[marcus_holmes]

> What do we do when we know that social media it not healthy for kids. Its not good for their attention spans or mental health to a much greater degree than other forms of media.

Do we know this? As far as I can tell, the studies are ambivalent at best. Some kids are damaged, others benefit.

[rafaelero]

The current consensus is that the effects of social media on mental health are in between minimally detrimental to non-existent.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

Probably the same way we know most things. We know it affects us and we extrapolate.

[marcus_holmes]

And every generation thinks the tech that the next generation grows up with is harmful.

After all, novels were once considered harmful [0] but we now consider not being able to read a novel to be harmful.

[0] https://archive.nytimes.com/op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/0...

[iugtmkbdfil834]

Hmm, the argument is interesting, because it sounds convincing until you start examining it in greater detail. Allow me to point out how it is missing a mark.

1. Novels and phones are not the same tech. This is not 'generational quibble'; I am simply stating a fact. Just from pure historical perspective, written words were, correctly mind you, called out in that they will likely result in people not being able to commit as much to memory[1]. Move from written to printed produced even more of a change[2]. I am not saying those changes are ( were ) automatically bad, but it is important to recognize where they do fail. Surely, you would not argue that phones did not change the way people ingest information -- and if you wouldn't, the only question becomes whether you are honest enough to say what their particular failure modes are.

2. The nature of the tech in question is different. Written word is static and literally placed upon a page with the intent of the words staying there. Revisions result in a new physical book. The book does not suddenly become unreadable, because someone sent its publisher an order. The physical book does not track your progress to determine what passage made you most entertained to make sure next book is even more entertaining.

I will stop here, but surely you can see where I am going with this...

<< After all, novels were once considered harmful [0] but we now consider not being able to read a novel to be harmful.

Novels by themselves are not harmful the same way using a phone by itself is not harmful. Apart from everything else, as noted in previous paragraph, you can use the phone for more than reading. The comparison is simply not complete or close to exhaustive to allow for a proper comparison.

[1]https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html [2]https://www.amazon.com/Gutenberg-Galaxy-Making-Typographic-M...

[marcus_holmes]

The point is not to say that "these two things are equivalent", or even "these two things are equally harmful".

The point is that older folks view new technologies as harmful, for a few reasons:

1. Any change is harmful as we get older. We grew up in one version of our society, and if society changes we view those changes as harmful because we become less comfortable in our own society.

2. Douglas Adams' quote [0]:

    Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

    Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

    Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

3. The mental models and priorities that the new technologies require are not the same as the old tech requires. E.g. reading a book requires the ability to keep attention on one thing for hours, while scolling a phone feed requires a completely different version of attention. Kids have been trained on the latter, and we older folks view their inability to do the former as damage, because in our upbringing, this would be damage. But it's adaptation to the changing environment rather than damage - the kids are growing up in a different environment than the one we grew up in, and they are adapted to that, while we are not.

It's the same mechanism at work for novels as for phones - the resistance to new technology looks exactly the same. We now look back at that resistance to novels as strange because we grew up with novels and consider them a normal (even outdated) part of our society. Future generations will look back at our resistance to phones as strange because to them phones will be a normal (even outdated) part of their society.

[0] the whole essay is talking about the same thing: https://www.douglasadams.com/dna/19990901-00-a.html

edit: formatting. So much formatting