[mallowdram]

Sorry, kids lack the foundational ability to remember, reason, imagine because their phones cauterize their basic intelligence foundations in sharp wave ripples: navigation, adventurous short-cuts, vicarious trial and error, these are the basis for memory consolidation. And we build this developmentally until we are 16 or so. Once we offload this dev to phones, we are essentially unintelligent buffoon, lacking the basis for knowledge. The kids are DOA.

[bccdee]

No, you're just saying that. There's no evidence that using phones makes teenagers stupid.

[mallowdram]

Anyone who understands the development of intelligence and creativity is directly linked to the allocortex's ability to navigate freely, use vicarious trial and error, to invent novel short-cuts, built from both egocentric (landmark memories) and allocentric (extra body mapping) up until around the age of 16 in order to develop the basics of memory consolidation can take anecdotal evidence of kids that can't take a walk without a cellphone's help and extrapolate that these kids lack critical thinking skills.

It's elementary deduction from basic learning practices we've known since O'Keefe in 1973.

[bccdee]

Given that the current generation of kids missed out on several crucial years of socializing due to Covid and were forced to find community online, I'm skeptical of arguments that point to poorly-socialized kids and say, "it must be the phones." Even if this was based on real data and not a hodgepodge of anecdotes, the phones themselves would not be my #1 suspect.

> allocortex's ability to navigate freely

If your allocortex is navigating freely, something has gone badly wrong. Put it back under the neocortex where it belongs and seek immediate help from a neurologist.

[mallowdram]

Sorry, that's a narrative argument, lack of covid socializing, the sciences tell us otherwise. Phones correlate to cog decline.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-36256-4

[bccdee]

> Phones correlate to cog decline.

Do they? Let's check your source.

> To investigate this hypothesis, participants aged 20–34 perform a concentration and attention test in the presence and absence of a smartphone. The results of the conducted experiment imply that the mere presence of a smartphone results in lower cognitive performance, which supports the hypothesis of the smartphone presence using limited cognitive resources.

So, no. The presence of your smartphone on the desk in front of you is distracting, but that distraction goes away if you remove the smartphone. That's not "cognitive decline."

> Sorry, that's a narrative argument

No, that's me pointing out a competing plausible hypothesis. I'm not saying Covid is necessarily responsible for your anecdotal incidents; I'm saying that until you can prove Covid wasn't responsible, you have no standing to state conclusively that phones were.

[mallowdram]

We're in an attentional crises that isn't because kids didn't go to school for two years.

It's destroying their ability to experience reality as paths, free navigation, vicarious trial and error, all of this is fundamental to memory consolidation: the brain's fundamental unit: action-syntax in memory, is built from non-screen topological integrations of landmark and allocentric experiences. Phones destroy this.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6059409/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-20922-0

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/brb3.70656

https://www.mdpi.com/2254-9625/15/6/98

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40255102/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00246-025-03862-0

https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/12/4/503

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40172268/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40173157/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-025-04024-x

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00223...

“A growing body of evidence has found that children’s brains can structurally and functionally change due to prolonged media multitasking, such as diminished gray matter in the prefrontal cortex, where attentional control and complex decision making abilities reside, among other really important skills, like the development of empathy and understanding nonverbal social communication,”

[steezeburger]

There is no evidence that using phones makes teenagers stupid? I see several studies. I feel like you're the one just saying things.

[bccdee]

Which studies? Could you attach them?