- Books liberated me from a narrow world when I was young. Phones and laptops do the same job today
...
Even the University College London experts who led the study on screen time are reluctant to issue guidelines on where to set the threshold. Setting daily limits, they say, is “not the right focus”. Instead parents should be thinking: “Are you getting enough sleep, enough exercise, are you spending enough time with your family?”
All the hand-wringing also seems to miss another important dimension to the debate: limiting screen time assumes a certain degree of economic stability and social capital in the households that enforce the rules. For single parents who cannot afford childcare, for families isolated from friends or support networks, for children and adolescents caught in the middle of domestic dramas, and for women stifled by oppressive relationships or parents, screens are a boon. They are a window on to the outside world...Screens can liberate. They can, as books did for me, give blessed relief in a world where there is a poverty of leisure options.
Mostly curious to hear what other people think about screen time in general - This article is fine, but I'm hoping it can be the spark for a more substantive discussion. What do you guys think? Do we spend too much time with our screens? Do our children? What's your take?
As a sidenote, I had a tough time finding articles that don't argue screens are satanic tablets hellbent on killing children, so I apologize if you don't like the one that I picked. If you think it's shit, please share a better one with me!
This class of article has been written since ... well ... Socrates, probably? (Judging from cgod comment. :) Every new technology is blamed for the data it transmits. Printing on paper can transmit bad ideas, so the printer should be punished for the books he prints. Anyone can pick up a telephone and say anything they want over the line, so the telephone company must Do Something About It. Anyone can post any words they want on the internet, so the internet (or Twitter, or Facebook, or YouTube, etc) must police/assess/contextualize every bit of content their users create. The screen is the transmission medium. As a passive actor with the ability to represent any content, it is easy to point at and blame, because it diverts the conversation from the actual problem: People suck. People suck even more when there are no controls or editors. Newspapers used to get letters to the Editor that were full of crazy and hateful things. And they chose not to print them. Same with television programs, magazines, and movies. Blaming "screen time" is a dodge. An easy way to seem thoughtful and concerned, without actually addressing the real issue that humans generally suck, and don't do well in large groups.
I don't think the internet is original in any way... it's disease is just spread more broadly more quickly. Prior to the web we had crazy zines... The Desert Rat, and the weird Jack Chick treatises, and punk rock mags. And flyers up on telephone poles, espousing crazy. But those were limited due to the distribution medium costing money. (Copies, postage, etc.) Prior to the web we had scam/spam phone calls. People calling at all hours of the day and night and trying to sell scams or products. The internet just makes those 'calls' almost zero cost. The internet has not presented us with new problems, as far as I can tell. Just hyper-scaled versions of our old problems... ... which all stem from most humans just simply being dicks.
Yeah sorry, I disagree. Crazy zines had a production and distribution cost. This was a barrier to entry that incentivized those who were willing to put in the effort and money to get their ideas across. They were also asymmetrical: there was information, it had to be sought out, it was consumed without considering the opinion of anyone but your close and immediate friends, and if you wished to interact with it you had to type something up, put it in the mail and hope for a response some day. Now we have "sub-tweets" where the tall dude from That '70s Show can put your angry disagreement with him in front of eighteen million people instantaneously. And what about mistakes? You sleep with the wrong guy. He tapes it. There's a VHS tape wandering around school that's awful and someone's going to get in trouble. Now? Now you sleep with the wrong guy and you're 8m views on Youporn by morning. Videos? There were channels, and they were run by large organizations, and they were held to standards by the government, and it took a lot of money and effort to get content on them. Reading Rainbow was canceled because it didn't have the ratings to scare up two million dollars a season. At less than 200,000 viewers per episode and 155 episodes, Reading Rainbow is at about 31 million "views." If you were to go look up "finger family" (you could, but you shouldn't - you really, really shouldn't) on Youtube you can find two videos with over a billion views each. And every time you watch Finger Family anything, you go down a bizarre rabbit hole of barely marginal content designed to please the algorithm. You and your buddies used to steal dad's beer and argue about whether or not Alice Cooper actually appeared on The Muppet Show. After all, there was no way to know. Now? Now you pass around deepfaked videos of Natalie Portman on Discord and argue about whether it's shooped I can tell by the pixels without any of you even knowing what each other look like. It's a new problem. We used to deal with social issues socially. Now we do it through this bizarre media where none of us are human. And it's not the same.
Until I see something refuting the studies that show screen time strongly linked to increased levels of depression and anxiety in children/teenagers, and also decreased attention span, I'll continue to be concerned. As far as I know the same link hasn't been shown for books. One could argue that kids who are already depressed/anxious just look at screens more, but that doesn't explain the massive increase of both in kids and teenagers over the past decade.
Maybe the history of new media and the reaction of the thought leaders throughout history could give you pause. Socrates warned that the written word would ruin our ability to remember and reason. It's my favorite cautionary tale warning us against the dangers of new media. I've made a list a few times of the things that are going to ruin the youth and lead to the downfall of society here on hubski before, so here's a quick few. Old people are generally afraid of shit they don't understand and our generation is no different Comic Books Television Movies Video Games Drugs Dancing Rock and Roll R&B (mostly a danger for white women) Rap Any number of classic works of literature Another one of my favorites was the time a doctor testified to a congressional panal that the Rolling Stones song Paint it Black's beat was contrary to the beat of the human heart and playing it on the radio might cause the death of countless youths. That being said, I'm pretty concerned about when and under what terms I'm going to let my child use social media. I know that I don't understand how young people use it or its dangers. It's a stance born out of fearful ignorance and she'll probably be smart enough to work around any roadblocks I try and put in her way by the time she is a teen.
Best way to deal with introducing things you don't understand to your child is through teaching skills to deal with unknown and uncomfortable situations! The majority of kids are going online without any guidance, and the majority of kids are going to turn out fine. If you want to hedge your bets, give her some knowledge about the types of scams she might encounter, and the type of people she needs to be wary of. Your awareness of the situation makes me think you'll do a great job, for what it counts :)
I'll just mention that Google has a pretty decent game to teach internet safety called Be Internet Awesome. You can harp at your kid all you want about using good passwords or what is safe sharing of information and what isn't but after they have battled a troll over control of their personal info the the ideas really start to sink in. We try to be pretty upfront about challenges she'll face in life but it's the curve balls that usually throw you for a loop. I'm sure she'll have to face a bunch horrible, strange and mean stuff in her life but hopefully she'll be resilient and self aware enough to get through it.
You'll have to link those specific studies in question, because it's possible their methodology is flawed. Rates of anxiety and depression are up across the board and it's not so easy to authoritatively link it to using technology. Increased screen time can be a sign of idleness which isn't necessarily technology's fault. What we call anxiety and depression was for previous generations being "stressed out", and there are a myriad of social/environmental/economic factors driving people to despair these days.
It seems pretty unanimous to me. It's more than a few studies. And suicide rates are up among young people, too, so it's more than relabeling something that already existed. 1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211335518301827 2. https://academic.oup.com/sleep/article/41/suppl_1/A298/4988845 3. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2167702617723376 4. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-11/sdsu-stm110917.php 5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15060216 6. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743515000316 7. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0119607 8. https://akademiai.com/doi/abs/10.1556/2006.4.2015.010 9. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032716303196 10. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563216308445
I think it's disingenuous to say "Suicide rates are up, so it must be this one factor I've found." I also wish you'd do a little analysis for your audience on the studies you're showing us, and a little more work reading your own articles. I found the following list from references in your provided studies: Reinforcement or Displacement? the Reciprocity of FTF, IM, and SNS Communication and Their Effects on Loneliness and Life Satisfaction: How does online social networking enhance life satisfaction?: Friend Networking Sites and Their Relationship to Adolescents' Well-Being and Social Self-Esteem.: (This one isn't "Social Media Good!", but it clearly shows that the research is not unanimous) Screen time and young children: Promoting health and development in a digital world.: Development and validation of the Problematic Media Use Measure: A parent report measure of screen media “addiction” in children. ... “Our study has demonstrated that there is more to it than number of hours. What matters most is whether screen use causes problems in other areas of life or has become an all-consuming activity.” Now...Why am I leaving such a huge comment in a thread like this? Because I wanted this to be a space for discussion rather than a list of articles you agree with and a declaration that discussion is over. The research isn't unanimous, and it isn't finished. We know that excessive screen-time is bad, but with caveats - that it can be beneficial in small doses, that some types of screen-time aren't bad, and that it can actually have a positive affect on sociability under specific circumstances. I want this discussion to be nuanced. More nuanced than "The research is unanimous, screens are bad." Let's talk about benefits, detriments, and our personal experiences if we're going to talk at all. Let's not say "Suicide is up, and I blame technology."Does communication on social network sites (SNSs) or instant messengers (IMs) reinforce or displace face-to-face (FtF) communication, and how do the 3 channels affect loneliness and life satisfaction? Using cross-lagged structural equation modeling in a longitudinal and representative sample from Germany, we found that SNS communication increased both FtF and IM communication 6 months later. Likewise, IM communication at T1 increased SNS communication at T2. FtF, SNS, and IM communication did not affect loneliness, and FtF and IM communication did not change life satisfaction. However, communication on SNSs slightly increased life satisfaction. Thus, the data indicated that conversing via SNSs and IM has a mainly reinforcing effect and that communicating via SNSs can enhance life satisfaction several months later.
The purpose of this study is to examine whether supportive interactions on social networking sites mediate the influence of SNS use and the number of SNS friends on perceived social support, affect, sense of community, and life satisfaction. Employing momentary sampling, the current study also looked at the relationship between supportive interaction and immediate affect after the interaction over a period of 5 days. An analysis of 339 adult participants revealed a positive relationship between supportive interaction and positive affect after the interaction.
We conducted a survey among 881 adolescents (10-19-year-olds) who had an online profile on a Dutch friend networking site. Using structural equation modeling, we found that the frequency with which adolescents used the site had an indirect effect on their social self-esteem and well-being. The use of the friend networking site stimulated the number of relationships formed on the site, the frequency with which adolescents received feedback on their profiles, and the tone (i.e., positive vs. negative) of this feedback. Positive feedback on the profiles enhanced adolescents' social self-esteem and well-being, whereas negative feedback decreased their self-esteem and well-being.
Beginning at about 2 years, quality TV—well-designed, age-appropriate programs with specific educational goals—can provide an additional route to early language and literacy for children. Quality programming also fosters aspects of cognitive development, including positive racial attitudes and imaginative play. Early evidence suggests that interactive media, specifically applications that involve contingent responses from an adult (i.e., timely reactions to what a child says or does), can help children retain taught information. This responsiveness, when coupled with age-appropriate content, timing and intensity of action, can teach new words to 24-month-olds. There is early evidence that interactive ‘learn-to-read’ apps and e-books can build early literacy by providing practice with letters, phonics and word recognition. However, while screens may help with language learning when quality content is co-viewed and discussed with a parent or caregiver, preschoolers learn best (i.e., in expressive and vocabulary terms) from live, direct and dynamic interactions with caring adults.
The current study reports on the development and validation of a parent-report measure of one potential aspect of children’s problematic use—screen media addiction—via the Problematic Media Use Measure (PMUM). Items were based on the 9 criteria for Internet gaming disorder in the DSM–5.
“Typically, researchers and clinicians quantify or consider the amount of screen time as of paramount importance in determining what is normal or not normal or healthy or unhealthy,” said lead author Sarah Domoff, who did the research while a postdoctoral research fellow at University of Michigan Center for Human Growth and Development.
I appreciate this point very much. We don’t know yet. And while as parents we try to navigate what we think/feel might be best for our kids, all of this stuff adjusts over time as we gather more information.The research isn't unanimous, and it isn't finished.
The author, arguing that burkas are grrrrrrreat in 2010 "Screen time" used to be television. For the first 20 years the argument was that kids could watch as much TV as they wanted 'cuz what could go wrong? By the '70s the argument amongst the general public was "less TV" while the argument among academics was "co-viewing". And that's pretty much where the "let them consume as much Internet as they want" argument falls apart - you're offloading the education of your child onto a system you have no control over. Children's TV is largely designed to sell toys, with moral and social arguments and examples a secondary concern (one in which the creators of kid's TV have no training whatsoever - take it from me, I'm friends with the showrunners of several current hits). The Internet of children is largely designed to capture pageviews. But more importantly, it's not designed for "co-viewing" - you're not sitting there contextualizing everything your kid sees. A book is not interactive. Not only that, but the content of a book is set the minute it's printed. Most parents would argue against sitting your 8-year-old with a copy of Fifty Shades of Gray but, should your kid bring home a copy, you can have a discussion about what it's about and why. With the internet, their copy of Ladybug Girl can turn into Naked Lunch before you know what's happened. The Internet is neither good, bad nor indifferent - it's a space that forms your child. I'm not a fan of leaving my child unsupervised anywhere I can't vouch for. The author is arguing that poor people shouldn't be shamed for letting their kids dive into their phones when there's nothing better to do; on the contrary, society should be shamed that there's nothing better for kids to do than dive into their phones and that there aren't any options for poor parents than letting Youtube babysit their kids.The burka can be the most versatile of capsule wardrobes. The uniform black costume has a charming egalitarianism about it, and is both a social and physical leveller. Once social status or physical beauty cannot be established, all sorts of hierarchies are flattened.
All the hand-wringing also seems to miss another important dimension to the debate: limiting screen time assumes a certain degree of economic stability and social capital in the households that enforce the rules. For single parents who cannot afford childcare, for families isolated from friends or support networks, for children and adolescents caught in the middle of domestic dramas, and for women stifled by oppressive relationships or parents, screens are a boon. They are a window on to the outside world. A screen is not only a distraction: it is a rolling, cushioning conversation with the best friend of a teenage girl who has moved to a new country. Screens can liberate. They can, as books did for me, give blessed relief in a world where there is a poverty of leisure options.
I'm not going to comment on the rest of your post because I think you make some excellent points, and I don't really have much to add. ...But did you read the entirety of your article on the Burka Ban? The part you quoted was pretty divorced from the actual message she was trying to send: Don't just reduce the article to "Burka good," she's clearly advocating that a woman's choice is the most important factor in this discussion. I'm assuming you did this on purpose and, if so, the way you ripped that context away from her in an attempt to frame her worldview as prescriptive and oppressive is incredibly distasteful.Given the choice, I would never have embraced the niqab. My initial teenage revulsion was inspired by the fact that it was mandatory. Implicit in any law that proscribes women’s dress lies the most sinister, ideologically myopic assumption that a woman cannot be trusted not to succumb to pressure to dress a certain way...I do not see a potential ban on the burka in the UK as any different to the oppression in Saudi Arabia in terms of how it assumes that the way a woman dresses is never really down to her...To force a female to remove her veil is just as subjugating as forcing her to cover.
We've been getting along so far. Are you sure you want to call me "prescriptive and oppressive" and "incredibly distasteful?" 'cuz she also said But wait - here's the ringer: Yet absolutely no effort whatsoever was made to make room for the idea that maybe, juuuuuuuust maybe, the women who wear burqas in Europe aren't entirely 100% in charge of their own choices. This is an author who argued that once she'd been forced to wear a burqa for three years, she figured out the charms it has when she can wear it to the convenience store rather than changing out of her track gear. Sure - maybe I'll throw on a burqa too. But that's my choice. And in an environment where parents can choose to sit their kids in front of Youtube for eight hours a day without suffering any blowback, a lot of them will. Kid nextdoor watches videos on his phone all day. Has since he was probably six. He's twelve now. He thinks signs are alive and wonders how buses know to stop to pick people up. That's the sort of absentee education you can get when your parents abdicate your entertainment to an algorithm. Me? I was latchkey. nothing but me and cable TV between 3 and 7 pm 5 days a week. Did I get cheated? fuck yeah. But boy howdy if eight-year-old me had four hours of Youtube to stare at every day? I'd probably have a Ben Shapiro tattoo by the age of 9. So it's worth bringing up the author's false equivalency, her easy championing of questionable positions, and her selective argumentation. And if you wanna call that "incredibly distasteful" then we aren't friends anymore.My eyes stung with tears of rage and shame. Most of all, I felt infantilised, stripped of the right to dress how I pleased due simply to the fact that I was a woman, and hence, purely a sexual object to be concealed lest it should inflame desire. For the first few days, it felt almost comical, like some absurd game of macabre fancy dress.
I became anti-social, hardly able to wait until I got home before tearing off the ghastly garb.
Over the next three years, however, my opposition gradually eroded. Initially an ugly burden, the abaya and niqab became a comfort and, eventually, a delight. It was a relief not to have to think about what to wear.
When there is little option in what you can wear, the smallest details start to count.
As the feet were the only part of the body one could legitimately flaunt, a good pedicure was not only necessary, it was an integral part of the ensemble.
Now I live in the UK again and work for a private equity firm, I would never wear it to the office. But, as a fashionable 29-year-old, I sometimes pop it on to go to the corner shop rather than show the world my tracksuit bottoms.
Given the choice, I would never have embraced the niqab. My initial teenage revulsion was inspired by the fact that it was mandatory.
I don't want to argue with you, and I'm sorry I started an argument! I shouldn't have said that you were being "incredibly distasteful". I felt frustrated (and a little confused) that you were discrediting an author I never claimed to defend on an article she wrote nine years ago - especially because I anticipated that my article wouldn't be popular and encouraged people to provide better ones. Maybe this is all my own problem. I don't want you to think I'm saying you were the bad guy here, but I want you to understand why I reacted the way I did. I'm going to keep a better handle on that in the future. You write really great content, I don't want to miss that. To your point that women who wear burqas in Europe aren't entirely 100% in charge of their own choices, my point was that banning women's clothing items will also leave European woman not 100% in charge of their own choices. I obviously don't like that the author (or anyone) has been forced to wear a burka, niqab, or hijab, but I agree that she doesn't seem totally objective about her own experiences. If I'm being reductive here, I'd love to read an article from the opposition if you've got one you prefer. Anyway, I'm sorry I pissed you off by being such an ass. I'll move our next conversation back towards a place in which I don't insult you, and one where we can keep being friends.
Thanks for the apology. I appreciate that. There's a new trend these days to argue that facts are facts and have no bias therefore you argue about the "facts" while studiously ignoring that the selection of facts is another matter. Particularly from the right: You argue that it's been colder in three select cities over the past two years therefore global warming is a hoax because global trends aren't the discussion here why can't you deal with the facts as they are presented? There's also a tendency to answer statistics with narrative because people have an easier time with narrative. "Scientific research indicates that global temperatures are increasing in direct correlation with a rise in global C02 concentrations, therefore C02 causes global warming." "Oh yeah? Well I opened eight bottles of Dr. Pepper in my room and it cooled down so CHECKMATE SCIENCE!" "Screen time" has been a problem since the invention of television. The first arguments that less television is better than more television came out about the time television showed up in the '50s. By calling it "this latest panic" and framing everything in terms of "this is my anecdata of one" is the rhetorical equivalent of saying "I reject your reality and substitute my own." It's something the author does a lot, often to absurd levels (Burqas are great!). Arguing that the style and factual choices of the author are biased is ethos rhetoric - the author does not have the moral or technical standing to present herself as an expert. Unfortunately modern Internet rhetoric is basically tearing each other down for our assembled echo chambers. Sherry Turkle has four books about the effects of screen time - the first written in 1984. Reframing a decades-long corpus of evidence as "the latest moral panic" is the sort of disingenuous move that needs to be called out. So I did.
There is an eyesight angle. But that applies to books and Legos as much as to screens.the only environmental factor that was strongly associated with risk was time spent outdoors.