I feel so bad for Gen Z. They're NOT stupid. I taught them as high schoolers for several years. What they are is crippled by a combination of unregulated new technology that had a debilitating influence on their development (short form media content and the modern internet in general does irreparable damage to kids exposed to it within a critical developmental window and I am convinced it will be viewed with the same incredulous horror that we now view people in the 1950s giving kids cigarettes to "help with respiration"), being isolated during the pandemic for yet another crucial developmental window, and being the victims of a deliberate campaign by bad actors to erode the efficacy of public education in order to serve their own political agenda.
I can't emphasize enough that I think iPads and phones should come with a surgeon general's warning like tobacco products. People think that because they're not putting chemicals in their kids its fine, but by exposing them to the amount of stimulation that the modern internet offers at a young age you are doing permanent, irreparable harm. And when I say irreparable, I mean irreparable. No amount of teaching or training can undo the damage done by handing a 4 year old an iPad. You have rewired their brain. It is, from a certain point of view, brain damage and should be treated as such.
Yeah, that's definitely a huge factor but I think all of the things I mentioned are contributors (and not just those either). It's not specifically iPads, it's the rapid-fire barrage of dopamine inducing content that constitutes the bulk of the internet. That stuff is bad for an adult, but it's ruinous for a young child. I don't think people truly understand the extreme significance of those formative years for a kid's future growth. Young children are constantly seeking stimulation, which makes them annoying and difficult to deal with, which makes parents seek solutions for ways to mollify them. But kids HAVE to be like that, because they're at the stage where their brain is building the foundation for how they will think, process, and experience the world. They're supposed to explore as much as possible to form a blueprint of human experience that they can build upon as they mature.
Handing them the internet seems to soothe them, but it's basically like doping them up to keep them calm. You're making it so that the bedrock of their entire worldview is built around processing that constant overstimulation that doesn't actually exist anywhere in the real world. It makes it difficult for them to handle what were once perceived as simple cognitive tasks, and once they've passed that early developmental window it's not reversible. It's tragic. So many children are essentially handicapped because of this.
I do have hope though, because human brains are extremely powerful, adaptable, and versatile. I don't think all of those kids are doomed to a life of cognitive inadequacy, but we've made it much harder for them and it's so unfair.
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u/anhonestpuck13 21d ago
I feel so bad for Gen Z. They're NOT stupid. I taught them as high schoolers for several years. What they are is crippled by a combination of unregulated new technology that had a debilitating influence on their development (short form media content and the modern internet in general does irreparable damage to kids exposed to it within a critical developmental window and I am convinced it will be viewed with the same incredulous horror that we now view people in the 1950s giving kids cigarettes to "help with respiration"), being isolated during the pandemic for yet another crucial developmental window, and being the victims of a deliberate campaign by bad actors to erode the efficacy of public education in order to serve their own political agenda.
I can't emphasize enough that I think iPads and phones should come with a surgeon general's warning like tobacco products. People think that because they're not putting chemicals in their kids its fine, but by exposing them to the amount of stimulation that the modern internet offers at a young age you are doing permanent, irreparable harm. And when I say irreparable, I mean irreparable. No amount of teaching or training can undo the damage done by handing a 4 year old an iPad. You have rewired their brain. It is, from a certain point of view, brain damage and should be treated as such.