[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-...