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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   3747 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 12, 2023

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This is probably one of the main sources of my techno-pessimism, and anti-transhumanism. I get that it's hard to get away from a screen these days, I get how parents eventually succumb to the stupid arms race of "but all my friends already have phones" (though I think there's a special place in hell for the ones that hand them out to very young kids as pacifiers), but how is it that, at a minimum, schools don't force kids to put away their phones to a locker for as long as they're in the building? When I think too much about it, I'm prone to go full-tinfoil (though that's not unique to this subject).

Screens are amazingly useful when used in isolation moderation. Also, restricting them too much can lead to social isolation of the child involved (think about all of your child's friends being on instagram, while they are not). It's really a 'dose makes the poison' issue.

I think screens are useful to teachers and parents as a sedative (and as educational tools), but likely because the long term impacts of overuse have not yet been properly studied and disseminated in the wider community. This reminds me of similar issues like ultra processed foods (cheap and quick to prepare) vs obesity, or convenient modern plastic packaging vs endocrine disruption through microplastics. Tobacco vs cancer is probably the ur-example.

Basically it seems to be a common theme that there is some game changing technology introduced into our environment where the drawbacks only became apparent after a couple of generations, by which point the damage had been done.

I'm not some anarcho-primativist who advocates a Return to Monke, but I think its a good idea to always keep an eye towards living in a manner that our bodies were designed for. Our environment was meant to accommodate us, not the other way around.

Edit: moderation.

You'd think there would be a demand for private schools where the children are not allowed to have social media accounts at all. Anyone caught with one is expelled and the parents are expected to police this at home.

With social isolation it strikes me a lot more as "race towards the bottom", which is why I'm for banning it in places where a ban is enforceable on the entire social circle (it's not like not like that constitutes the majority of contexts the kid will find themselves in, anyway). I can see the educational potential in the technology, but quite frankly most of it is going to waste in our schools system, and with the way it's set up, I don't see it ever being used to it's full extent, so I don't think it's worth the negative impact on attention spans, for example.

As for using screens as a sedative - like I said, a special place in hell...

Whoops, I wrote isolation rather than moderation (fixed). I agree with your post. I think its important to create tech free zones for kids to interact naturally where you can. They need to learn social skills in a low stakes environment. Otherwise you get really awkward adults doing all sorts of things at the local Meetup.

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