[al2o3cr]

Quick, what goes in the blank?

    The free access which many young people have to *BLANK* has poisoned the mind and
    corrupted the morals of many a promising youth; and prevented others from improving
    their minds in useful knowledge. Parents take care to feed their children with
    wholesome diet; and yet how unconcerned about the provision for the mind, whether
    they are furnished with salutary food, or with trash, chaff, or poison?

Trick question, it's not "screens". It's "romances, novels, and plays" - quote taken from "Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family", Reverend Enos Hitchcock, 1790.

I'm all for carefully considering which tools you use every day, but spare me the moralizing - it was gauche in 1790 and it hasn't improved with age.

[nathan_long]

> it was gauche in 1790 and it hasn't improved with age

You imply, but give no evidence, that the writer in 1790 was wrong. Maybe the young people in question were poisoning their minds. The fact that a quote is Old Timey™ doesn't make it wrong.

Do you not believe that art and literature have the capacity to change the audience? That is the stated goal of much of it. And if it has that power, wouldn't you be careful what you allow to shape you?

As far as digital media, there is at least some evidence that screen time can be harmful.

> The Monitoring the Future survey, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and designed to be nationally representative, has asked 12th-graders more than 1,000 questions every year since 1975 and queried eighth- and 10th-graders since 1991. The survey asks teens how happy they are and also how much of their leisure time they spend on various activities, including nonscreen activities such as in-person social interaction and exercise, and, in recent years, screen activities such as using social media, texting, and browsing the web. The results could not be clearer: Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy. -- https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the...

[mwcampbell]

You might have the causation backward, though. Maybe many teens spend so much time interacting with a screen because they're unhappy, not the other way around. Another top-level comment on this thread gives a possible reason: lack of autonomy.

[nathan_long]

Another quote from the same article, a paragraph or two later:

> Of course, these analyses don’t unequivocally prove that screen time causes unhappiness; it’s possible that unhappy teens spend more time online. But recent research suggests that screen time, in particular social-media use, does indeed cause unhappiness. One study asked college students with a Facebook page to complete short surveys on their phone over the course of two weeks. They’d get a text message with a link five times a day, and report on their mood and how much they’d used Facebook. The more they’d used Facebook, the unhappier they felt, but feeling unhappy did not subsequently lead to more Facebook use. -- https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the...

[nerdponx]

Computer screens are literally addicting. They actually alter how your brain works in negative ways [0]. If reading has the same effect, it's much smaller and the benefits probably outweigh it.

[0]: http://nypost.com/2016/08/27/its-digital-heroin-how-screens-...

[monocasa]

Socrates went into a similar rant on the written word in general.

> [Writing] will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.

[otakucode]

John Philip Souza said that recorded music would destroy music, as amateur musicians would be so disheartened by hearing the performances of virtuosos that they would feel any practice would be futile. He also described a person listening to music by themselves as a sort of craven masturbation, using great imagery to have people imagine an emaciated antisocial hollow person curled up next to a phonograph.

Next up: VR is craven masturbation, and the increased immersion will turn children into psychopathic killers incapable of human kindness!

[mwcampbell]

And yet amateur musicians are still practicing and performing. In fact, digital technology is enabling us amateur musicians to practice and get together in new ways. To give just one example (in which I recently participated) that's enabled by the Internet and the ease of repeatedly listening to a recording for reference: https://www.festivaloffriendsevents.com/ Edit: A little more explanation is in order. The event organizer announces a date, a theme, and a set list. We amateur musicians register, each stating our primary part and reserving our songs. Then we practice at home, using the studio recordings for reference. Finally, we get together and just play the songs. WIth no group rehearsal, sometimes it's not perfect, but it's fun.

[mikestew]

And yet amateur musicians are still practicing and performing.

Of course they, because parent's point was that Sousa was horrendously wrong (obviously). Sousa's problem was a one-dimensional view of musical performance. He was foremost speaking from the POV of a professional performer. Therefore, the goal of all amateur musicians is to become professional performers, but once they hear a pro on a record they'll get discouraged and give up. This, of course, is poppycock. I play a lot of music and have little desire to make money from it. What's that about taking a fun hobby and turning it into work?

Second, I'm sure Sousa viewed recorded music as a threat to his job as a professional live performer, while ignoring that records scale and live performances don't. (Ignore for the moment the part where record companies keep most of the profits.)

WIth no group rehearsal, sometimes it's not perfect, but it's fun.

Heh, try a bluegrass jam. Someone calls a tune that I might, or might not, know. They'll give a key, maybe a chord progression. Hell, if I'm lucky, I might not only know the tune, I might have even played it in the last month so I stand a chance of coming up with a solo (or "break" in bluegrass terms) on the fly when it comes my turn. If I've never even heard the tune, but it's in (say) G with some variation of a I-IV-V progression, I can probably improvise with something that follows the melody. Or not.

Needless to say, I've had some solos/breaks that only were "not perfect", I corkscrewed into the ground with my tail on fire. That's the topsy-turvy world of jamming. But similar to your setup, even when I've completely embarrassed myself, it's always fun.

(As an aside, though it sounds like something I'd not participate in, your setup sounds like a fun way to get to play with people.)

[cr0sh]

> using great imagery to have people imagine an emaciated antisocial hollow person curled up next to a phonograph.

http://i.imgur.com/7rPcaft.jpg

...somewhat apropos to your final sentence.

[nathan_long]

If we had a time machine, it would be interesting to test the recall ability of Socrates and those of his ilk vs those who focused on written words. Perhaps there are indeed tradeoffs.

[tonmoy]

It was thought in the 1850s that chess would destroy the minds of young generations

https://medium.com/message/why-chess-will-destroy-your-mind-...

[folksinger]

How is it bad advice to avoid gorging the mind and body on garbage, no matter the technology at one's disposal?

Reading an awful novel to avoid the people or duties in your life is clearly as bad as using Twitter for the same reason.

Your argument is basically: "Don't make me think about the ethics of my actions, regardless of the calendar year."

[otakucode]

That's not the advice. The advice is 'avoid this particular form of expression/communication' with the 'garbage' aspect only tossed in as an intellectually bankrupt attempt to form negative associations in the mind of uncritical readers with the form discussed.

[folksinger]

Speaking of uncritical readers, you clearly didn't read the same article as I did.

[cmsefton]

It's worth pointing out that Reverend Enos Hitchcock is complaining about the content of the books, not necessarily the medium of books. This is a different kind of moralizing from what the parent is talking about IMO (personally didn't think he was really moralizing, but perhaps that's just me). The parent article seems to be more worried about the medium of the Internet, and the tools being used.

Arguments against the book (e.g. Plato) may have largely been wrong in their day, but it seems short sighted to dismiss any criticisms about the Internet and the tools we use today simply on this basis. We can perhaps be cautious as a result, but that's about it.

[devmunchies]

> but spare me the moralizing

I doesn't have to be a moral argument. Some people think its simply a waste of time to stare at a screen while browsing facebook. and you get more out of life by being bored and finding something else to do thats more fulfilling.