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Teens Would Rather Text Their Friends Than Talk To Them In Person, Poll Shows (nypost.com)
A new poll of 1,141 teenagers shows that teenagers prefer to text their friends than talk in person. The findings come from Common Sense Media's 2018 Social Media, Social Life survey. Fortune reports: Only 15% of teens said Facebook was their main social media site, down from 68% in 2012. Snapchat is now the main site for 41% of teenagers, followed by Instagram at 22%. In addition, this year's survey saw texting (35%) surpass in-person (32%) as teens' favorite way to communicate with friends. In 2012, 49% preferred to communicate in person, versus 33% who preferred texting.
[M]ore teens said that social media had a positive effect on their levels of loneliness, depression, and anxiety than those who said it had a negative one, but it seems to have the opposite effect on teens who score low on the authors' social-emotional well-being scale. Of those, 70% said they sometimes feel left out when using social media, 43% feel bad if no one likes or comments on their posts, and 35% said they had been cyberbullied. They were also more likely to say that social media was "extremely" or "every" important, compared to their peers who score high on the scale.
[M]ore teens said that social media had a positive effect on their levels of loneliness, depression, and anxiety than those who said it had a negative one, but it seems to have the opposite effect on teens who score low on the authors' social-emotional well-being scale. Of those, 70% said they sometimes feel left out when using social media, 43% feel bad if no one likes or comments on their posts, and 35% said they had been cyberbullied. They were also more likely to say that social media was "extremely" or "every" important, compared to their peers who score high on the scale.
You haven't been around teens much, I guess? If anything, teens do the exact opposite of what their parents are doing or considering right.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Kids now a days like to do microtransactions with communication. Calling up and going through pleasantries is a lot of overhead for a short, half-thought. Better to blast small thoughts.
and his short story "The Machine Stops"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Mostly random stuff.
I remember when the only social media was go with your friends and have a good time. No internet on phones, no wifi, just talking and listening. And If you want to spend a time with some people you just go for a coffee or walk in the street with that person. Now we have all this with just a click on screen :(
Mundoriego
This has nothing to do with parents. It has everything to do with how society evolves.
Keep your kid away from socializing online and they will become outcasts and misfits. You'd be proud as a parent and your kid would be fucked up.
Forbidding is easier than mentoring and guiding, of course.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
This has nothing to do with how society evolves. This isn't socialization, this is turning kids into hermits. Studies have shown that smart phones and social media are addictive. The instant gratification of both boosts dopamine levels.. Pretty soon you get used to those elevated dopamine levels.. That's addiction.
This and obesity are the two most serious problems facing our citizenry, in my opinion.
On the positive side, this could fix overpopulation within a couple of generations. Having hermits that are too fat too work, shop, have sex, ie. function in general, will eventually eradicate them and possibly their entire family trees. That is, when there's so many of them society can't provide the help they need anymore.
I would expect this from the mainstream, but this is Slashdot, we should know that you shouldn't take anything you know at face value. It's obvious that the Sun goes round the flat Earth until you investigate them.
When I was a teen, it was mostly IRC, then came the various YM/AIM and ICQ (in my country at least, those were a later addition).
At least now you don't have to worry about net splits or messing up someone's ICQ number.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
Who and who?
I personally am a forum person. I despise Facebook, Twitter and the like. But I am smart enough to realize my holy crusade would be quite don-quixotesque.
Instead, I am teaching my kids to use those platforms wisely, understand the dangers, avoid the traps. Will I be successful? I hope. For now, they are too small to understand, instead choosing to trust me with what I am telling them.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
I'm just wondering how people are thinking when they answer these questions. Maybe the reason teens would rather text their friend than see them in person is that it would be such a hassle to get Dad to drive them over to their friend's house just to call them a turdmonger when it only takes a second to do so via text.
So, the average slashdotter. :)
I'm an adult, and texting is a nice way of touching base with friends when you really don't have anything to say. Rather than call up for 15 minutes of attempting to find a conversation, you can send a text, or a picture, or something funny that made you think of them. And it's asynchronous so you don't have to worry if they pick up or not, or listen to a VM or not. Plenty of times a text 'conversation' turns into a phone call, because it's not great at high throughput the way a call can be. Plus when you can touch base with multiple people at a time. How much time did we waste on the phone talking for hours 'about nothing' according to our parents? Are we annoyed because 'kids today' can do it more efficiently?
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
This has nothing to do with how society evolves. This isn't socialization, this is turning kids into hermits. Studies have shown that smart phones and social media are addictive. The instant gratification of both boosts dopamine levels.. Pretty soon you get used to those elevated dopamine levels.. That's addiction.
Or maybe this represents a solution to a problem, which is that face to face meetings, particularly with children, but also adults have some problems. Amongst them:
1) Difficulty arranging transportation
2) Difficulty agreeing on venue (particularly when parents refuse certain venues
3) Inefficient use of time when in face to face scenario. I don't know about you, but when I meet with friends I already want it to be over before I walk in, I've got shit to do.
4) Text communication provides all the actual value of interacting with another human, without messy realities and alpha-pack issues. Online anyone can be alpha, even if in a wheelchair, on a ventillator.
5) Conversations are slow and painful, you can do other things while they go on, most don't really require tremendous intellect. But it's rude.
6) You can respond when it is good for you, rather than immediately
I'm sure I've missed a bunch. While I'm not clear on the dopamine correlation, I'm also not sure that's relevant. If your body is rewarding you for efficiency or satisfying some internal pressure (that may have been artificial to begin with, built in by parents/teachers because THEY thought it was important), that doesn't seem like a problem. Addiction is a problem when it interferes with your obligations or is putting your physical health in significant immediate threat. That's not happening here. If meeting someone face to face is required to keep your job, for example, and you don't do it, then you have a problem. But if it's so you calk talk to Susie about who Sally blew last night...fuck that shit, use text.
Moderation in all things. Make sure your kids are involved in outside activities. Allow them to have phones but monitor their use and set limits if need be.
I have two teens and yes, they absolutely spend a lot of time interacting with their friends on social media. Just as previous generations might have spent hours on the phone in the evening. But they also love doing stuff with their friends. I've spent a lot of time shuffling my kids to/from other kids' houses and other places they meet people. They'll use their bikes too if where they're going is close enough. They go to and we've hosted many a sleepover.
Even when it comes to gaming, which they can easily do from their individual homes, my son often prefers to pack up his laptop, console, Switch or whatever and go to somebody's house with 2 or 3 other guys and spend the night.
As far as whether they prefer texting to an in person conversation, I think a lot depends on the person, the nature of the conversation, and the context.
An interesting question to ask would be which choice would they make:
A: You could never leave your house and you could never have friends over, but you could use social media to your hearts content
B: You could never use social media again short of getting and sending invites, but you're free to interact with people in person
There is no doubt that both would be crippling to a modern teen's social life, but I bet most would choose to interact exclusively in person vs never being able to interact in person.
If you're a dumbass, you'll try and fail to raise your kid according to your own values. If you're at all intelligent, you'll raise your kid to understand your values, but also understanding that your values were formed during your formative years a quarter to a half century ago, and that your kid will never have those same values because the world has changed, and they won't be growing up in the environment you grew up in.
My kid won't grow up valuing manual labor, because there won't be that much for him to do. My kid won't value freedom at the expense of pain from growing up with a whole lot of scar tissue from trying to jump a sled over a barbed wire fence, from falling down a cliff while climbing in the woods at the age of 12, from a 40mph bike wipe-out on a highway hill, etc. He's not going to be able to survive in the wild for a couple of weeks if he has to. He's just not going to grow up in that world.
Sure, I could relocate and try to recreate all that shit, but the world has changed so much that it won't matter.
My kid is going to grow up in a world where pot is legal, and he can smoke it on his 18th birthday. My kid is going to grow up in a world where you can vape discretely at school, but where cigarettes are too expensive to buy. My kid is going to grow up in a world which has pervasive surveillance, but mercifully has at least invented private browsing sessions. My kid is going to grow up in a world where if he can get a visa gift card, he can make an email account and an amazon account and order anything in the world he wants, and potentially get home before me and hide it in his room.
This world is so vastly different now that there is no hope in instilling my values onto my kid. The best I can do is let him know what they are and where I got them, and try to help him create his own value system, based on the reality of the world currently.
And if you think "fuck society's expectations" is going to help your kid, you are dead wrong. Unless your kid wants to be a hermit, then that's the right path.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
No, it's fine, I actually appreciate being taught new words. So all's cool.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)