[ulimn]

I'm not very confident about the quality of this study... It already begins like this:

Evidence suggests that chronic sensory stimulation via excessive exposure to screen time may affect brain development in negative ways. Excessive smartphone use may increase the risk [...]

Do they consider "screen time" only to be "smartphone use"? Is it better to use a tablet? Or PC / laptop? What if I use a 6.7" screen with my computer? Does it count as "bad" screen time?

Also, do they take into account what you do on said screen? Reading a book, learning something or binging tiktok videos, watching the facade people put up on facebook / insta don't sound the same to me.

[jajko]

Jesus, isn't it at least a bit obvious? OK so let's call it 'interactive screen time'. No, reading ebook doesn't count, as long as you don't keep switching to something else frequently. It will mess up your eyes worse than physical book, but that's about it.

I can see the proper cancer that screens cause to small children development. Heck, some parents are proud how 'digital' their kids are, like scrolling through social media videos is some hard earned skill only few posses. What I see is failed parenting, and I call it like that. Then you look at the mood swings of those kids, how they behave socially, what they eat etc. and its often a sad story. Then you look at parents glued to phones themselves, often overweight, living unhappy unfulfilled lives, and it starts making sense (broad generalization here of course, but I see it very often among peers & a bit younger).

Kids ain't adults for sure but screen time, if not done for actual work or learning, eats time we could be actually doing something with our life. Relaxing, sporting, socializing, learning new skills, making ourselves properly happy. That ain't happening in front of screen, any screen. The energy recharge and 'soul' regeneration that me and everybody else I know experience in nature and wilderness can't be achieved in any other way. Screen time also sets unrealistic expectations on how 'baseline' of normal daily life should be with its always-stimulated-neocortex as such, no wonder kids have attention issues with 'boring' stuff that regular life simply is.

I may be a luddite re this despite being software dev, but in this case happy to be one since I've figured my path to happy fulfilled life, and it sure as hell doesn't need more screen time, nor any made up justifications for some form of addiction to such.

[torlok]

Try figuring out how to not get worked up over a random post next.

[portaouflop]

A bit tangential but how does a digital book mess up your eyes? Or a physical one. I don’t think reading has any effect on your eyesight.

People are quick nowadays (or always have been) to bring out the good old „todays kids are rotten to the core“ trope - just because it’s now you who is old and doesn’t get how the world moved on, doesn’t mean it’s any different to the centuries of complaining about the youth before us.

I wasted thousands of hours as a kid on unproductive stuff - I don’t see it as being much different to what kids do today.

[danielbln]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9139974/

Reading can absolutely have an impact on the eyes. Close distance reading as well as lack of natural light seem to be conditions that can favor e.g. myopia.

[portaouflop]

Yes in some cases close distance maybe causes myopia in very young children - this is not the same as „reading is dangerous for your eyes“.

In general it’s good to take care of your eyes, like you do for the rest of the body and doing anything 8h+ without pause is bad.

But concluding that there is some kind of danger associated with reading is nonsense. Almost anything else you do is more dangerous.

Not convinced that the study you posted is evidence of reading being dangerous: >This is a cross-sectional study and therefore causal relationship could not be determined. The data analyzed in the study were drawn from a questionnaire study conducted about 40 years ago

[boccaff]

I'd guess that you can equate "screen time" to "smartphone use" in most of the population but here. Similar to what people are using the screen for.

To include so many variations of screen would complicate a lot the study, and without a prior about why it should matter, you are probably safer starting with something more homogeneous.

[squigz]

> I'd guess that you can equate "screen time" to "smartphone use" in most of the population but here. Similar to what people are using the screen for.

I'm fairly confident this is not a safe assumption.

> To include so many variations of screen would complicate a lot the study

How so, though?

> without a prior about why it should matter, you are probably safer starting with something more homogeneous.

That's not very scientific, is it? There's no prior as to why it shouldn't matter, which is what the authors seem to think.

[dukeyukey]

A huge number of people are professional screen-users. Almost every office job, and quite a few otherwise. I probably spend more time on my work laptop than my phone, and I'm pretty bad for using my phone a lot.

[ywvcbk]

> smartphone use" in most of the population but here

Presumably you don’t think that all the white collar workers who aren’t in tech spend all of their work-hours scrolling tiktok/etc.?