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https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...on/534198/
Quote:One day last summer, around noon, I called Athena, a 13-year-old who lives in Houston, Texas. She answered her phone—she’s had an iPhone since she was 11—sounding as if she’d just woken up. We chatted about her favorite songs and TV shows, and I asked her what she likes to do with her friends. “We go to the mall,” she said. “Do your parents drop you off?,” I asked, recalling my own middle-school days, in the 1980s, when I’d enjoy a few parent-free hours shopping with my friends. “No—I go with my family,” she replied. “We’ll go with my mom and brothers and walk a little behind them. I just have to tell my mom where we’re going. I have to check in every hour or every 30 minutes.”
Those mall trips are infrequent—about once a month. More often, Athena and her friends spend time together on their phones, unchaperoned. Unlike the teens of my generation, who might have spent an evening tying up the family landline with gossip, they talk on Snapchat, the smartphone app that allows users to send pictures and videos that quickly disappear. They make sure to keep up their Snapstreaks, which show how many days in a row they have Snapchatted with each other. Sometimes they save screenshots of particularly ridiculous pictures of friends. “It’s good blackmail,” Athena said. (Because she’s a minor, I’m not using her real name.) She told me she’d spent most of the summer hanging out alone in her room with her phone. That’s just the way her generation is, she said. “We didn’t have a choice to know any life without iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like actual people...
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...on/534198/
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Interesting article, I almost posted it myself this morning. To clarify, the "generation" she's talking about here refers to those born from 1995 to 2015, whom she calls "iGen" (probably as apt a name as any for the Millennial/artist cuspers).
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(08-03-2017, 03:58 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: (08-03-2017, 02:26 PM)gabrielle Wrote: Interesting article, I almost posted it myself this morning. To clarify, the "generation" she's talking about here refers to those born from 1995 to 2015, whom she calls "iGen" (probably as apt a name as any for the Millennial/artist cuspers).
Let's see. 13.
2017 - 13 = 2004. Millie.
I'm just pointing out the age group the author is referring to. Some are Millies, some are artists.
From the article:
Quote:The more I pored over yearly surveys of teen attitudes and behaviors, and the more I talked with young people like Athena, the clearer it became that theirs is a generation shaped by the smartphone and by the concomitant rise of social media. I call them iGen. Born between 1995 and 2012, members of this generation are growing up with smartphones, have an Instagram account before they start high school, and do not remember a time before the internet. The Millennials grew up with the web as well, but it wasn’t ever-present in their lives, at hand at all times, day and night. iGen’s oldest members were early adolescents when the iPhone was introduced, in 2007, and high-school students when the iPad entered the scene, in 2010. A 2017 survey of more than 5,000 American teens found that three out of four owned an iPhone.
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08-03-2017, 11:39 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-03-2017, 11:40 PM by Eric the Green.)
Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?
Yes, more or less.
The thing that amazes me is how they can afford it. Parents seem to open their wallets to make this happen. I can't afford it.
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(08-03-2017, 11:39 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?
Yes, more or less.
The thing that amazes me is how they can afford it. Parents seem to open their wallets to make this happen. I can't afford it.
1. Close, though some of those blind squirrels manage to find a nut. Well now, with this info, second hand stores can put ads on Faceplant/Twitter about these new devices called rabbit ears that let you get free Teevee.
2. Sometimes student loan money gets used to pay dumbphone bills. Loans are like booze. Just let a herd of 18-22 year olds have access to that sort of stuff and nothing but mischief is the result.
---Value Added 
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I can understand letting a child have a 'dumb phone' (the sort that can do nothing more than transmit voice) for reasons of personal safety. Get in trouble, call 911? See a crime, dial 911... call parents if you are going to be late getting home or are stuck in a strange place). Parents can use the smart phone to figure out where the A&P on Sturgis Road in Kalamazoo, Michigan is. (There is no such location -- I use fictional locations) One can get into big trouble because a smart phone gives one inappropriate confidence.
Children are not hurt by being behind the times on technology. Your great-grandparents may have lived without radio (let alone television, high-fidelity, video recording, computers, and smart phones). That was the least of their problems.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(08-04-2017, 02:45 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I can understand letting a child have a 'dumb phone' (the sort that can do nothing more than transmit voice) for reasons of personal safety. Get in trouble, call 911? See a crime, dial 911... call parents if you are going to be late getting home or are stuck in a strange place). Parents can use the smart phone to figure out where the A&P on Sturgis Road in Kalamazoo, Michigan is. (There is no such location -- I use fictional locations) One can get into big trouble because a smart phone gives one inappropriate confidence.
Children are not hurt by being behind the times on technology. Your great-grandparents may have lived without radio (let alone television, high-fidelity, video recording, computers, and smart phones). That was the least of their problems.
Good or bad, kids, and some are as young as 10 to 12, are getting Smartphones and living inside them like older generations lived inside social space in the real world. What they're doing is a modern version of bonding with their peers. What's different is the addictive nature of the devices and their inherent artificiality.
I expect an emerging generation of young adults with exaggerated expectations and underdeveloped people skills, which can't be good. Will they be able to respond effectively when the crises of their times arrive, or will they be pushed aside by even young cohorts who managed to avoid the pitfalls of these electronic pacifiers?
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(08-07-2017, 11:14 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Evil people will create AI and machine learning systems to herd the sheep (or I should way, herd the sheep more effectively than already done).
Perhaps so ... or not. We humans have one feature, or bug -- your choice, that replaces structured thinking with intuition at times. Will intuition save them? Hard to say, but it's a counter-measure that's hard to mimic or sway.
It would be the ultimate irony if emotion wins the day.
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Who knows? We could have the rise of sects that decide that after a certain time the World has gone to the Devil and reject culture or technology from after that time.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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The thing is, the headline for this article doesn't really come to the right conclusion. It's not smartphones that are ruining people's lives, it's social media. Teens aren't compulsively checking their phones throughout the night to look up facts or even to watch the latest pop video over again, they're checking for updates on whatever social media they use and seeing how many likes or whatever they have gotten. As stated in the article, it has been documented that people who use facebook frequently are more likely to be depressed than those who do not. Smart phones are simply making it easier to feed the addiction.
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(08-08-2017, 08:24 AM)gabrielle Wrote: The thing is, the headline for this article doesn't really come to the right conclusion. It's not smartphones that are ruining people's lives, it's social media. Teens aren't compulsively checking their phones throughout the night to look up facts or even to watch the latest pop video over again, they're checking for updates on whatever social media they use and seeing how many likes or whatever they have gotten. As stated in the article, it has been documented that people who use facebook frequently are more likely to be depressed than those who do not. Smart phones are simply making it easier to feed the addiction.
excellent point.
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"Relax, it'll be all right, and by that I mean it will first get worse."
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(08-08-2017, 08:24 AM)gabrielle Wrote: The thing is, the headline for this article doesn't really come to the right conclusion. It's not smartphones that are ruining people's lives, it's social media. Teens aren't compulsively checking their phones throughout the night to look up facts or even to watch the latest pop video over again, they're checking for updates on whatever social media they use and seeing how many likes or whatever they have gotten. As stated in the article, it has been documented that people who use Facebook frequently are more likely to be depressed than those who do not. Smart phones are simply making it easier to feed the addiction.
That is the problem. As soon as people got recording devices they could listen to the same song over and over until they tired of it; now they can do this with video. It's easy to say that such was a waste of time, but
People can easily think that they need to validate themselves to determine how popular they are. Facebook offers a means.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(08-08-2017, 08:24 AM)gabrielle Wrote: The thing is, the headline for this article doesn't really come to the right conclusion. It's not smartphones that are ruining people's lives, it's social media. Teens aren't compulsively checking their phones throughout the night to look up facts or even to watch the latest pop video over again, they're checking for updates on whatever social media they use and seeing how many likes or whatever they have gotten. As stated in the article, it has been documented that people who use facebook frequently are more likely to be depressed than those who do not. Smart phones are simply making it easier to feed the addiction.
Precisely why some have started moving against it. I would argue that the smarter ones in Gen Zed have already dropped out. Xers like myself were never much enthused by it to start with.
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(08-13-2017, 04:10 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: (08-08-2017, 08:24 AM)gabrielle Wrote: The thing is, the headline for this article doesn't really come to the right conclusion. It's not smartphones that are ruining people's lives, it's social media. Teens aren't compulsively checking their phones throughout the night to look up facts or even to watch the latest pop video over again, they're checking for updates on whatever social media they use and seeing how many likes or whatever they have gotten. As stated in the article, it has been documented that people who use facebook frequently are more likely to be depressed than those who do not. Smart phones are simply making it easier to feed the addiction.
Precisely why some have started moving against it. I would argue that the smarter ones in Gen Zed have already dropped out. Xers like myself were never much enthused by it to start with.
"Smarter" is always a minority -- by definition. The majority still wants validation. These devices and their apps make that readily available and fully addictive. I agree that a reaction will occur, and the smart will lead the way, just not yet.
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08-14-2017, 04:38 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-14-2017, 04:41 PM by Kinser79.
Edit Reason: Clarification
)
(08-14-2017, 03:15 PM)David Horn Wrote: (08-13-2017, 04:10 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: (08-08-2017, 08:24 AM)gabrielle Wrote: The thing is, the headline for this article doesn't really come to the right conclusion. It's not smartphones that are ruining people's lives, it's social media. Teens aren't compulsively checking their phones throughout the night to look up facts or even to watch the latest pop video over again, they're checking for updates on whatever social media they use and seeing how many likes or whatever they have gotten. As stated in the article, it has been documented that people who use facebook frequently are more likely to be depressed than those who do not. Smart phones are simply making it easier to feed the addiction.
Precisely why some have started moving against it. I would argue that the smarter ones in Gen Zed have already dropped out. Xers like myself were never much enthused by it to start with.
"Smarter" is always a minority -- by definition. The majority still wants validation. These devices and their apps make that readily available and fully addictive. I agree that a reaction will occur, and the smart will lead the way, just not yet.
Minorities* are always the movers and shakers in society. If it turned on the majority we'd be nothing more than domesticated cattle. The back lash is being lead by a minority of Zeds and Millies now by the 2T, assuming society isn't destroyed in something stupid, social media will come to be seen as a networking tool and not a substitute for real world action and real world interactions.
*Note: I mean minority as in a numerically smaller group and not the racial sense which honestly is stupid construction of stupid people pretending to be real academics.
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If globalization and automation are tools of bondage, then maybe we would be wise to refuse to buy our own chains.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(08-14-2017, 05:34 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: If globalization and automation are tools of bondage, then maybe we would be wise to refuse to buy our own chains.
Globalization is bondage, but automation is not. Every time humans have automated a job it has resulted in more goods, for less cost to more potential purchasers. Unless of course your idea of a fun time is staring at the ass end of a mule for months out of they year.
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(08-14-2017, 04:38 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: (08-14-2017, 03:15 PM)David Horn Wrote: (08-13-2017, 04:10 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: (08-08-2017, 08:24 AM)gabrielle Wrote: The thing is, the headline for this article doesn't really come to the right conclusion. It's not smartphones that are ruining people's lives, it's social media. Teens aren't compulsively checking their phones throughout the night to look up facts or even to watch the latest pop video over again, they're checking for updates on whatever social media they use and seeing how many likes or whatever they have gotten. As stated in the article, it has been documented that people who use facebook frequently are more likely to be depressed than those who do not. Smart phones are simply making it easier to feed the addiction.
Precisely why some have started moving against it. I would argue that the smarter ones in Gen Zed have already dropped out. Xers like myself were never much enthused by it to start with.
"Smarter" is always a minority -- by definition. The majority still wants validation. These devices and their apps make that readily available and fully addictive. I agree that a reaction will occur, and the smart will lead the way, just not yet.
Minorities* are always the movers and shakers in society. If it turned on the majority we'd be nothing more than domesticated cattle. The back lash is being lead by a minority of Zeds and Millies now by the 2T, assuming society isn't destroyed in something stupid, social media will come to be seen as a networking tool and not a substitute for real world action and real world interactions.
*Note: I mean minority as in a numerically smaller group and not the racial sense which honestly is stupid construction of stupid people pretending to be real academics.
True, but I still feel it's far too early to expect much at this point.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(08-14-2017, 06:15 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: (08-14-2017, 05:34 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: If globalization and automation are tools of bondage, then maybe we would be wise to refuse to buy our own chains.
Globalization is bondage, but automation is not. Every time humans have automated a job it has resulted in more goods, for less cost to more potential purchasers. Unless of course your idea of a fun time is staring at the ass end of a mule for months out of they year.
Adding my $0.02: Automation has a terminal phase, where all work is automated. We're a long way from that, but we had better start thinking about what this means, and start that thinking now! The automatons are owned by capitalists, mostly through corporations. What they produce, whether goods or services, have to be obtained by others with money (at least today). If work is nonexistent, then the buyers will be few and far between.
Essentially, this is a world of owners. What about the rest of us?
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(08-15-2017, 09:36 AM)David Horn Wrote: (08-14-2017, 06:15 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: (08-14-2017, 05:34 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: If globalization and automation are tools of bondage, then maybe we would be wise to refuse to buy our own chains.
Globalization is bondage, but automation is not. Every time humans have automated a job it has resulted in more goods, for less cost to more potential purchasers. Unless of course your idea of a fun time is staring at the ass end of a mule for months out of they year.
Adding my $0.02: Automation has a terminal phase, where all work is automated. We're a long way from that, but we had better start thinking about what this means, and start that thinking now! The automatons are owned by capitalists, mostly through corporations. What they produce, whether goods or services, have to be obtained by others with money (at least today). If work is nonexistent, then the buyers will be few and far between.
Essentially, this is a world of owners. What about the rest of us?
Interesting discussion, which I agree isn't getting enough attention.
One thing you're not considering efficiency - people haven't stopped working in transportation because of the internal combustion engine - it, and related technologies, require maintaining, which can be very resource-intensive. People have made good careers out of trying to improve on existing technologies. I don't expect this to change - technologies that automate existing manual processes will have to be maintained and improved upon. In this regard I don't agree that there is an end state.
Don't get me wrong - this is a massive cultural shift and there will be many many people left behind. But there will always be shifting demands which will require supply side to adapt.
"But there's a difference between error and dishonesty, and it's not a trivial difference." - Ben Greenman
"Relax, it'll be all right, and by that I mean it will first get worse."
"How was I supposed to know that there'd be consequences for my actions?" - Gina Linetti
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