications which changes how personal the information coming in to the user is.

      Before, with books, radio, television, even video games, the end-user of the item was both not able to communicate-back in real-time or near-real-time nor terribly likely to experience the negative things that come from from such forms of communications along with a degree of anonymity. Nothing coming back to the user was personal, so the user was not personally ridiculed, or guided, or otherwise personally manipulated.

      Some of us got into the game early, with BBSes, Fidonet, Usenet, IRC, Prodigy, Compuserve, AOL, etc, but the vast majority of the youth population didn't get into using the Internet for communications or as an extension of their social lives until fairly recently. As such, most kids were not affected by the opinions of anyone except those they actually personally met or knew. As such, stupid childhood crap remained just that, stupid childhood crap. One could obviously bring embarrassment or harassment down upon one's self, but it was usually limited in its effects.

      Now, it's possible for stupid kid to mouth-off and suffer at the hands of complete strangers that would never have anything to do with them, or for someone with some weird tastes to suffer vitriol from others that they would never meet in real life, because the Internet as a medium makes that sort of thing possible. Immediately coming to mind are that girl with the Youtube videos whose dad threatened, "Consequences will never be the same," or somesuch stupidity, and the Rebecca Black "Friday" stupidity. The old forums tagline, "Open mouth, insert foot, echo internationally," has actually come to be for this generation.

      Smart parents would do well to teach their children about the need for online anonymity, and why breaching it can have some fairly harsh and permanent results.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    3. Re:Television...Radio...Books... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

      it doesn't take a science paper to tell me ...

      If any of the things you insist are "obvious" were actually true, then it would be easy to support them with actual data ... yet you can't.

      The state with worst obesity and lowest academic test scores is Mississippi. The state with the lowest ownership of smartphones is ... Mississippi. Many of the ills you describe are not even correlated with smartphone use.

    4. Re:Television...Radio...Books... by war4peace · · Score: 5, Interesting

      No, it doesn't.
      Your approach is simplistic borderlining retarded, and I don't try to be offensive (but I might succeed, that's entirely your opinion).
      There's a gazillion differences between past "disruptive" inventions and smartphones.

      1. Past inventions were not close to you everywhere. Books arguably could have been, but they were never considered disruptive.
      2. Past inventions were very far from having the level of interactivity smartphones have.
      3. Past inventions were not actively begging for your attention (aka notifications).
      4. Past inventions wouldn't actively punish you if you would stop interacting with them, and this is a BIG issue with smartphones, or rather the games residing on them. Most games do punish you if you don't play them, and that's plain evil. "Play every day or you'd lose this bonus", "Your villagers miss you", "Planet X will soon start a rebellion because you haven't logged in today", etc.
      5. Past inventions weren't all-in-one replacements for a multitude of activities. You couldn't interact with your neighbor Jack through TV, radio or a book. Now you can, through your smartphone.

      There you go, some of the many reasons that make smartphones a lot more dangerous to people's development than past inventions.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    5. Re:Television...Radio...Books... by jodido · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Leaving the rest aside, it's not historically accurate to say books were never considered disruptive. (Relatively) widespread literacy was one of the causes of the split in the Christian church.

    6. Re: Television...Radio...Books... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And anyone that has tried to interact with the modern teen can tell something is not quite right.

      Anyone that has tried to interact with a teen a decade or century ago could also tell something was not quite right. There are differences between teens and adults. That is not new.

  2. Kids these Days! by nealric · · Score: 5, Informative

    People have complaining about the youth having something wrong with them since before the trial of Socrates. There's always something to blame, be it a philosopher, books, video games, or smartphones. People will talk down about a generation until that generation gets old enough to have power in society. Then, they will in turn talk down to next generation. Circle of life I suppose.

  3. Impacted Negatively but Not "Destroyed" by thechemic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My kids were introduced to cell phones and tablets and a young age, and I noticed withing a few months that they started to be less confident with social interactions than they should be for their age. For example, slight fear to talk to the lady at the drive-through for a cheeseburger.

    As soon as I noticed the deficiency, I made immediate changes to their phone/tablet time and forced them into social interactions that would be suitable for their age. The changes helped significantly. As time passed, and phones/tablets became more prevalent, it became clear to me which parents had devoted any attention to how the devices were impacting their children.

    --
    Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
  4. No... by RyanFenton · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Better question: Will any generation not insist their children are going to inevitable ruin for the technology they adopt?

    Happens every generation

    Modern phones objectively allow folks to do things on the go, that they haven't ever been able to do before. Folks are still learning what NOT to do, but for the most part, they're safe, and much less dangerous than other similar disruptive technologies.

    Flamebait article.

    Ryan Fenton

  5. It's not the smartphone - it's how you use it! by the_skywise · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm old enough to know the before/after here -

    Before the smartphone I'd go out to dinner with family and friends and eventually the conversation would inevitably die and ... and we'd come up with smalltalk and jokes to pick things up and get the conversation moving again which brings out people's personalities and depth

    Now? We check our smartphones.

    The problem is nobody learns the basic smalltalk skills anymore and the people you're with are "real" and not as interesting and entertaining as the 50 people in your facebook friends list who can always keep you going. It breaks down "social structure" in lieu of a social artifice in the "virtual" world.
    I'm not immune to this and have done it myself but I would've easily done the same thing growing up as a teen and probably never learned how to hold a conversation.