Teen Loneliness Has Increased in 36 Countries. The Reason May be Smartphones (yahoo.com) 136
"Loneliness among adolescents around the globe has skyrocketed since a decade ago," reports the Washington Post, "and it may be tied to smartphone use, a new study finds."
In 36 out of 37 countries, feelings of loneliness among teenagers rose sharply between 2012 and 2018, with higher increases among girls, according to a report released Tuesday in the Journal of Adolescence. Researchers used data from the Programme for International Student Assessment, a survey of over 1 million 15- and 16-year-old students. The survey included a six-item measure of loneliness at school in 2000, 2003, 2012, 2015 and 2018. Before 2012, the trends had stayed relatively flat. But between 2012 and 2018, nearly twice as many teens displayed high elevated levels of "school loneliness," an established predictor of depression and mental health issues. (The study did not cover the period of the coronavirus pandemic, which also may have affected teen well-being.)
"It's surprising that the trend would be so similar across so many different countries," said Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University and the study's lead author. "On the other hand, if this trend is caused by smartphones or electronic communication, a worldwide increase is exactly what you'd expect to see." In an earlier study, Twenge had identified 2012 as the year when smartphone ownership passed 50 percent in the United States...
In the worldwide study, school loneliness was not correlated with factors such as income inequality, gross domestic product and family size, but it did correlate with increases in smartphone and Internet use. By 2012, most of the countries in the study had reached a point where at least half of teens had access to smartphones, and that is when teen loneliness levels began to rise, Twenge said. "When it got to that saturation point where social media was virtually mandatory and practically everybody had a phone, it changed things," she said. As smartphone adoption spread in the 2010s, adolescents spent less time interacting in person and more time using digital media, the paper said, adding, "Given that digital media does not produce as much emotional closeness as in-person interaction, the result may be more loneliness in recent years...."
School administrators and teachers have noted the changes. Lunchrooms and hallways, formerly raucous places, have in recent years fallen silent as teens have turned to their devices. Some are taking action on the local or national level. In 2018, France stopped allowing smartphones at school for students in elementary and middle school.
"It's surprising that the trend would be so similar across so many different countries," said Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University and the study's lead author. "On the other hand, if this trend is caused by smartphones or electronic communication, a worldwide increase is exactly what you'd expect to see." In an earlier study, Twenge had identified 2012 as the year when smartphone ownership passed 50 percent in the United States...
In the worldwide study, school loneliness was not correlated with factors such as income inequality, gross domestic product and family size, but it did correlate with increases in smartphone and Internet use. By 2012, most of the countries in the study had reached a point where at least half of teens had access to smartphones, and that is when teen loneliness levels began to rise, Twenge said. "When it got to that saturation point where social media was virtually mandatory and practically everybody had a phone, it changed things," she said. As smartphone adoption spread in the 2010s, adolescents spent less time interacting in person and more time using digital media, the paper said, adding, "Given that digital media does not produce as much emotional closeness as in-person interaction, the result may be more loneliness in recent years...."
School administrators and teachers have noted the changes. Lunchrooms and hallways, formerly raucous places, have in recent years fallen silent as teens have turned to their devices. Some are taking action on the local or national level. In 2018, France stopped allowing smartphones at school for students in elementary and middle school.
Or much more likely (Score:1, Insightful)
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So-called 'social media' gives people an excuse to stay apart instead of coming together; words on a screen, or even video on a screen, is not a substitute for face-to-face interaction.
Similarly TXTs from smartphone to smartphone are in no way shape or form a substitute for actual social interaction.
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For example SOME people have flourished through this time, despite everything.
After all loneliness is not the same as being alone.
Loneliness is an emotional state during perceived isolation which causes discomfort at the least and can be quite stressful for individual. Some people do not experience this loneliness when they're alone as others do. So they can do fine under circumstances where they have to be on their own for pro
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Very much depends on the nature of their work too. I have been WFH for a few years now but I have family and friends here so it's not so bad. There is a bit of office banter over Google Meet too.
It takes adjustment to get used to, but it's possible. Bosses will cite it as a reason to get everyone in the office, I'd say it's a reason to make sure your remote comms are decent.
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I've been a lot more productive in the last two years, having done more work than what my other two co-workers managed to do in the same time together during regular office times. And that's because I didn't have to deal with co-workers inadvertently distracting me from doing my job well (I have both Attention Deficit Disorder and what used to be calle
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I have too for going on nearly a decade now.
My real friends and family, I spend time with in meatspace....together.
I"m never at a loss for companionship with real people I have real relationships with that I trust and want to hang out with....except for the times when I want to be alone.
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If you're too weak to survive this little inconvenience, where you should wear a mask and keep your distance for a couple of months, despite all the possibilities of entertainment today, maybe society should let you die.
Good riddance.
Re:Or much more likely (Score:5, Informative)
Second line of TFS:
In 36 out of 37 countries, feelings of loneliness among teenagers rose sharply between 2012 and 2018
The pandemic had nothing to do with it.
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Though I don't see contradictions here. These things are not mutually exclusive in my eyes.
From what we could observe throughout the pandemic and how the measures affected people, regardless of how you stand on the measures themselves (some like rtb61 seem to strongly disapprove of them, others do approve, and I suppose most people are somewhere in the middle*), it s
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So-called 'social media' gives people an excuse to stay apart instead of coming together; words on a screen, or even video on a screen, is not a substitute for face-to-face interaction.
This, exactly. There's a strong tendency in modern society to downplay and ignore the fact that we're animals, and social ones at that. We see how listless and depressed other animals become when we put them in zoos and limit social contact with their peers; yet we put ourselves in similar - if more abstract and less tangible - technological cages.
I find it does the exact opposite (Score:3)
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And if covid is what's been isolating people that's fine but that isn't what the article is saying. It wouldn't even make headlines if it was. But a good old-fashioned moral panic over some new technology? That'll get you some clicks. Been a long time since we had a good 'ole satanic panic.
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If you're NOT a NERD/GEEK and already have a good 'normal' social life, a group of friends, you see them IN PERSON regularly, do things, etc, and suddenly you're completely cut off from them other than so-called 'social media', which is just words on a screen, I think it likely that teenagers, especially teenage GIRLS, who are more social than boys are, are going to have some emotional problems because of it, ESPECIALLY when the news is full of doom-and-gloom-
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its about LONELINESS in TEENS
the economy isnt something they'll care about for a while, its just adults that piss and moan about the economy constantly.
Re: Or much more likely (Score:2)
Teens inherit their behaviors from their family, either directly (man, those Simpsons are such douchebags) or indirectly (black sheeps that realise their family habits are "stupid").
In a world where neither parents nor grandparents have enough spare time to parent a child, instead often turning to that little screen in their pocket because they often completely lack the energy to properly socialize with their offspring, well...
Not saying parents are not responsible for their child, just that the society we
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When I was a kid, close to 50 years back, my parents along with most of my peers had no time to spend with us either.
The difference was we were kicked out of the house, and happy to be. So we spent most of our time in parks and the bush, sometimes a dozen of us and often 3 or 4.. Now a days our parents would probably be charged with child endangerment and generally parents have changed to not letting their kids be kids playing outside.
Re:Or much more likely (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't forget the simple fact that there is literally nothing to do out there, and there is barely anywhere you can go without being harassed into spending money. I can't even walk down the street without some asshole trying to fleece money for a "cancer charity" that gives fuck-all to the actual sufferers. If I want to get drunk or gamble though I'm spoiled for choice. That's not even getting into individual issues, I can't go anywhere because of a toilet tether, there are entire towns I can't go to because of a lack of public bathrooms.
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If I want to get drunk or gamble though I'm spoiled for choice.
Yep, all the teens are lonely because they're getting drunk and gambling. Thread's over, you figured it out.
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If I want to get drunk or gamble though I'm spoiled for choice.
Yep, all the teens are lonely because they're getting drunk and gambling. Thread's over, you figured it out.
I think the GP's point is that most towns have no shortage of bars and casinos, i.e. entertainment venues where adults can socialize, but teens cannot. Venues that cater to teens are far less common, and those that do tend to cost teens money such that frequenting those venues becomes far more a matter of economics than social need.
Meanwhile, society has deemed it mostly-criminal to let teens go out on their own and do things without supervision. So, teens are basically limited to going over each others' ho
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I can't go anywhere because of a toilet tether, there are entire towns I can't go to because of a lack of public bathrooms.
If you had a van you could go in a bucket
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Don't forget the simple fact that there is literally nothing to do out there, and there is barely anywhere you can go without being harassed into spending money.
This is an argument that uninteresting people use to excuse the fact that they're uninteresting. All the things people did for fun 50 (or even 20) years ago - those just suddenly vanished? What happened to going on a bike ride together? Grabbing a ball and shooting some hoops? Playing cards? Heck, just sitting around and "hanging out" - talking and enjoying each others' company for its own sake?
When you say "there is literally nothing to do out there," what you really mean is "there's nothing to do that
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Kids are strongly discouraged from doing stuff, including legal (parents getting charged), that used to be common like hanging out at the park, or playing hockey in the lacrosse boxes or roaming the local bush (forest) or even going on a bike ride, all common when I was a kid.
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Where do you live where every single retail store, or fast food joint, etc...doesn't have a public bathroom available for anyone to use?
And as for nothing to do out there...find
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Parks left to rot, forests and nature demolished or fenced off (right to roam be damned), open land turned into estates, junkies leaving needles on less-traveled roads, broken glass everywhere in towns without regular street cleaners, and that's not even getting into hooliganism and louts.
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Wow....MOVE.
That certainly doesn't describe the vast majority of the lands and communities in the USA.
Get out of the urban squalor, quit living like rats stacked up on top of each other and move to real towns with frien
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Woah, slow up there cowboy. I know that political soap box looks mighty tempting, but TFA is about the kiddie variety of teenagers, not the technically-an-adult 18/19 year-olds.
It probably is because kids don't really do kid stuff anymore. My previous home (which I lost during the great recession, but that's a subject for another topic) was near a middle school, and occasionally I'd be coming home when school let out. Most of the kids looked like depressed miniature adults, mopily walking home while star
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Woah, slow up there cowboy. I know that political soap box looks mighty tempting, but TFA is about the kiddie variety of teenagers, not the technically-an-adult 18/19 year-olds.
It probably is because kids don't really do kid stuff anymore. My previous home (which I lost during the great recession, but that's a subject for another topic) was near a middle school, and occasionally I'd be coming home when school let out. Most of the kids looked like depressed miniature adults, mopily walking home while staring down at their phones.
Here's a differential thought.
Note that in the article, it says that girls are most affected. At an age where young women and men might have once been starting to form social interactions, a lot of young men are leaning way out. When my son was in high school, you could see the beginnings of this. The prospects of a wrong word or one interpreted in the wrong manner, and you are in real trouble.
The lament that "Boys are only interested in video games!" is not uncommon. It is a side effect of the years
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It's the multiple economic crashes that we had
Recessions aren't a new thing. They have been happening about once a decade or so for centuries.
The last deep recession was in 2008 when the subjects of the survey were toddlers.
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Teens don't give a shit about the economy. That's something their parents stress about and not something which would prevent them going out with friends.
Also stress and loneliness are two different emotions.
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Teens don't give a shit about the economy. That's something their parents stress about and not something which would prevent them going out with friends.
Also stress and loneliness are two different emotions.
Exactly. When I was a little kid, we were pretty poor - think of getting surplus food type poor. A little kid just thinks that is normal. Now at the middle/high school level, it can be a problem, but my parents always made sure I had nice clothes - I did not "look" poor.
But if I did, that would be stress, not loneliness.
As I recall, I was not in the least lonely, having a fair sized group of both male and female friends, and girlfriends most of the time as well.
I get in trouble for some of my obser
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WTF are you talking about? Train? Car? Boring? Nothing about boredom has to do with loneliness, especially the act of going to meet other people. I feel like you're not understanding what is being discussed in this study.
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Gen Z are following Millennials in being poorer than their parents. A lot of it is stored up problems, e.g. stats show that most Millennials had significant financial help from their parents to buy a house but of course for Gen Z their parents are already struggling and don't have the capital to do the same for their kids.
Same with pensions, each generation passes the burden down to the next, with retirement dates pushed back and returns dwindling as the money is needed to pay out now.
Throw climate change o
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Gen Z are following Millennials in being poorer than their parents. A lot of it is stored up problems, e.g. stats show that most Millennials had significant financial help from their parents to buy a house but of course for Gen Z their parents are already struggling and don't have the capital to do the same for their kids.
While a nice story, how would these poor victims have fared during the great depression? Mass suicide?
It is a strange thing - my more liberal friends are fond of saying that money doesn't buy happiness. Except when it does, I suppose?
Same with pensions, each generation passes the burden down to the next, with retirement dates pushed back and returns dwindling as the money is needed to pay out now.
Of course retirement dates are pushed back. This is actuarial table based. If we lower the standard retirement dates - it's time to get worried.
But here's the issue where young'uns need to take some telling. All of the things you are using to gauge your happiness happen
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"reporting loneliness at a time when young people are usually entering a new world of socializing?"
What is this "new world of socializing" I hear about?
Socializing is - in my mind - related to longer periods of time spent together, learning what to do and what not to do in the presence of other people. What we have now is "I can stop this interaction at a moment's notice, and I will", and "I haven't seen a cats video in an hour and the waiting is hurting me", and "I sincerely hope my parent is going to inve
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"reporting loneliness at a time when young people are usually entering a new world of socializing?" What is this "new world of socializing" I hear about?
It is a strange and marvelous world where young men and young ladies who are entering sexual maturity, but need some guidance can get together in a setting where they can get used to each other, and learn how to act around each other. Instead, we are admonished to "teach boys not to rape" which is just saying "all males are rapists." Seriously - DDG Teach boys not to rape, if that isn't institutionalize deep hatred of all males, misandry does not exist. Before we slowly started boys and girls with dancing
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It is a strange thing - my more liberal friends are fond of saying that money doesn't buy happiness. Except when it does, I suppose?
Money certainly can buy a lot of happiness. Or at least not having much money makes finding happiness much harder.
When you are young, you will be making less money, so you should live on less money.
One of my boomer friends told me that my youth was a golden saving time when I was free from major responsibilities like kids and a mortgage. I should build up a big pot of cash like he did, put lots into a pension and then be set up by the time I'm 30.
I've noticed that there are a lot of complaints online now about "red pilled" boys. One thing they have wrong is trying to claim it is somehow tied to alt-right dogma, which is BS. Every alt-right or MAGA I know - I know quite a few - is married.
You are assuming that the alt-right dogma is coherent and internally consistent. In this case it tends more towards the "traditional wife" stuff,
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It is a strange thing - my more liberal friends are fond of saying that money doesn't buy happiness. Except when it does, I suppose?
Money certainly can buy a lot of happiness. Or at least not having much money makes finding happiness much harder.
When you are young, you will be making less money, so you should live on less money.
One of my boomer friends told me that my youth was a golden saving time when I was free from major responsibilities like kids and a mortgage. I should build up a big pot of cash like he did, put lots into a pension and then be set up by the time I'm 30.
That's one method. I think that overly high expectations and planning that wasn't real world has happened to a lot of young people. The idea was that they were going to go to college, get a meaningful career immediately, buy a house in a year, get promoted to a top management postion, then in their mid 30's to mid 40's, get married and immediately have a child or two.
That is so unrealistic, both on a physical and corporate level. In my case, My wife had a shutoff time of 25 for having a child, based on h
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The big change is that many fewer people used to go to university. That meant that graduates were paid more and non-graduates could still earn decent wages. Also houses were only 2x average salary, nowadays (in the UK) they are around 10-11x or more.
Parents were telling their kids "get a degree, it is the key to success" but of course theirs was free and their kids get saddled with debt and only an average job.
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The big change is that many fewer people used to go to university. That meant that graduates were paid more and non-graduates could still earn decent wages. Also houses were only 2x average salary, nowadays (in the UK) they are around 10-11x or more.
Parents were telling their kids "get a degree, it is the key to success" but of course theirs was free and their kids get saddled with debt and only an average job.
Yeah, the University trap and the condescending attitude towards people who's education was not University based - like Associate degrees or technical school were another bad thing the kids were sold as gospel. The Universities were happy to take advantage of the canard, with yearly increases that were almost always double digit. But the parents and kids were happy to engage in this, while the Universities added layer upon layer of middle management and accountants to use the "free money" given to them.
An
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And by the way, "Incel" means involuntary celibate. Like impotence or disfigurement. I understand that meanings can change, but claiming a person is an incel in the real meaning is pretty cruel. Using the version that some folks use now is calling a person an incel meaning that you disagree with them. The word is functionally dead. Like figuratively has become literally. But I digress.
The current useage of incel is indeed involuntary celibate. It is an insult intended to describe a man as unloveable -unworthy of female companionship; no matter how much effort he puts forth no woman will ever touch him.
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And by the way, "Incel" means involuntary celibate. Like impotence or disfigurement. I understand that meanings can change, but claiming a person is an incel in the real meaning is pretty cruel. Using the version that some folks use now is calling a person an incel meaning that you disagree with them. The word is functionally dead. Like figuratively has become literally. But I digress.
The current useage of incel is indeed involuntary celibate. It is an insult intended to describe a man as unloveable -unworthy of female companionship; no matter how much effort he puts forth no woman will ever touch him.
Except that unless afflicted by terminal shyness, any guy capable of sex can get sex if they adjust their standards. Ol Olsoc can go to a local bar at midnight and be in bed with a woman at 2:00 AM. It's really not that hard. The concept of the repulsive male as incel is a canard.
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That is why it is used as an insult...
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That is why it is used as an insult...
It's fun to ridicule people with mental problems, isn't it? An extremely shy male should be in counseling - but hey, let's call him names, amirite?
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What?
I was explaining the common meaning of the previous poster's (amimojo) slang-insult.
-Calling someone an incel is an insult. It is not about being shy. It is meant to insult them by implying that they are unworthy and repulsive; that they will never receive the sexual attention they desire because no one else will ever lower their standards enough to include them.
If you are taking what I posted as an attack, you are misreading.
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Gen Z are following Millennials in being poorer than their parents.
Every time I see this portrayed as a problem, it baffles me. Each generation SHOULD be poorer than their parents, because their parents have a 20-30 year head start on accumulating wealth. Are you really making the case that a 20 year old (with no savings, investments, or assets to speak of) should be richer than their 50 year old parents? Or a 30 year old (who has probably just taken on a mortgage and the financial burden of one or more kids) should be richer than their 60 year old parents (who have paid
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It means poorer at the same age. So when their parents were 30 they had more wealth than their children do at age 30.
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It's the multiple economic crashes that we had, leading the increased stress. Economy's been crashing like clockwork every 10 years since I entered the workforce. You think it doesn't have a negative psychological effect you're not paying attention.
Kids don't think about the economy, they think about being cool and accepted. Iphones and social media have made this a 24 hour obsession and has had a bit impact on teen girls mental health. There are multiple good books that go into this.
From the article:
Social media can create an exclusionary environment that increases school loneliness, especially for girls, the paper said; it can also enable cyberbullying. And even if an adolescent does not personally use social media and smartphones, they are so ubi
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That seems like it would have a greater impact on adults than teens though. They're not old enough to remember more than 1 crash, and until they really get into the workforce the stress of the economy seems totally lost on teens (not really their fault - until you're supporting yourself its just not something one is going to think much about).
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It's the multiple economic crashes that we had, leading the increased stress. Economy's been crashing like clockwork every 10 years since I entered the workforce. You think it doesn't have a negative psychological effect you're not paying attention.
Apparently needs to be requoted into visibility. Congratulations on offending idiots who can't respond except by trying to censor you. (Broken moderation remains high on the list of problems of Slashdot.)
Humans can't handle the precision of the like btn (Score:5, Interesting)
When we measure ourselves in social groups, there are basically 3 elements, the top person, the bottom person and the middle muddle. Socially speaking, if you're in the muddle, there is no clarity of who is socially better. This allows us to create a sort of tribe, with a chief. The bottom person shows the "you must be this tall to join the tribe." They tend to be the one who is picked on, just barely in the tribe, but it makes the muddle feel safe, since you know you're better than that person.
Digital devices allow tribes to be accurately measured like the stock market, where everyone's social worth is constantly measured. You now aren't safely in the muddle, you're too well measured for that, every attribute pulling you either more in or out of any given tribe. So instead you're atomized, just an individual with an individual set of characteristics all of which are trying to attract more like button presses. Even if you can somehow create a tribe, you can't be in the muddle because you're clearly rated against all the others who would sit in the same spot, all competing for an exact position rather than being comfortably unrated, knowing they are better than the worst person but below the fearless leader.
Just in case you deny this dynamic, think about the meme of hitting the biggest bully and the rest go scattering. This is exactly that dynamic of going for the leader and you prove you are better than anyone in that group.
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This is nonsense that was derived from the old "alpha male wolf pack" study that even it's own author has pointed out was deeply flawed.
Some people like the idea that they can be the alpha, others like the idea that bad behaviour can be excused by biology. The layers of BS keep getting deeper, e.g. now there is the new "sigma male" who is somehow outside the normal hierarchy (and of course better than even the alpha).
The "market" approach is popular because of the Sexual Market Value myth that puts pressure
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This is nonsense that was derived from the old "alpha male wolf pack" study that even it's own author has pointed out was deeply flawed.
His example said that tribes define themselves using the alpha and omega. While you are bringing examples negating the existing alphas, I believe that many sociological researches actually claimed that societies define themselves by "who they are not". This might mean that although alphas don't exist, omegas do. (I might be wrong with using the word "omega", just replace it with "most inferior")
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Re:Why are they allowed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do these schools allow smart phone usage during the day?
Parents. Mom believes she has the right to contact her kid at any time for any reason.
And vice versa. Don't like your grade? (Score:2)
Call your mom. Don't like that the teacher told you stop texting and pay attention? Call your mom. Don't like being told to go stand in the hall for disrupting class? Call your mom. Don't like that ...
Fight in the hall? Every cell phone is out and recording ... sometimes they even make the news. Good luck learning anything even if you're trying to; you're on your own now more than ever.
I wish I were kidding. These are things I've literally seen first hand - helicopter parents enabling their helpless
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The online content is much better than the old textbooks.
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Taking notes in class ingrains the knowledge as you are exposed to it more efficiently, you have to actually remember and recall it as you take those notes (even it is just a few moments, your memory is exercised).
If the online content can always be looked up then the importance of retaining the knowledge is not there, since it can always be looked up and used as a crutch in the future. He
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"Retaining knowledge" is overrated. Knowledge itself is overrated and irrelevant today. Schools today should skip the whole regurgitate information kind of education and skip right to understanding and comprehension.
Just Teens? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where I live, I am surrounded by neighborhoods full of lonely people who are completely addicted to their smart phones. 10 years ago, my neighbors went outside and talked to each other. Today, they stay inside, post on Nextdoor and Facebook while they bumble on about how someone else told them the world is dangerous.
Anecdotally, it seems fairly obvious to me that the way people interact has changed.
We survived eons without pocket "phones". I'd love to see them removed from schools. I'd love to see people leave them at home. I'd love to see people drive without texting.
--
There's nothing more satisfying than seeing a happy and smiling child. - Lionel Messi
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while they bumble.com?
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But do you really feel that it is the same without the face-to-face contact?
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Pre-COVID we did meet up from time to time, and now there is YouTube so a lot of people make videos of their hobby stuff.
Other things make up for it too, e.g. with Twitter I know more about their day-to-day stuff than I otherwise would.
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Youtube is even worse. I have some chat groups of people I don't meet often or haven't even met at all. At least our communication is two-sided. Using youtube to communicate with friends really feels like going backwards, because of the one-sided of the medium. I might be missing something.
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Most of the Youtubers mainly communicate via other platforms, not least because YouTube comments are crap. The videos are just so they can show stuff for discussion elsewhere.
Re:Just Teens? (Score:4, Interesting)
There used to be an old saying, "Friends help you move....REAL friends help you move bodies."
Of course it is a joke, but you get the gist...your real friends are the ones that you trust and are there for you, through thick and thin times.
I'm blessed to have a LOT of friends on that level, ones I've known for well over 30+ years.
These are people I trust with keys to my house.
In fact the ones that live close to me have keys to my house and I have keys to their homes.
These are people I can count on. They can count on me at the drop of a hat.
I"m "uncle" to many of their kids...we get together in meatspace as often as we can.
These are people I care about, I consider them part of my extended family.
Many of us grew up together at various stages of our lives....we've moved about the US some of us, but we stay in touch regularly.
None of this takes place over any form of social media.
I don't see how you possible engender true friendship and deep friend relationships over a device.
I"m damned thankful I didn't have these things growing up.
It was nice being a teen and not having my parents know where I was every fscking minute.
Sure, I got into some trouble and mischief....but that was part of growing up and learning. Some of that had consequences, and others well, I got away with it. That's a lesson too.
I'm glad there wasn't a damned camera everywhere too....MAN am I thankful for that!!!!
But most of all, real life memories are shared with my friends because we did it all together....not over a phone, but right there in the moment.
We had fun, we travelled around, we chased girls, get all had loves and heartbreaks, but it was all real and in person.
Sure, it's nice to use the internet to meet other people, it has its place.
But it pales in comparison to real life experiences over time with real people together in real places at the same time.
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Not having to deal with people who are uninteresting or difficult for you is a good thing. It's also a bad thing.
In general making things more easy, convenient and comfortable is a good thing, but can also be a bad thing. The average paleolithic person walked about 10-20 km/day, but the average American walks about 2, and over much easier surfaces. Over the period in which the US landscape was redesigned around automobiles, the rate of type 2 diabetes rose from 0.93% to 7.4%.
The same transition to an unn
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I see so many people equating "Not having to talk to the dumb ones and only befriending the interesting people" to one of the best benefits of the internet. And now we ended up with a hug-box culture and worships of the echo chamber.
As you said, fascism is on the rise, both on the left and on the right, because people are surrounding themselves with nothing but Yes-men and communities built entirely around "Do it my way or the highway". Case in point: The twitter mob of cancelling.
The world is getting far t
The reason is that tech does not serve the user (Score:5, Insightful)
The customer is the advertisement industry. The active userbase is part of your balance sheet as a startup/tech company. Doing things which really enable/help people to meet and spend quality time with friends is not part of the business model.
Imagine that Facebook actually gave the recommendation to go out with your most likely friends to have a picnic and leave the smartphone at home...
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This is why so many social media services fail. They think that they can just factory farm users, but users don't come to shitty platforms.
The only hope is to serve the user until they hit critical mass and it becomes difficult to leave. Facebook managed to do that but users are now wary of it, and much more used to switching app every few years.
Friendship (Score:4, Insightful)
It's theoretically possible to get close friendships online, but practically, it's impossible. You need to go through shit together and hangout or else you can't really trust someone. Measurement of friendship .. how many online-only friends do you have that would co-sign a loan for you? How many people you know from twitter or slashdot can you call for help at 3am?
And I feel sorry for these kids in that survey.. most strong friendships form in school, college, or the military .. after that you can't really trust people. I mean, there are exceptions .. but most people you meet later in life you can't call at 3am especially to talk shit. You can't just show up at their place for dinner and vice versa. The people like that are usually people you have known from before 20s.
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About 10-20. But this is a very special case that can't be extrapolated, I know.
By Design? (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the things that we’re coming to understand about Social Media companies like Farcebook (sic) is that, contrary to their claim of being little more than a benign means of “connecting people”, they are in fact perfect mechanisms for mass manipulation.
We also know that these same companies are basically advertising platforms, where tens of billions of dollars are spent by the advertising industry every year.
We also know, from people like Christopher Wylie, that beyond merely “advertising”, these same platforms are incredibly effective as emotional and psychological manipulators. See, for example, Wylie talking about the way that Social Media platforms were used to discourage Black and Minority voting in 2016.
So with all these data points available to us, are we being fair if we say that this is simply “smartphone use”? For example, if I just use my smartphone to play a single-user game, how is that any different from using a pocket gaming machine?
We know that the advertising industry uses psychological manipulation to encourage people to spend more - whether that is through encouraging feelings of inadequacy or social stigmatization - but the elephant in the room that this report seems to miss is to ask whether or not this feeling of loneliness in adolescents was actually being caused by Social Media.
This could have been achieved, say, by tracking not just handset usage times but application usage times across a sample of people. It would be interesting to find out if this was considered or not; and if it was, why it wasn’t covered in the study.
Not suggesting the report is wrong per se, just wondering if it is missing part of the picture.
smartphones, yes - but what's the actual reason? (Score:5, Interesting)
Smartphones are just a tool. It's basically like saying that gun violence correlates to gun sales. Doh.
The really important question, IMHO, is what they're all doing on those smartphones? From what I've observed (and that's a very narrow sample with all kinds of biases) the main issue is the toxic combination of social media and having it available all the time, everywhere.
Sharing your experiences online has become more important than the actual experience. I know people who talk tons of pictures of everything claiming that they need them to remember the day. Apparently, they don't understand how this "memory" thing in their brain is supposed to work. That taking one or two pictures to trigger the association chain is enough. Or maybe it isn't anymore for people who never actually use their brains.
This constant sharing of everything also eliminates the need for speaking to each other. If there's nothing left to talk about, why talk at all? That "smalltalk" thing ("how was your day?", "what did you do on the weekend?", etc.) is a good conversation starter and from there you can go into deeper topics. You know, you don't usually start talking to people who aren't already best friends with "so I thought that Aristotle was actually wrong on the law of the excluded third, at least in some cases I can think of" and neither do you initiate a new contact with "let's marry and have kids" if you're not a psychopath or read too much online bullshit advise.
Lack of information has been overlooked as a positive thing when it gives reason for communication.
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Blocking your SO on social media is possibly the best one-liner relationship advise I can hand out.
TEEN HORNINESS IS NOT A CRIME (Score:1)
No shit. ... Peak Digital. (Score:4, Insightful)
What astonishes me as a Type-A 80ies computer kid and Nerd/Geek is how the modern digital age has turned younger "normal" people into nerdier versions of myself back then. We also have 1st-world material abundance which does have some strange effects on manners, behaviour and overall socialising.
Don't get me wrong: digital media and communication is a neat thing if it's a safe space for the shunned and excluded, the kids that would rather be smart than popular (here a must-read on this from the great Silicon Valley investor Paul Graham [paulgraham.com]). But seeing a majority lose their social skills and become whiny ADHD wussies just like I was at times doesn't feel so right, especially since easy social media gives the village idiots a tool to find each other and spread non-sense, enabling the intarweb to sink to a common low rather than raising everybody.
I think we've basically already reached what some digerati have started calling "Peak Digital" a few years back. The novelty effect of smartphones is gone, they've become a utility. The problem with handing them to kids to early is that children then don't learn to handle their body. That surely has negative influence on their mental and physical well-being and on their ability to physically socialise.
I call BS (Score:1)
A teenager with internet access and a box of tissues is never lonely.
It's the anxiety epidemic. (Score:2, Insightful)
Smartphones are just a symptom. One of many.
The core problem is that anxiety and lack of confidence have massively grown, and nobody recognizes it as a problem.
It is the source of many other problem as well. Like being obsessed with "simplifying" things instead of getting more powerful and being able to handle more. Hence iPhones and similar digital padded prison cells. And the obsession with security and safety, leading to anything from a surveillance state to growing SUV sales. Even the growing Nazi, Trum
Maybe? (Score:2)
Really? Also parents are away from kids because of those smartphones...
"Seems I'm not alone at being alone" (Score:2)
Perhaps there's also a factor of people expressing such feelings more nowadays, ten years ago, it was still acceptable to tell the kids to suck it up. For better or for worse... In this case, I think it's for the better, but often I feel we're bringing up a whole generation of whiners.
COPPA laws (Score:2)
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COPPA applies to children under 13. This study covers teens.
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Really? (Score:2)
" Lunchrooms and hallways, formerly raucous places, have in recent years fallen silent as teens have turned to their devices."
And the problem is ...?
Who's The Who? (Score:2)
Counterexample (Score:2)
I didn't have any friends before I had a cellphone either.
My kid is ok (Score:2)
My kid is ok at least. She has friends she can hang out with and use electronic devices together.
Phones are the SYMPTOM, not the cause. (Score:4, Interesting)
Kids turn to phones because they are lonely, not the other way around.
Smartphones connect you with your friends that are TOO FAR AWAY.
The question should be why are the friends too far away.
Several potential causes of the problem are:
1) Poor suburb design. Suburbs designed for cars means no way to walk or bike anywhere out of your inner community. Those winding cul-de-sacs? They are great to slow down speeding cars, but turn a bike ride to a friend's house from a 15 minute ride into a 1 hour ride. Mom should not and cannot be driving you everywhere.
2) Bussing kids. When your kid busses to school rather than walks, that means their friends from school are not close enough to walk to.
3) Cliches. Kids are more cliquish than ever. They are looking to make friends based on uncommon common interests. While this may be good for their own personal development, it makes it harder to be friends with the kids that happen to live nearby.
I do not have a solution to most of these problems. That is, am not saying to stop bussing or to make your kids interested in more generic topics. (Although better sub-urb design with as many bike paths built as streets and food and entertainment centers at the entrance to the suburbs would be a good idea).
Instead I am saying that phones are a result of the problem, not the cause of the problem. Attacking the phones will NOT make people less lonely.
Carts found to cause horses (Score:2)
Using smartphones could be a coping mechanism for other bullshit that is more messy and complex, like helicopter parents, or pedestrian-hostile urban design, or opportunity-depriving poverty, or increased surveillance in schools, or training kids to fear first and explore never, or just plain "kids these days are bad, not like when I was there age" prejudices.
Re:It could be smartphones or it could be (Score:5, Informative)
The study was not conducted in the year(s) where we had coronavirus.
A 2 minute read would've pointed that out to you.
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Read the article??? Ain't nobody got time for that!
You don't need to do that. The first sentence of the summary will do.
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The first sentence of the summary will do.
Lol, the summary? Who has time to read that? I've got to go make more posts about 5g vaccines on facebook!
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Come on man, it's in the first sentence that the study was between 2012 and 2018.
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Maybe we should start making feature length headlines?
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A "smartphone" is far more a handheld computer that, almost incidentally, can also make phone calls. The only app that really links the "smart" part (99%) with the "phone" part (1%) is the contact list.