Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?

[anticlimatic]

More Lonely, Fewer 'Friends', Less Sex - Have Smartphones Destroyed A Generation? | Zero Hedge

Ive been skeptical of smartphones ever since they came out, and held out myself on getting one until as late as 2012. I know that what we think we consciously want right now is not always what we actually want subconsciously, so anything that's instantly gratifying without any clear long term rewards always gives me pause. It took a while for the data to finally reflect and validate my initial concerns, but alas here we are.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

I don't disagree, but without further evidence, I'm apprehensive. Correlation does not always equal causation. What other potential variables, trends, developments, etc might also be related?

 

[anticlimatic]

I don't disagree, but without further evidence, I'm apprehensive. Correlation does not always equal causation. What other potential variables, trends, developments, etc might also be related?

Innovative stagnation? Recession? The Obama era?

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Innovative stagnation? Recession? The Obama era?

Now we're talking. And don't forget the F word.

 

[magpie]

I don't think smartphones are capable of destroying a generation. I do think people are overly-addicted to their own detriment, but that's not exactly unusual. Each generation deals with something similar in one way or another.

 

[Lark]

Would that it were that simple I'd say.

People just imagine that if they shut of all their devices they'd be able to achieve a lot more with the time that they would have instead, in reality its unlikely, does anyone remember accomplishing a lot before their invention? Or was there some other diversion instead? Maybe people arent imagining it and TV used to be better than it is now and formerly could have given mobile devices a run for their money?

 

[Coriolis]

I don't disagree, but without further evidence, I'm apprehensive. Correlation does not always equal causation. What other potential variables, trends, developments, etc might also be related?

Some possible contributing factors:

• General overscheduling of students with activities (sports, lessons, college classes, volunteering, etc.)
• Less time/attention from parents due to need to work more jobs/hours
• Teens working to help family and/or save for college
• Increased cost of auto insurance for teens/burdensome licensing requirements

Also, I'm not sure a decline in high schoolers having sex is a bad thing. No harm done saving it for later when they are more mature, and focusing on their education and extracurriculars while still in school

All that being said, I do think smartphones have a definite negative effect, and not only on teens. People can't plan any more; or perhaps I should say, they don't want to bother. Everything is done on the fly, enabled by the ability to look up nearly anything right away on a smartphone. People assume others are active online to the same degree they are, and rely on social media to transmit info that previously would have taken a phone call or email (or, heaven forbid, a snail mail letter). Language has eroded with the rise of texting. People don't make provisions for an emergency or even think through possible situations, since they can always call for help, any time, anywhere. And people have thrown their privacy out the window by putting so much of their personal lives online, a development not caused by smartphones, but exponentially escalated by them.

Yes, one can just as readily list positive effects of smartphones. I am not going to draw any broad conclusion here about whether the pros outweigh the cons. But full disclosure: I still have a tracfone, with a removable battery, that makes phone calls and awkwardly texts.

 

[á´…eparted]

Some possible contributing factors:

• General overscheduling of students with activities (sports, lessons, college classes, volunteering, etc.)
• Less time/attention from parents due to need to work more jobs/hours
• Teens working to help family and/or save for college
• Increased cost of auto insurance for teens/burdensome licensing requirements

Also, I'm not sure a decline in high schoolers having sex is a bad thing. No harm done saving it for later when they are more mature, and focusing on their education and extracurriculars while still in school

All that being said, I do think smartphones have a definite negative effect, and not only on teens. People can't plan any more; or perhaps I should say, they don't want to bother. Everything is done on the fly, enabled by the ability to look up nearly anything right away on a smartphone. People assume others are active online to the same degree they are, and rely on social media to transmit info that previously would have taken a phone call or email (or, heaven forbid, a snail mail letter). Language has eroded with the rise of texting. People don't make provisions for an emergency or even thinks through possible situations, since they can always call for help, any time, anywhere. And people have thrown their privacy out the window by putting so much of their personal lives online, a development not caused by smartphones, but exponentially escalated by them.

Yes, one can just as readily list positive effects of smartphones. I am not going to draw any broad conclusion here about whether the pros outweigh the cons. But full disclosure: I still have a tracfone, with a removable battery, that makes phone calls and awkwardly texts.

I got my first smart phone in 2012, and up until that point I was heavily against them. I didn't want to be "dependent" on it, and I had associated with shallow selfie instagram culture and wanted no part of it. Eventually though after witnessing my PhD adviser for many months derive a lot of utility from it (and from having had an ipod touch for a year prior to this) I saw that it could be a benefit in some ways. Mix in I didn't want my dad to pay my cellphone bill anymore, I dumped my dumb phone and got a smart phone. I quickly fell in love with it because, well, there's so much you can do with it. It's a mini-computer that you always have on hand.

I have made a conscious effort over the years to not be dependent upon it for information though. I still make a point to memorize my schedules, I have not allowed it to "offload" knowledge very much, and while I do use it for social media, it has not really replaced my computer and what not. Granted, at this point if I lost my phone (never happened, doubt it ever will) I'd be in a logistical snag because the consumer world has wrapped itself around phones. I use 2-point authentication for a number of my online accounts, including my bank for many purposes so it would be difficult to deal with not having it. In many ways phones have become electronic keys. I appreciate the convienence that smartphones bring me, but also acknowledge they can be a psychological detriment and distraction if one uses them too much. When I notice too much compulsive use I will put it in my desk drawer.

As for kids now adays growing up on smart phones, my gut tells me they are doing something(s) that aren't good. But I don't think I can trust my gut fully with this. Smartphones have been designed around exploiting human psychology and making us "feel good", much more so than computers are capable of doing. That is a factor that sets phones apart. Despite that, there just isn't enough robust research out there to support how damaging they could be (particularly to kids), but if history is anything to go by, they probably aren't much worse than TVs.

I think social media is more to blame than the phones themselves; they're simply a device. Because one can socialize online more easily than IRL, there is lessened push/motivation to socialize IRL. In the past it's all you could really get. Now you can subistitute and avoid the discomfort/risk involved with doing it in person.

Ultimately though, the next generation is going to be fine (psychologically speaking). They always are. I am refusing to allow the temptation of becoming one of those adults who looks down on younger generations to take hold. It's neither fair, nor right.

 

[biohazard]

This trend started to happen around 2004-2005 according to the data above. Not cause of the IPhone in 2007. So that's really off the mark.

 

[Smilephantomhive]

I think lack of real life community is the real problem.

 

[Stigmata]

I'd be interested to see the post smart phone era effect on literacy rates -- I imagine the rate of adolescent illiteracy has to be lower than any previous generation by comparison, simply due to the increasingly younger ages that children are being exposed to handheld technology.

Also, is less teenaged sex (pregnancies) necessarily a bad thing? A certain amount of that is attributed to lack of stimulation and lack of proper sex education and alternatives.

Say what negatives you will, I'll gladly sacrifice whatever is necessary to be able to carry a device with seemingly infinite levels of knowledge at the mercy of my fingertips and imagination. Despite any loss of socialization, I still rule them an overall net-positive.

 

[á´…eparted]

I'd be interested to see the post smart phone era effect on literacy rates -- I imagine the rate of adolescent illiteracy has to be lower than any previous generation by comparison, simply due to the increasingly younger ages that children are being exposed to handheld technology.

Also, is less teenaged sex (pregnancies) necessarily a bad thing? A certain amount of that is attributed to lack of stimulation and lack of proper sex education and alternatives.

Say what negatives you will, I'll gladly sacrifice whatever is necessary to be able to carry a device with seemingly infinite levels of knowledge at the mercy of my fingertips and imagination. Despite any loss of socialization, I still rule them an overall net-positive.

Seriously. I use my wikipedia app just as much as I use Facebook on my phone.

I fucking LOVE wikipedia! <3

 

[deathwarmedup]

I have still to buy one. Apart from considering it as a portable library when on backpacking holidays, it's never crossed my mind.

 

[Lark]

Smartphones, or rather a smart phone, got that town in Germany into some sort of a child murder time loop after that guy steampunked a power source for that one abandoned by the guy from the future who got stranded in the past, that is unless the whole other clockwork machine which interacts with it and sent someone to the future has changed everything. Though whether that was the future or a pocket dimension is up for debate.

 

[Lark]

 

[anticlimatic]

This trend started to happen around 2004-2005 according to the data above. Not cause of the IPhone in 2007. So that's really off the mark.

I noticed that too, which makes me think the Internet is more the root of the problem- since that's about when casual non-nerdy type people started really discovering its usefulness on PCs (which everyone had)- I think smartphones just heavily enabled and exacerbated internet use. Most positive elements in life are balanced by an equal and opposing negative- and the Internet has a lot of positives.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Some possible contributing factors:

• General overscheduling of students with activities (sports, lessons, college classes, volunteering, etc.)
• Less time/attention from parents due to need to work more jobs/hours
• Teens working to help family and/or save for college
• Increased cost of auto insurance for teens/burdensome licensing requirements

Also, I'm not sure a decline in high schoolers having sex is a bad thing. No harm done saving it for later when they are more mature, and focusing on their education and extracurriculars while still in school

All that being said, I do think smartphones have a definite negative effect, and not only on teens. People can't plan any more; or perhaps I should say, they don't want to bother. Everything is done on the fly, enabled by the ability to look up nearly anything right away on a smartphone. People assume others are active online to the same degree they are, and rely on social media to transmit info that previously would have taken a phone call or email (or, heaven forbid, a snail mail letter). Language has eroded with the rise of texting. People don't make provisions for an emergency or even thinks through possible situations, since they can always call for help, any time, anywhere. And people have thrown their privacy out the window by putting so much of their personal lives online, a development not caused by smartphones, but exponentially escalated by them.

Yes, one can just as readily list positive effects of smartphones. I am not going to draw any broad conclusion here about whether the pros outweigh the cons. But full disclosure: I still have a tracfone, with a removable battery, that makes phone calls and awkwardly texts.

via Imgflip Meme Generator

 

[Lark]

Some possible contributing factors:

• General overscheduling of students with activities (sports, lessons, college classes, volunteering, etc.)
• Less time/attention from parents due to need to work more jobs/hours
• Teens working to help family and/or save for college
• Increased cost of auto insurance for teens/burdensome licensing requirements

Also, I'm not sure a decline in high schoolers having sex is a bad thing. No harm done saving it for later when they are more mature, and focusing on their education and extracurriculars while still in school

All that being said, I do think smartphones have a definite negative effect, and not only on teens. People can't plan any more; or perhaps I should say, they don't want to bother. Everything is done on the fly, enabled by the ability to look up nearly anything right away on a smartphone. People assume others are active online to the same degree they are, and rely on social media to transmit info that previously would have taken a phone call or email (or, heaven forbid, a snail mail letter). Language has eroded with the rise of texting. People don't make provisions for an emergency or even thinks through possible situations, since they can always call for help, any time, anywhere. And people have thrown their privacy out the window by putting so much of their personal lives online, a development not caused by smartphones, but exponentially escalated by them.

Yes, one can just as readily list positive effects of smartphones. I am not going to draw any broad conclusion here about whether the pros outweigh the cons. But full disclosure: I still have a tracfone, with a removable battery, that makes phone calls and awkwardly texts.

The scheduling and extensive activity, curricular and extracurricular, I actually think are good things and positive developments. I think the decline in sexual activity is just one early positive indicator of its impact. While its opinion rather than something I can evidence, I like to think its got something to do with an increased awareness of options, available choices and the emergence of proper prioritisation of what life has to offer.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with adopting a "time enough for that, I'll get around to it" attitude to sexual activity but there's also nothing wrong with adopting the opposite point of view with respect of gaining fitness, becoming healthy, establishing some (hopefully lasting) friendships and contacts, developing some skills and hobbies and interests besides a kind of low grade, toxic hedonism.

Its no where near where it could be, I think its a positive development despite all the criticism there is of life logging as a neo-liberal phenomenon and top loading of skills as just reflective of a job market characterised by vanishing opportunities and capricious employers hiring and firing on the basis of who may be expedient or amusing because of their personal goals, interests or skills for a season.

 

[anticlimatic]

I'd be interested to see the post smart phone era effect on literacy rates -- I imagine the rate of adolescent illiteracy has to be lower than any previous generation by comparison, simply due to the increasingly younger ages that children are being exposed to handheld technology. Also, is less teenaged sex (pregnancies) necessarily a bad thing? A certain amount of that is attributed to lack of stimulation and lack of proper sex education and alternatives. Say what negatives you will, I'll gladly sacrifice whatever is necessary to be able to carry a device with seemingly infinite levels of knowledge at the mercy of my fingertips and imagination. Despite any loss of socialization, I still rule them an overall net-positive.

I'd still rule it as a net negative myself. Information is great and all but is it really worth good mental health? Is it really necessary to have an answer to everything with no effort all of the time? A healthy sense of wonder is paramount to happiness, and denying ourselves microdoses of absent curiosity to speculate on our own adds up.

Lower teen sex rates is a positive symptom of a worse cause; like eating less doughnuts because cancer has robbed you of your appetite.

 

[ceecee]

I'd be interested to see the post smart phone era effect on literacy rates -- I imagine the rate of adolescent illiteracy has to be lower than any previous generation by comparison, simply due to the increasingly younger ages that children are being exposed to handheld technology.

Also, is less teenaged sex (pregnancies) necessarily a bad thing? A certain amount of that is attributed to lack of stimulation and lack of proper sex education and alternatives.

Say what negatives you will, I'll gladly sacrifice whatever is necessary to be able to carry a device with seemingly infinite levels of knowledge at the mercy of my fingertips and imagination. Despite any loss of socialization, I still rule them an overall net-positive.

Yeah I don't see everything on that list as a negative (teen sex is one, don't conservatives want that or are just going to disagree to own libs?). Every kid over 16 I know has a license. Driving is another matter. It's not because they don't want to, it's because it's incredibly expensive to insure a teenage driver in this state. On the other side, I think they are lonely, I think they are easily depressed because of it and they absolutely aren't getting enough sleep.