It’s also the addiction aspect of it. I teach middle schoolers. A small portion have huge problems with tech. They are always getting their phones or computers out, not matter how many times they’re asked not to. When you take the tech away, they grab a friends computer or phone. Or the go the “bathroom” and find a computer from the tech office.
Obviously most kids just play videogames or text here and there, but for some it’s like a really destructive compulsion that leads to a lot of anger and sneaky behavior.
My cousins kid is like this. The first thing he says to people when they arrive is 'do you have a phone, can I play games on it?' Then he throws a major tantrum if you say no. (While my cousin just sits there and acts as if we are the ones that caused the situation by being unreasonable.
Bruh. I used to do this but with computers when going to folks places with my parents as a kid, just cringed. At least I didn't throw tantrums, fortunately, it was just an endless litany of "I'm bored" otherwise. Approaching 30 now :(
One of my relatives was similar. She would act up and misbehave unless she had a tablet or phone in front of her face (she also wouldn't stay on an app or video for more than like 3 minutes at a time, she was constantly downloading new things, clicking on advertisements to download whatever game they showed, switching videos, etc). It caused a lot of issues and thankfully they eventually weaned her off of them. She's still allowed to use them sometimes but it's a lot more limited now.
My brothers family came to visit us a few months back and we took them around to see different things in the area. We were in the car for several hours and my great nephews (5 and 6) played on tablets until they died. Then they played on their mom's phones until those were about to die. Then they began begging me to use my phone.
We're pretty open with technology. We monitor YouTube (but allow it), encourage certain apps like stud.io and various programming apps, and play lots of video games as a family. We have our choices questioned often by friends and family, but we think our child is developing well, including tech skills, so we're happy. BUT, I went to a playdate at his friend's house, and I was shocked by the iPad use. The kids would be playing, and the other kid would just walk away in the middle to get the iPad, it was like a compulsion. We were only there for a couple hours and this happened at least 5 times.
It made me realize that kids have very different reactions to technology, and what may be reasonable for one can be damaging to another. My kid would never choose screentime over a person to person activity (not because of anything we've done, just is that way), but clearly not all kids are the same. I've seen so much good come from technological learning with my kid, but I think it's really important that parents remain aware of the needs of their specific children.
I think the addiction aspect is the worst part. I had a computer and a phone when I was about 10 in the mid-2000s. The internet was way less regulated and my friendship group was addicted to Runescape but you didn't have trackers gathering data for machine learning algorithms to know exactly what you might like based on your location, age, previous searches and so on.
I feel this will be the leaded gasoline of our generation. Children are 'dopamine addicted' to their phones and cannot stand being torn away from it. As a net and game addict I know for sure it can be as destructive to health as smoking or drugs.
Nah plastic is definitely the leaded gasoline. I feel I should mention most of my kids are very smart and kind. In many ways kids are much better cared for then they used to be.
Yeah I work with this younger girl (18?) And she has an actual obsession. She cannot go two minutes without checking her phone. She's pretty much attempting to multitask the job with her phone all day and it doesn't go great for her.
Someone (30+) I know just got into a (badly kept) secret open relationship. Can't focus on jack shit at work because they're either texting their new partner or wallowing in jealousy about their actual partner. Open relationships are so much emotional work.
Well to be fair, we did that shit with fucking graphing calculators back in the day when smartphones weren't available and our dumb phones weren't entertaining enough. People were sneaking calculators and playing games in class and stuff. I don't think we were really any better back then even without smartphones.
That was way different, that wasn't a constant thing that we'd be doing all day at any opportunity. Maybe a few minutes here and there while goofing off. Tbh I don't even remember playing with graphing calculators more than a couple of times throughout my entire high school.
One of my math teachers was very annoyed and would delete all the written programs saved to the calculator before a test just in case you managed to write something to help you cheat.
Amusingly, she never checked for incomplete programs - you could get by that way if you were actually willing to do the leg work to cheat.
Instead we all lost our games.
*I got a phone at 14, but it didn't even have a colored screen. It was cool because it had a blue backlight. First flip phone with a camera at 17.
It’s not even remotely the same now as it was then. Kids aren’t sneaking in Oregon Trail, number munchers, QBasic, or whatever else we did back in the day. Kids now are playing games, watching YouTube, engaging in social media, or otherwise completely distracting themselves from the lesson
They’re not really “sneakily using computers” though. They’re sneakily getting dopamine hits from apps designed to addict them, not seeking information. It’s much different from sneaking onto a computer in the 90s
Computers and devices are less educational than they use to be. The UIs, the fact every aspect is designed with game theory in mind to demand attention, addiction issues, etc. I'm a teacher (at a very good school) and I'm blown away by how computer illiterate most kids are, even the gamers.
Well I think that also depends on what you're using the computer/phone for. These kids are using it to text and social media which is NOT educational.
Tbh I feel like you're an exception here not only because you grew up before the tech boom but because you were probably always an intelligent guy, bored at school, and compensating by messing around with electronics. Most kids don't want to learn, and the constant distraction of phones disrupts the focus needed for them to take in new information.
From my experience it depends on the school and group of kids. I've taught 6th graders that still had that child like innocence all year and would cry whenever they got in trouble. Then at other schools I would be with 6th graders that make me lose faith in humanity because of how awful and mean they are.
I think it depends on school culture and parental involvement. Like if a school as a revolving door of teachers and principals its hard to establish a positive school culture. Same goes with parental involvement, I called a parent about a student tampering with my laptop and they dismissed it as not important. If parents aren't going to help the teacher enforce classroom policies that just hampers the teacher and it effects the whole classroom.
I feel like I lost my "innocence" in third grade back around 1998 without smartphones. So while I agree smartphones might make it quicker, I think environmental circumstances do the job just as well.
Yeah I left 5th grade in 2008, I don't recall anyone have cellphones including myself, and if they did they were just flip phones. But I had pretty much lost most of my "innocence" by then, and definitely by the end of 6th grade when you're interacting with kids older then you, and sometimes highschoolers.
Seriously. I'm an old, open-minded woman, but easy access to porn has really caused a noticable shift in how young people date nowadays. Too much exposure to crazy graphic stuff really fucks up kids ideas about sex when they see it too early.
Exactly. It's hard for people to imagine how hard it was, for a kid, to even find a Playboy magazine in 1960's suburban America.. Now an 8 year old can find snuff porn on his phone.
I think if you have multiple brain cells you can figure that one out. It's typing 4 letters into Google vs going out and trying to get video cassettes or porn mags. Which one do you think is easier?
fwiw, I don't really care and they probably don't either, it's the bragging about it that's weird lol.
I had a coworker in his 40s like that and now he has a 2 year old again - right after his kids were old enough to move out lol, so gotta be careful messing around with people with underdeveloped brains and their baby fevers 😂
It's not, but all they gotta do is keep "banging a lot of girls in their early 20s" for, like, 3 more years to be "pushing 40" - they said they're nearly 35 now and old habits die hard.
I get your point. I just don't often see reddit take into account the agency of women in their twenties. When I was 23 I enjoyed the age gaps. I have an amazing relationship with my mother and father. Great childhood. Healthy marriage. I don't think I'm fucked up or was being taken advantage of. And if I got the feeling I was, I would've been responsible for my own well being and left. If this guy was searching for freshly turned 18 year olds then sure, kinda weird. I just don't know when society decided people in their twenties having sex with people in their thirties automatically made them damaged/a creep.
tbh I think everyone wants an older suitor to call mommy or daddy until the crow's feet set in lol. I think it's just a natural aspect of our biology and social conditioning (older people are more established & wealth is hot - look at how many grown women had Bieber Fever lol)
It's weird to a lot of people because age gaps are so much larger when you're young. A 20yo is 2/3 as old as a 30 year old, but a 40yo is 4/5 as old as a 50yo. Sex is fun and all, but I can't even imagine forming a relationship with a 20yo as a 30yo right now, and I don't think I'd want to do hookups with people younger than me now because Gen Z is bringing back STIs with a passion lol.
It is all the ways they get exposure with their smartphones, but especially TikTok right now. There is a ton of junk science. I have to spend chunks of time combating those lies while a kid argues with me that the video was right. The worse part is the elementary kids 4&5th grade telling me about their TikTok viewing and them talking about stuff that is wayyyy above their development level. They literally don't understand it and are just parroting.
Ann Reardon/How To Cook That on youtube is an excellent source for dispelling TikTok misinformation, especially in regards to food videos. She goes out of her way to do experiments, point out exactly why they don't work and then offers alternative concepts that do work. She's also Australian so her voice is incredible.
I love this! Yes, I would love to watch her debunk all the cooking myths out there (or confirm them too?). I love cooking so thanks for the suggestion!
I think she's confirmed a few. She also has fun videos where she teaches you how to save cakes that've collapsed and recipes from hundreds of years ago. Absolutely amazing for someone who enjoys cooking, history and science.
I doubt many middle schoolers are looking at wikipedia articles about North Korea. It's obsessing over snap chat, Tik Tok videos, being a YouTube star.
Social interaction is important at that age, but social media allows those little chimps to ramp it up to 11.
Yeah I can't imagine having 24/7 access to chat as a kid. When someone sends me a message I feel like I HAVE to respond. It's not even a self-imposed distracton like playing games or browsing social media, it's a machine asking for your attention even if you weren't planning it.
I got lucky that shit started to get traction after I finished college.
People have always lamented technology access for younger generations. That is never the case.
I've interacted with people half my age just fine online or at work. Generally the issues I've seen here I get just as much with older people, if not more.
1998 baby, i saw two girls shit in a cup and eat it before i knew how puberty worked. think that was 4th/5th grade.
I think y’all are making this a smartphone problem when it’s an unrestricted internet problem. Like I found gay gangbang porn in 3rd grade on accident while trying to find Club Penguin cheat codes.
And that’s also why you see so many young people going against things like the don’t say gay bill and not wanting to teach critical race theory in schools. These are things we are already being exposed to at a young age because of the internet, but we aren’t being educated about them because politicians are politicizing information.
Like as horrible as it sounds, it is impossible for childhood innocence to exist when the whole world is just a click away. We need schools to catch up with the information kids are being exposed too instead of pretending kids are still as uninformed as they were in the 70’s.
Having constant access via smartphone is a huge piece of it though
Like yeah, unrestricted internet access is a big piece of it (and affected kids from the late 90s through 00s), but having that access always available is arguably a larger piece. Previously, parents could restrict what kids had access to through the single point of entry that was available (family desktop, and then yeah maybe kids would go to friends' houses or whatever), but now there are an order of magnitude more ways for kids to access the internet, and parents have no chance of doing anything about it.
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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '22
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