Screens, tech and society - hate it

[Flippetydip]

Apologies if this has been done to death - and yes before anyone points it out I am typing this on social media and therefore embracing the "modern age" but I find it deeply depressing seeing everyone buried in screens to the exclusion of all else.

So far I've managed to avoid tablets/phones etc for our DC (7 and 9) but I'm aware it won't be long and then we lose them as well. I hate the fact that they will not live their teenage lives without constant exposure on social media. I feel fortunate to be old enough that I could be stupid and think stupid things when younger without feeling the need to show the world (or have someone else show the world without my permission). I hate the fact that home will no longer be a safe environment for them - you used to be able to switch off from the shit of the day by coming home but now it follows you everywhere.

How do I learn to like it and how do I keep my children safe when the time comes?

BMJ 2017 reviewed increase in deliberate self harm,and the findings were social and health inequalities were the likely drivers. The study recommendations was to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms responsible for the recent apparent increase in the incidence of self harm among early-mid teenage girls, and coordinated initiatives to tackle health inequalities in the provision of services to distressed children and adolescents

In uk the major driver in health and social inequalities is poverty and social demographics

There has never been a cause and effect link established between social media and DSH and or suicide. No professional has ever made a direct cause and effect link. Social media is contributory factor but not causal

Social media will not in itself make your kids zombies. However if combined with absent parenting,poor role models,lack of alternatives there may be a propensity to overuse social media

Something doesn't like X.

They assert that X causes bad thing Y. X is something of which people debate the merits, but Y is objectively bad. So by showing a link between X and Y they can translate the debatable issues with X into something no-one could argue with, Y.

They cherry pick figures for Y to show a rise associated with X. They ignore counter-examples in which other populations had a rise in Y but didn't have X, or had a rise in X with no rise in Y. They talk about "research" (stuff they Google'd for and didn't understand) and things being "obvious" and "common sense". Then, when people who understand the issues comment, they fall about on how they feel about it.

WiFi and Cancer.

Mobile phones and Cancer.

Vaccination and Autism.

Abortion and long-term mental health.

Social networks and suicide and self-harm.

Smart meters and Cancer.

Working mothers and juvenile delinquency.

Fluoride in water and unspecified bad stuff.

Folic acid enrichment of flour and the same, or different, unspecified bad stuff.

The list is endless.

In each case, a bad faith, fact-free attempt to prove a point about the former, which the complainant has unspecified feels about, by inventing an association with the latter and then wildly mis-using statistics in order to bolster the argument.

I'm never sure the proponents of such nonsense are acting in bad faith (ie, they know their argument is either wrong or at best tenuous) or genuinely believe in it. Either way, it's getting difficult to treat gently.

Noted, thanks both. Interesting stuff.

OP, the only thing you can do as a parent is lead by example. I'm afraid that means ... errrhmmm... not posting on internet forums. Go and read a good book instead.

Incidentally, does anyone think statistics about self-harm from a few decades back, when there wasn't even a word for it and no channels for seeking help, can be at all reliable?

I don't think it's all doom and gloom. I had quite a bad time healthwise a few years ago - managed to find a wonderful support group online. Some of them have become real life friends and we kept each other company during hospital admissions/recovery after operations.

I hope to teach my toddler DS how to use social media responsibly, in the future.

Some of the great so called health scandals have faded into obscurity eg phone masts causing cancer.
As correctky asserts there are fads,and trends in health scares.usually with insubstantial quantitative data.nonetheless they gain a prominence

All this tech fear,ohh its zombifying the kids, people should do a nice family activity...like watch tv
Ahh the same tv that when I was growing up was responsible for kids being
Cross eyed delinquent,staring glassy eyed at the tv. Tv being source of societal discord

Now folk hanker for golden age of tv when we all watched blind date, don’t forget your toothbrush. Yea,the were so enriching..

Huge leaps have been made in health informatics simply because the tech makes it easier to electronically record reason for presentation and or admission

Back in the day it would have been paper records and Kardex.so gathering the data was a manual trawl through notes. Now the tech can easily pull data and patterns

The demographics of self harm for example

Some of the great so called health scandals have faded into obscurity eg phone masts causing cancer.

www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/cancer-controversies/mobile-phones-wifi-and-power-lines

The newspapers occasionally attempt to make out that "electrosensitivity" is something other than a distressing symptom of mental illness. Like Morgellons, it's very real for the sufferers and they should be treated with the utmost sympathy. But it's not "real" in the sense that the claimed cause is causing the claimed symptoms in the way that is claimed.

The best on all of this is Dr Ben Goldacre
Who had the best line re the Scottish jobbie strainer
Dr Gillian McKeith or to give her her full medical title,Gillian McKeith

Gillian is registered with American Association of Nutritional Consultants. He paid $60 to acquire identical certification in the name of his dead cat.lol

Really liked your posts CuboidalSlipshoddy

There's a great article which I think summarises your misgivings...

www.dailywire.com/news/25390/walsh-matt-walsh

"While it's true that older generations have always worried about the younger, and the younger have always exhibited characteristics that the older generations find puzzling and troubling, it's not true that young people have always existed in their own universe, with their own language, their own society, their own leaders and icons and prophets, their own religion, their own customs, all of it designed to be indecipherable and unaccessible to the older generations."

Anyone who says social media and the use tech by kids is good is frankly an idiot and probably trying to justify their inability to actually parent their children. It's an unparalleled development in human society with brain-structure altering consequences.

At the very least it atomises kids and actually reduces their contact with a real, flesh and blood, social community. Kids get a bigger rush from the dopamine high of "likes" or watching the latest Stampy video than they do from real world interaction with their friends and family.

OP don't let your kids have smartphones/tablets. There's no reason that should change as they get older.

Dr Gillian McKeith or to give her her full medical title,Gillian McKeith

I think Goldacre is a God, and will cut him an awful lot of slack. He's done tremendous work, and his success - and his MBE - are well deserved. And McKeith is an awful excuse for a human being, exploiting the fears and insecurities of the gullible.

But given these days he mostly plies his trade as a scientific researcher, and comments on poor research practice rather than medical practice, I think he could go a bit easy on the "oh! oh! calling themselves a doctor when they aren't!" thing. He is a Dr on the strength of an MBChB, but he's mostly working in an environment in which you would expect Dr so-and-so to actually have a doctorate. It's not a mark against him, don't get me wrong, and title bingo is to be avoided. But when it comes to "who's a real doctor", people with MBChBs and a courtesy title are on slightly thin ice.

I haven’t read the whole thread OP but I do get your point.
The real worry for me- even beyond the worries of cyber bullying and grooming- is the way that tech enables everything so completely. You want a film? There it is on you tube. You want to buy something? There it is on amazon. You want to find something out? Google it. Nothing is beyond our reach anymore- we don’t have to stretch ourselves to get what we want. We don’t have to challenge ourselves about things or wait for things or make do.
I remember feeling bored when I was a child and god knows what I used to do to fill my time but I thoroughly believe that boredom is important and a real motivator - Shirley Hughes was on radio 4 talking about this a while ago.

both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates raised their children without technology

Actually this isn't strictly true. What they said was they limit technology, which isn't the same thing at all. Bill Gates said his kids got phones at 14, which isn't that restrictive when when you think his eldest hit that in 2010.

Sorry I pressed post too soon. My point is, that it’s inportant to teach kids that tech can augment our lives, rather than be our lives. Use it, but don’t lose yourselves to it I suppose. So much progress has been made in such a short time, our brains are being altered almost before our eyes and anyone who claims this isn’t worrying, is not looking properly.

our brains are being altered almost before our eyes and anyone who claims this isn’t worrying, is not looking properly.

Completely agree.

This is what I see when out in public these days. I just want to scream look over there at the amazing sunset.

it's not true that young people have always existed in their own universe, with their own language, their own society, their own leaders and icons and prophets, their own religion, their own customs, all of it designed to be indecipherable and unaccessible to the older generations.

FFS. Did I miss a meeting and wake up around the time Elvis Presley was only shown from the waist up? Quick! Where's my copy of the first Quicksilver Messenger Service album? Or did I swap it for a copy of the first Sex Pistols album?

And, scatterolight, did you read the other articles by your new guru Matt Walsh, whom you quote so approvingly?

Could you tell us about your support for his views on abortion and contraception?

www.dailywire.com/news/28590/walsh-republicans-are-still-funding-abortion-matt-walsh

"I have no team, because I will not be on a team with people who would steal my money and hand it to the blood-soaked mercenaries of Planned Parenthood"

Do you want to support him on the role of women in the workplace and in politics?

www.dailywire.com/news/23833/dear-men-emasculating-yourself-isnt-solution-matt-walsh

"Another common and related solution, often proposed by female feminists and the male eunuchs they keep as pets, is that we should elect fewer men to public office, and have fewer men in leadership positions at companies, and generally do what we can to shove men to the sidelines and put women in their place."

Do you think of the Women's March that it was "vile, aimless, and embarrassing"? www.dailywire.com/news/26169/walsh-vile-awful-womens-march-symptom-spiritual-matt-walsh

And so on. Cherry-picking a quote, which is in its own terms ludicrous anyway, from a Catholic trump-supporting misogynist whose opinion of #metoo is witchhunt (www.dailywire.com/news/25874/walsh-ridiculous-sex-assault-allegations-against-matt-walsh)

That set of columns on his website is a cesspit. Well done for reading them all looking for the quote you used.

The new religion, god help us all.

This is what I see when out in public these days

And you the only person clear-eyed enough to see through the false consciousness of the rest of humanity, too. Which is nice for you.

scatterolight totally agree, great post.

One of the things I hate most about tech (along with that very word itself ) is how uncritical it seems to make young people. My dc (8 and nearly 11) are prime gullible/impressionable age and I have to reinforce a lot that most of what's on the internet is shit. Already, and I anticipate once they start senior school, much of the research they do for homework is internet based, ie wikifuckingpedia. No concept of peer reviews or academic criticism, just what they read on the internet.

Hate it. I think any positives of social media are massively outweighed by the negatives. I accept I'm in a certain demographic minority though.

People walking around like zombies now, imagine when we have glasses, well these are here already or artificial lenses implanted with the technology in us.

You don't have to buy into it, though.
Some homework required a computer for my dcs (I have 4 3 of which are teens) so they used the family desktop with parental controls and monitoring.
None of them had phones until year 9 and even then they were very basic, no data package and only WiFi capabilities. Basic smartphones. No tablets or laptops or personal computers.
Phone curfews and regular phone checking too.
I was lax in some ways, for eg they all had a game console (no playing online and no subscriptions to allow them to do so), some age ratings ignored (I was confident enough to make that choice as I game too) they were largely left to self regulate and they've all enjoyed friends coming over for gaming sessions on split screen games, better than screaming down microphones! and I allowed them to have lots of freedoms in other respects.
But technology isn't compulsory, access to a communal desktop with tight parental controls and some supervision is more than sufficient for most kids with regards to studying and homework.

Its not as if "but all my friends do x and y!" Is a new thing for kids to try and bargain with.

No concept of peer reviews or academic criticism

Two things for which the early years of secondary school were previously well known, of course. You, of course, aged 12 went to the primary literature along with everyone else in your school - Physics Letters B was your O Level bible - but these days, my dear, it's just terrible.

I looked recently at the Wikipedia pages for stuff I know about (ie, teach to post graduates). It's all pretty decent, tightly referenced and although there are some things in a couple of articles I'd quibble with, I really can't fault the coverage in general. As a starting point for reading into the primary literature it's as valid as that other standby a trip to Web of Science.

That's the view of my colleagues in a variety of fields, too, admittedly mostly STEM - I gather it's not quite as good in the social sciences and trickier in history and literature.

But if you want an example of a knee-jerk, unreferenced, uncritical opinion, condemning all of Wikipedia out of hand would be a place to start. And the idea that 10/20/30 children in the early years of secondary school, and indeed their teachers, were using something better is just laughable. Quite what do you think they were using, beyond textbooks? Seen a year 8 textbook that cites its sources recently? No, me neither.

"the idea that 10/20/30 years ago children in the early years of secondary school,"

I think I worry because I can see the damage having a phone has done to me. My attention span has deteriorated since owning a phone/tablet. I grew up without tech so the impact has been massive given the short timescale.

As a teacher, I cannot see how technology has improved my job at all, tbh. The only improvement I can see in education is in adaptive technology for pupils with additional support needs.

That’s your own subjective experience of impaired concentration
Want if it is not is not the norm for others

What other factors have you considered for impaired concentration - have you excluded the impact of
Nutrition
Diet
Sleep
Exercise
Any underlying physical condition
Stress

What happens when you have an absence from the tablet,does concentration return to the pre-tablet levels?