Re: OT: End the Phone-Based Childhood Now

[Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 7:09 PM Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> wrote:
>
> Jeffrey Walton wrote:
>
> > Fascinating reading here:
> > <https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/03/teen-childhood-smartphone-use-mental-health-effects/677722/>.
> > It completely explains why GenZ are having so many problems
> > with adulthood. Smartphones and Social Media are
> > the culprits.
>
> Society is the problem where you are either an elite prospect
> football player, a professional carpenter/construction worker,
> _or_ you don't get to do anything, ever.

The article did not discuss employment or socio-economics, other than to say:

    The most recent Gallup data show that American teens spend about five
    hours a day just on social-media platforms (including watching videos
    on TikTok and YouTube). Add in all the other phone- and screen-based
    activities, and the number rises to somewhere between seven and nine
    hours a day, on average. The numbers are even higher in single-parent
    and low-income families, and among Black, Hispanic, and Native American
    families.

    These very high numbers do not include time spent in front of screens
    for school or homework, nor do they include all the time adolescents
    spend paying only partial attention to events in the real world while
    thinking about what they’re missing on social media or waiting for
    their phones to ping. Pew reports that in 2022, one-third of teens said
    they were on one of the major social-media sites “almost constantly,”
    and nearly half said the same of the internet in general. For these
    heavy users, nearly every waking hour is an hour absorbed, in full or
    in part, by their devices.

So the problem with GenZ seems to be how they are growing up and what
they are spending their time on; and not their job (they are teens!),
and not society around them (which they withdraw from).

Jeff