Post #1700196

2024-10-15 23:52 UTC

The claims about social media rotting young brains are largely indistinguishable from the claims about how TV would rot our brains when I was a kid, and the people my age breathlessly repeating the former generally don’t think their brains were rotted. This is a panic over novelty, not evidence.

Replies (1)

@tychotithonus@infosec.exchange 2024-10-16 02:24

@arossp@mastodon.social This feels correct, but it is not. Phone addictiveness is dramatically different in kind because of two things TV didn't have: a constant telemetry feedback loop, and constant personalized portability / availablity. Platforms and apps maximize engagement using a constant and unprecedentedly detailed stream of direct telemetry of what is most addictive. (The Nielsen system could never do that!) As a result, unless steps are taken to prevent it, most children in the US will spend most of their waking time on their phone. Some phone time is clearly socializing and healthy -- but for many, any time not doing socializing imust instead filled by consuming a steady stream of attention-span-crippling short-form entertainment. So much so that it becomes an integral part of their everyday. And the younger this starts, the more damaging it is; the older kids even have a name for kids who were raised on devices very early: "iPad kids": https://www.vice.com/en/article/ipad-kids-gen-alpha-childhood-development/ For example: the anti-human-trafficking team that presented at a meeting I was at recently said that the victims they rescue are so psychologically dependent on their phones that depriving them of the device during times of high stress is tantamount to torture. They literally can't calm down or de-escalate without significant phone time. Don't get me wrong -- TV can also be unhealthy escapism, and can stunt growth when taken to an extreme. But it's so much easier to take the phone to that extreme. And the war for eyeballs is asymmetrical, with billions of dollars invested in maximizing views, clicks, and ads. And for the kids who are saturated with it early, it's not escapism anymore - it's the default.

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