I don't partake in the whole "dopamine addiction" nonsense, but you can literally feel your cognitive performance getting worse the more you use your phone. Not only infinite feeds, also shopping at the tip of your fingers, at all times, the possibility of immediately searching, finding something. Even your interests completely change; suddenly reading is boring and something you have no energy for. Movies and TV Shows are boring. Videogames are not rewarding. Like a switch, I suddenly start reading again, enjoying these things the moment I block all such immediate-hit distractions from my phone.
I think phones are the real issue. Even if you have unlimited access to whatever short form apps, eshopping, information on a computer, it's the ease of being able to immediately get a hit as you lie comfortably in your couch, or while you wait for something, that's the issue. No time to simmer in your thoughts, or to be able to put in some effort to get a reward. We are lazy by nature, smartphones exploit that to make profits, and as a consequence to that, we rewire our brains to prefer the seamlessly of just scrolling down ad infinitum.
> Even your interests completely change; suddenly reading is boring and something you have no energy for. Movies and TV Shows are boring. Videogames are not rewarding. Like a switch, I suddenly start reading again, enjoying these things the moment I block all such immediate-hit distractions from my phone.
What are you doing on your phone if not reading? Are you watching short TikTok/Instagram videos or something?
i quit watching short form videos recently and my attention has come back - like i can actually read books and watch long videos and just let my mind think for much longer. It's incredibly damaging what algorithmic feeds are doing to people's minds.
Why don't you read the study and raise the specific confounders you think are missing?
The answer is universally "no", there's no such thing as "controlling for [all] confounding variables" without blinded randomization. But we unfortunately have to rely on observational studies to try to understand the world. At least to understand what specific questions can justify the cost and complexity of a randomized study.
So yeah, of course there are confounders. Some are controlled in this study and others are not. Which are the important ones you think are missing?
Sure, a drive-by "did they control for confounders???" without naming any is low-effort, and it's reasonable to ask GP to be specific.
BUT you overshot in the other direction! "There's no such thing as controlling for confounders without blinded randomization" isn't fair. Sure, randomization is the cleanest identification strategy, but it's not the only one. Instrumental variables, regression discontinuity, difference-in-differences, sibling or twin fixed effects, and natural experiments are all used in economics, and they exist because randomization is often impossible or unethical, and you have to rely on natural experiments.
(Separately, a phone-ownership study of 9yo kids has an obvious potential for selection bias. So in a sense I'm sympathetic to GP asking about confounders without naming any.
If you actually copy/pasted the "quoted" text from my comment, you will have found I said something different from what you claimed.
Virtually any study has an obvious potential for selection bias. That's why people write up how they did the study and then other people can interrogate and criticize it.
They did separate analysis based on grade level and whether English is the home language.
But they didn't control for parental education or socioeconomic status, both of which would likely be predictive of a child's reading comprehension and their chance of having a phone as a 9yo.
> Obviously reading improves reading and if kid has phone it doesn't read (books), but plays games or watch videos.
We've been wrong about "obvious" things many many times before. And even in this article they refer to some evidence that hints in the opposite direction as this "obvious" mechanism.
> One showed that texting benefits the skill of grasping meaning; the other showed texting to be a negative influence on basic reading mechanics at the letter and word level.
(FWIW, I largely agree with you that this is obvious, but we should try to build our knowledge from the basics regardless)
> One showed that texting benefits the skill of grasping meaning; the other showed texting to be a negative influence on basic reading mechanics at the letter and word level.
But doesn't texting involve reading still? How could you not read yet text? It's a different dialect to typical printed prose, but it's language,they communicate all the same.
Not at all, "books" could also specify "long form writing". When I say I read a book, I don't specify "e-book", I just say, "finally finished Project Hail Mary".
Do you read books on phone? There you have your answer.
I am also assuming you are not a child from 3rd or 6th grade, so not exactly sure how is your comment relevant to study about kids with phones. Somehow I would think adult HN reader will have better self-control over video/game usage than 3rd/6th grader.
I think phones are the real issue. Even if you have unlimited access to whatever short form apps, eshopping, information on a computer, it's the ease of being able to immediately get a hit as you lie comfortably in your couch, or while you wait for something, that's the issue. No time to simmer in your thoughts, or to be able to put in some effort to get a reward. We are lazy by nature, smartphones exploit that to make profits, and as a consequence to that, we rewire our brains to prefer the seamlessly of just scrolling down ad infinitum.