this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2024
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By a variety of measures and in a variety of countries, the members of Generation Z (born in and after 1996) are suffering from anxiety, depression, self-harm, and related disorders at levels higher than any other generation for which we have data.

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[–] [email protected] 141 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Well I could only read the first 2 paragraphs due to paywall, but it's definitely the phones causing all this and certainly not late stage capitalism sucking the energy and empathy out of everything around us right?

[–] [email protected] 53 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think the two (phones and late stage capitalism) are working hand and glove to fuck up the kids. Us older folks had a much easier time pretending things were okay because our pockets weren’t constantly buzzing with instant feedback and we weren’t continually forced to consume traumatic and stressful content. Sure, we had plenty of other problems, and each generation is going to deal with their own fair share of shit, but I do think this cohort has a much harder job avoiding the ugliest sides of humanity.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

But it was still bad then, you just didn't know it. It's good now we know how bad the world is, maybe bad for mental health, but good if you don't want to remain in your own bubble, unable to have any effect on the world. And individually, you still won't have an effect on the world, but the more people that know and care about issues, the more likely they are to get fixed. Something the internet can help with.

[–] merde 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

i remember the fall of Berlin wall, i was very young but i do remember. I remember the end of that either/or era

i remember internet going global and accessible. I remember the early internet that was about information wanting to be shared. Not the internet of globalSupermarket + gov.net + selfie

i remember discovering new and exciting sounds that weren't possible before sampler/sequencers

i remember scandals that actually ended political careers. I remember people disagreeing because their ideas of a better world was different and not because they hated people who think differently

it wasn't "still bad then", there was a sense of things getting "better". Can we say the same thing today? Who thinks the world will be a better place in 5 years or 10?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago

Thanks for the paywall warning. I've opened the page in Firefox, clicked on Toggle Reader View immediately and could read all text. Here the end of the article :

spoiler

We didn’t know what we were doing in the early 2010s. Now we do. It’s time to end the phone-based childhood.

This article is adapted from Jonathan Haidt’s forthcoming book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.

​When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

[–] otp 9 points 9 months ago

Nah, it's probably the death of rock music.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Sure, it's the phones and not the fact the Earth is burning while all the people with power are too focused on growing their money piles by exploiting people.

People can't afford houses, kids and the planet might not have a future.

But sure, yeah, it's the phones.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago (1 children)

"If we take away their phones, they can't know it's all on fire!"

Yeet

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

It might be beneficial for younger kids to not be aware of every global catastrophe, don't you think?

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago

Think about it, without the kids having a way to fact check everything they would have to believe whatever they say, and that leads to my favourite problem solving method, propaganda!

[–] [email protected] 39 points 9 months ago (2 children)

the size of the relationship is often statistically small, which has led some researchers to conclude that these new technologies are not responsible for the gigantic increases in mental illness that began in the early 2010s.

Anyway, here's 8500 words about why we are blaming cell phones anyway.

(Surely it's not also the terrible economic landscape, hyper-competitive education system, or the collapse of community institutions...)

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It’s all of those. As a father of teenagers, I can definitely add a subjective opinion that phones are TERRIBLE for teenagers. It reinforces all their fears and multiplies all their false certainties.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

false certainties

As a fellow father of teenagers, I agree and want to thank you for introducing me to this phrase. I didn't have a simple phrase for "doesn't care about school, thinks he will be a millionaire by age 20."

One unfortunate aspect I've found is that (n=1) a grounding involving taking away phone time besides one hour in the evening until grades improve doesn't provide all that much motivation to improve grades. An allowed hour because complete social isolation is not a helpful punishment.

It does, however, greatly improve mood and ability to focus and think through problems. I had the same false certainties as a teenager - that's a failure on us (the parents), and goes beyond smartphones, but grades are important.

'Grades are important' is not something I ever thought I would say, but as an old person I understand now... It's not the grade itself, it's what the grade represents - foresight, seeing the bigger picture, and effort and commitment to something.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

%90 of the teenagers who said they are depressed also have phones. Much significance, many r, wow p value

[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 months ago (1 children)

When you link page, please make sure that you dont link its paywalled version or at least paste article contents into post's text

[–] Grandwolf319 3 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Sure the phones are to blame and not the shitty world with never ending economic crises and wars everywhere and probably unhappy, stressed out parents fighting all the time.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

Also, the fact that technology makes it easier to actually collect data on stuff like depression etc and people are more encouraged to speak about it, as opposed to previous "it's life, man up and take it" generations' attitude...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Unethical twin studies are illegal for very good reasons, but I'd be curious about the results of the following hypothetical (albeit flawed) study:

  • Twin 1: raised in a small village fishing/farming community that disallows internet access, but allows full unfettered access to a vast library.

  • Twin 2: raised in a heavily populated coastal city with a smartphone from age 6.

A constant, instant stream of knowledge of horrific things happening hundreds or thousands of miles from you, and the barrage of social media toxicity, must come a negative mindset about the world. I don't see any way it doesn't. Sure there is wholesome and humble content on every platform, but the vast majority is either neutral or negative, and negativity generally spreads much faster than neutral or positive; it's the human condition.

It affects everyone, but your reality will be much different if it's been affecting you since you could, quite literally, remember.

I've seen multiple grassroots efforts of insightful teens who recognize this and are going dumbphone-only. Those kids are the future I'd place my bet on.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Social media is designed to be a vice. Its not suprising it causes depression

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Meh...it's a terrible article full of conjecture and frankly shitty casual causation.

The reason kids these days have higher rates of self harm and suicide isn't digital. They're getting fucking shot at when they go to school.

The parents are hyper aware of this and are overly protective. The kids aren't going out after dark to cause havoc or just hang out with their friends any more.

There's also a severe culture war going on between liberals and conservatives across the globe that's distinctly split previous social groups.

None of this is due to a kid holding a smart phone. It's down to really shitty adults doing really shitty things and then blaming the phone for exposing kids to said shittiness.

This article sucked.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago

By a variety of measures and in a variety of countries,

Getting shot going to school is an American problem.

Your comment sucked.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

They're getting fucking shot at when they go to school.

American Defaultism

[–] prettybunnys 3 points 9 months ago

Did you read the article? In the first sentence it’s literally stated that the data used is of adolescents from the USA.

It’s about American kids.

The article is literally about American kids, from the perspective of Americans with an audience of Americans.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

Your comment is equally guilty of assigning blame to something without any strong evidence or similar.

Without actual studies looking into it it's all conjecture.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

I have to disagree with most of that.

Raising a kid right now is weird, the way they interact with tech is nothing like when we were kids. I was lucky growing up in the 90s with a computer, I could play with it all day and never get into any kind trouble it was just video games and poking around, seeing what it could do. I think having access to a computer at such a young age was transformative and wonderful.

But today, there's so much trouble to get into, it's crazy. I need to lock down that computer for my kid, there's not enough parental control software in the world to make it safe for a defiant child, so I just can't give him free access to the computer. I log him in for every session and make sure he's monitored the whole time (which is exhausting).

He had access to some public Minecraft server for a while and initially I was like "this is fine", but it was like 5 days before he was telling people to kill themselves in the chat and yelling ethnic slurs into his headset... he's 7.

I truly dread having to deal with him interacting on social media. It's going to be ugly.

Edit: I should clarify, this article is garbage, I'm not sticking up for it. The problem is not kids these days or bad parenting, it's just a more complicated world. Social media, predatory tech companies, consumerism, polarized politics, all this crap adds up to a more complicated world, more riddled with potential landmines than ever before.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I've been dreading this and it saddens me to hear from you that my worst fears were correct.

I'll just take solace in the fact that I had 30 year head start and that my tech-fu will hopefully stay one step ahead of my 1-year-old

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Yeah, the technical problems are also pretty frustrating. I've been an IT guy for a long time, and I knew that I a second hand iMac would be a great machine for him, so that's what I got. But unfortunately apple has abandoned their support for 32bit applications, seriously slashing their library of software. So I've stuck to an older Mac OS that does still support it. Steam has a "family view" mode and with that I can easily curate my own huge steam library and allow him to play appropriate games. Except of course, that about 2/3 of that library will be unavailable soon, as with future steam updates they will not be supporting the last macOS version that still runs 32 bit programs. Sigh.

I already tried installing Linux mint on that Mac and it was a nightmare. Linux doesn't really do parental controls, at least not out of the box. The only silver lining was that at least when he clicked on every single web link he found, the dozens of malicious .exe files he downloaded won't run on Linux.

But I guess to reassure you, the tech can be hard, but the kid doesn't have to be. Our situation is a bit extreme, probably atypical. We adopted a 6 year old, so we have a lot of problematic behaviors, distrust, and defiance to train him out of. That shit is hard. But if you can build love and trust right from the start, you can set norms for tech usage and behavior. It'll be ok.

But I do fear social media, it looms in our future...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

He had access to some public Minecraft server for a while and initially I was like "this is fine", but it was like 5 days before he was telling people to kill themselves in the chat and yelling ethnic slurs into his headset... he's 7.

The battle is real, I've heard and seen things out of my kid the same age that left me speechless. Kids think that because it was on the screen or in their headset 100x that this must mean it's ok, and with the number of people who just give it a pass by not paying the least attention...

Formative years are no place for such anarchistic environments, particularly when they're used as an unmonitored substitute for actual engagement.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (6 children)

This article strikes at a very salient set of points about smartphones and social media. As someone that specifically tries to only use federated social media because it avoids some of these dark patterns, I certainly agree with. I also use my smartphone without any notifications turned on, ever.

Unfortunately the author has a few paragraphs that miss the mark and strike me as coming from more of a centrist or right-wing "kids these days are too soft" which feels very off-base and disconnected from the issue. For example:

This is why life on college campuses changed so suddenly when Gen Z arrived, beginning around 2014. Students began requesting “safe spaces” and trigger warnings. They were highly sensitive to “microaggressions” and sometimes claimed that words were “violence.”

The scare quotes around microagressions, a genuine issue faced my marginalized communities, is really uncomfortable and gives an unfortunate perspective on some of where this author is coming from.

Putting that aside, I really do feel like most of what is said here is on point. Reducing social media use is imperative. Designing smartphone UX that doesn't shove notifications at you would also be a good idea. Getting younger people involved in communities and forming friendships is incredibly important.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Indeed, that's why I don't trust any of these "kids these days" articles. Have they considered that the world is shit and their generation is making it worse and all the kids can do is watch isn't good for their mental health?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I use notifications, but the only apps that can send me notifications are either ones that use UnifiedPush, or have some sort of notification service of their own. So, most of the apps on my device do not send me notifications, and there are only a very few that will. Lemmy (through Thunder), Molly, and Feeder are the big ones that notifications are allowed on. Even ProtonMail doesn't support UnifiedPush so i have to check email manually.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Da real MVP.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

Yeah, give kids easy to use pocket computers to access social media curated by algorithms designed to increase anxiety/engagement and "games" that are single-player gambling simulations, all of which harvests their data just to better learn how to manipulate them, and wonder why kids feel anxious, isolated, or depressed.

This hurts the over-25s too, just to lesser degrees because their brains are fully developed.

[–] Grandwolf319 9 points 9 months ago

For those pissed off cause of the paywall:

https://archive.is/Acnze

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm tired of every few years the goal post for where one generation ends and another one begins keeps moving around. I demand that there be a ratifying organization that determines officially when generation s begin and end. So say we all!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Generations are (mostly) made up. So of course they're going to shift around a bit while we all try to figure out what major world event or collective experience defines a particular cohort.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (3 children)

What about thr costs of a TV based life?

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago

TV didn’t mediate your social relationships.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)

TV doesn't give you feedback. It's purely passive. TV isn't always on. It can be turned off or walked away from. TV doesn't fit in your pocket (well, outside of those shitty portable TVs that used 8 batteries every 2 hours) and go everywhere with you. TV doesn't have your friends on it (unless you live in LA). TV doesn't have random people from different countries you've never heard of tell you, specifically YOU, that you should kill yourself for some embarrassing thing you did.

TV does have negative impacts on our lives, and there are costs that I had on my life that my parents had less of (they still had TV, just black and white with only 3 channels). I definitely spent more time indoors growing up and know less about how to do manual work than my dad. I also know more about the world in general and am open to more ideas than my parents.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

It'd be weird after half a century of tv, if suddenly in the 2010s it somehow escalated all the self harm/suicide stats.

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