
A majority of US teens are taking steps to limit smartphone and social media use - dgudkov
https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/24/a-majority-of-u-s-teens-are-taking-steps-to-limit-smartphone-and-social-media-use/
======
vinceguidry
It's important for people to remember that humans are still intelligent
creatures that are capable of recognizing, eventually, what's good for them
and what isn't. How many of you guys remember the 70s and 80s, when TV and
video games were supposed to turn us all into zombies? What happened? We
eventually learned how to see these things as the tools that they are. Humans
get fascinated by the new and shiny. This fascination may become unhealthy and
provide grist for scam artists. Then they wise up. It's the way of the world.

I'd be flat out surprised if _books_ didn't have their detractors back in the
day.

~~~
kruczek
> I'd be flat out surprised if books didn't have their detractors back in the
> day.

They most certainly did have. This reminds me about Socrates' take on books:

"for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls,
because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external
written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have
discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your
disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of
many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient
and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the
show of wisdom without the reality."

Source:
[http://www.units.miamioh.edu/technologyandhumanities/plato.h...](http://www.units.miamioh.edu/technologyandhumanities/plato.htm)

~~~
mrow84
I, for one, find that quite hard to argue with. I guess that makes me tiresome
company.

~~~
m1573rp34130dy
critical review is important, you shouldnt feel cowed against a rational
argument, _if we all agreed with each other then the first idea that occured
would be accompanied by mutual consensus then we would snap to a halt and go
nowhere with no variation or innovation_

------
dfxm12
Headline: _A majority of U.S. teens are taking steps to limit smartphone and
social media use_

The study: _52% – said they are_ trying _to limit their phone use in various
ways._

Addicts will often lie about trying to get clean. "Trying to do" something is
also not the same as "doing" something something.

I'm not saying that teens aren't taking concrete steps to reduce smartphone
and social media use, and after all, the first step to getting clean is
admitting you have a problem, something their parents can't do. I'm just
saying it's irresponsible for TechCrunch to jump to this conclusion, and this
headline is amounts to clickbait.

~~~
mc32
What you say is true, but, importantly, recognition of an issue can be the
first step in a sometimes long process of managing an issue properly.

So, succinctly, it’s a start. Industry should take note and steps to
de-“gamify” the whole industry before the gov comes down or people rebel.

------
coffeeandjunk
_A majority, 54% of teens, said they spend too much time on their phone, and
nearly that many – 52% – said they are trying to limit their phone use in
various ways._

Knowing is one thing and actually getting rid of it is a completely different
ball game.

There's a gulf between the planner and the doer. The far-sighted "planner" in
us knows that social media/Netflix/cigarettes are bad for us. When you conduct
a survey, we are conscious and reasonable people who know what is good from
what is bad and hence 54% of use agrees that we spend too much time on useless
stuff.

But when it actually comes to doing, the myopic "doer" part of us keeps on
snoozing that alarm clock in the morning and goes to Facebook to check the
number of likes & comments received every five minutes.

~~~
afarrell
The best way to approach this is to start by mechanically removing the
possibility of doing the thing you wish to avoid. In the cases you mention:

\- An alarm clock without a snooze button: [https://www.amazon.com/Travelwey-
Clock-Outlet-Powered-Operat...](https://www.amazon.com/Travelwey-Clock-Outlet-
Powered-Operation-Brightness/dp/B01CEGW56O?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_3)

\- An app that you can use to block facebook and other sites from your phone:
[https://freedom.to/](https://freedom.to/)

There are people who claim that this sort of thing is 'a crutch'. These same
people probably would not encourage a dieter to keep a packet of cookies on
their desk though. Regardless, crutches are useful whether you've broken your
ankle or your mindfulness.

You can and should build more active mindfulness practices on top of this.

~~~
JansjoFromIkea
As someone who's pretty pathetically addicted to the internet at times, having
Freedom on my laptop and phone has been a huge plus.

I'm sure I could work around it very easily (I know I can on the laptop) but
the shame factor involved is enough to stop me generally and I'm surprised
there isn't a huge market for this kind of thing. Been gradually limiting my
usage of certain sites down to tiny windows of the day and it's left me with
so much more time. Along with that, it's largely removed those sites from my
reflex routine of checking for updates... several of them I've just dropped
entirely.

Used a few free ones beforehand and the risk of it messing up my hosts file or
w/e was always too high to actively recommend to anyone.

~~~
froindt
> Along with that, it's largely removed those sites from my reflex routine of
> checking for updates... several of them I've just dropped entirely.

Removing the Facebook app from my phone and logging out when I was done with a
session on the computer was a great improvement in my life. Even the barrier
of typing the password in was enough for me to avoid mindlessly browsing
through stuff whenever I finished a small task.

It's been about 6 years since I took these steps, and I don't regret them.
Since the Cambridge Analytica stuff came out, I've been dabbling with dropping
FB entirely, but there are some people who I like receiving updates from, but
they are only on FB.

------
40acres
I'm 27 and never signed up for Facebook, something about it did not really
appeal to me. Mainly because I hate taking / posting pictures and don't really
care for posting status updates to friends. I also like to keep my real life
social networks disconnected from each other. I like having "work friends" and
"friends from school" and don't care for them to intersect.

Out of the social networks I've tried I liked Twitter the most. I did not post
often but it was great to peek into the conversations of interesting people.

I think today's generation is open to social networks but maybe the photo
posting / status update nature of today's networks just don't appeal. Maybe a
more creative social network where more users are creating content than
consuming it would appeal.

------
electic
I am not surprised. One thing that I have noticed about myself is I ask myself
after a session on Instagram, "What did I get from that?" and the answer is
usually nothing. Did it help my career? No. Did it make me smarter? No. Did it
help me make friends? No.

It didn't improve my life in any way.

The instant I asked and answered that a few times, I started cutting down my
usage dramatically.

~~~
saiya-jin
> "What did I get from that?" and the answer is usually nothing. Did it help
> my career? No. Did it make me smarter? No. Did it help me make friends? No.

By no means I want to defend current social media fads (never had
instagram/snapchat, removed facebook from phone 2 years ago), but that's not
how humans work.

You don't go for a beer with a friend to gain something, you go to enjoy
it/him/her, have a social interaction and overall great time, and level of
friendship usually just stays the same. Nothing learned and no career progress
is still a perfectly fine result. Same can be said about going for movies or
billions of other activities that don't move you anywhere else in life, they
just help you wind down.

The problem is, these social media with all of their unrealistic perspectives
of real life don't help us, they frustrate us. Sad thing is, they are somehow
mentally addictive and too easy to reach.

~~~
afarrell
> Nothing learned and no career progress is still a perfectly fine result.

This is a hard lesson to learn, especially if you were good at school growing
up. I find it helpful to, after/while hanging out with friends or walking in
the park, make a conscious effort to reflect on and appreciate the feeling of
fulfillment that comes from it. There's something healthiness-reenforcing for
me about looking around, breathing deeply, and saying 'this is nice'

------
newfocogi
Believing something is bad for you and actually successfully changing it are
two very different things.

~~~
maxxxxx
This reminds me a little of obesity. A lot of people have recognized the
problem and are doing something but in the end the average still gets fatter
and fatter.

~~~
adventured
That's not correct however. Recognition can and often does lead to correction.

In the US, the percentage of children five years of age and under that were
obese, dropped from 14% to 10% over ten years (2004-2014). That's due to first
recognizing a terrible problem and then acting against it.

US obesity rates have stabilized. [1] I think we can be fairly certain that's
in no small part due to increased knowledge and awareness of the problem over
the last decade. The next step is to begin moving the needle the other
direction, even if it's a slow process.

People think obesity in the US is a very old problem, when in fact it started
just 30 years ago and wasn't a serious issue until the late 1990s. In 1985 no
state had an obesity level over 15%. Today, 46 states exceed 25% obesity. I
doubt the US will ever go back to 1985 obesity levels, however if it can
change negatively that much in less than two decades, then you can plainly see
meaningful improvements in a similar amount of time.

[1] [https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/articles-and-
news/2017/08/ne...](https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/articles-and-
news/2017/08/new-report-finds-progress-to-prevent-obesity-at-risk.html)

~~~
saiya-jin
Very true, this can be often seen in older photos or videos, ie 60s hippies,
or any odd-fashion-70s or most 80s. Very slim people everywhere, like whole
nation went to gym or for a run every single day.

------
platz
> were built by young men who couldn’t conceive of all the ways things could
> go wrong

False. They knew exactly what they were doing. I know because Jaron Lanier and
Sean Parker were there.

------
ddingus
I found it notable the "Ready Player One" movie, featured the group decision
to close "The Oasis" on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

\-->Because reality is real.

~~~
rayalez
That was the most annoying part of the movie for me.

The whole movie(and a book) was about using this amazing virtual world as the
only escape from the shitty horrible reality. It wasn't just entertainment -
people go to school there, people have friends there, for many it's the only
source of happiness.

And that's what it was for the protagonist, he understands this better than
anyone.

But the moment he becomes a billionaire and gets a hot girlfriend, he goes
"reality is awesome guys, you should go out more!" While nothing has changed
for most people. Fuck you, Wade!

It's like the dumbest cheapest way to add a "moral" to the movie, completely
out of character, he'd never do something like this.

~~~
XorNot
Iain M. Banks had a much more nuanced take on this in A Few Notes on the
Culture
[[http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm](http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm)]
(free to read online), where his general point was that things like the
Culture's drug glands should be taken as contraindicators by the government
that they're messing up in reality and need to do better.

Ready Player One's problem as a movie/book is really that its not interested
in exploring too much detail about how this world came to be, so you get
fairly trite morals like that.

Like you could imagine a much longer epilogue where the protagonist uses his
wealth to improve society, reduce poverty, advocate for governmental change,
provide refuge for domestic abuse victims, and uses individual participation
rates in the Oasis as a barometer for his success. Which wold be a real
interesting moral for a mainstream movie to include.

~~~
ddingus
It would, and that work you linked is new to me.

Thanks. Great, thought provoking read.

------
JohnJamesRambo
I just bought a Nokia 3310 3G and plan to curb my smartphone use completely.
I'm sick to death of looking at my phone being the only thing I do. I used to
do things at night, projects, hobbies, meeting people, and going places. I
drive places now via GPS and have no recollection of how I got there. Driving
without GPS makes you actually look at your surroundings and enjoy them and
start making mental maps again. That all stopped as smartphones took over my
life. It almost feels like schizophrenia being connected at all times to all
things, all people, and all information. It reminds me of the Black Shakes
(Nerve Attenuation Syndrome) disorder from Johnny Mnemonic.

I have received the phone but can't use it yet because my sim hasn't come in
the mail. It's tantalizing to not be able to turn off my smartphone just yet.
But I can feel the freedom when I hold that dumbphone Nokia.

[https://www.nokia.com/en_int/phones/nokia-3310-3g](https://www.nokia.com/en_int/phones/nokia-3310-3g)

~~~
s3r3nity
I would LOVE to go back to a dumb phone like this, but three use cases really
prevent me from doing so at the moment:

1) GPS / Maps for navigation: I agree with your sentiment, but I find that I"m
_more_ likely to travel or take adventures when I know I can fall back to
Google / Apple Maps as a safeguard for getting me from A-to-B, or finding new
places around me.

2) Uber / Lyft / Ride Sharing: I can already use Siri on Apple Watch to say
"Hey Siri, get me an Uber," so why can't I text a service like that? Or maybe
a dumb phone with Google Assistant installed that could aid with those types
of tasks? [Disclaimer: a service or phone like that _might_ exist, but in my
limited time searching I haven't found one I like nor trust just yet.]

3) Photography: I'm no pro, but I do enjoy taking very good quality pictures
at the fraction of the cost of a bulky thousand dollar camera, alongside the
auto-backups and location-data stored alongside.

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
I had similar worries but I want to use a paper map again and I want to use my
excellent Pentax ME Super 35mm camera again to take quality photos. The 3310
has a 2 mp camera for emergency photos. It can hold 7 (!) pics in the internal
memory unless you add an SD card, haha.

I don't use Uber, so I don't have that issue. I can see where that may be
troublesome and I agree a text service would be nice for that.

------
mindcrime
Man, when did TC decide to go full-on yellow journalism?

 _Today’s internet can be a toxic place, and not one where people should spend
large amounts of time._

 _But many of these networks were built by young men who couldn’t conceive of
all the ways things could go wrong._

 _... and even dopamine drug dealers like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube have
begun to ..._

 _Thankfully, as this study shows, there’s growing awareness of this among
younger users, and maybe, some of them will even do something about it in the
future – when they’re the bosses, the parents, and the engineers, they can
craft new work /life policies, make new house rules, and write better code._

Yep, every group of teenagers thinks exactly the same thing. "Our parents
fucked things up, but when we're in charge, we'll fix it all". Sadly the real
world does not make it easy to effect such change on a large scale. But hey,
now that _my_ generation (Gen-X) occupies many key positions of influence,
maybe we can finally get it right...

------
adiusmus
Good.

Most social networks are bad for you. They’re deliberately designed to be
addictive in pointless ways.

I’d prefer teenagers to be tech savvy individuals who have plenty of face to
face skills like conversational skills, curiosity, travel, ability to think,
work, play, and plenty of other practical skills such as woodworking etc.

Technology as tool but not as a bubble to live in.

------
stephengillie
Similar topic:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17866030](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17866030)

Is today the "Submarine Ad" day for "Kids aren't using social media"? If so,
who makes money from us knowing that young people don't use social media? What
are they trying to sell to us?

------
misterbowfinger
Original study:

[http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/08/22/how-teens-and-
parents-...](http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/08/22/how-teens-and-parents-
navigate-screen-time-and-device-distractions/)

------
konart
Create the problem. Then fight it.

------
m3mpp
> 57% say they’re trying to limit social media usage and 58% are trying to
> limit video games.

I think 98% of US teens are trolling polls...

------
Osmanthus
Or are they just bored with it, or the current fad is over, or they realized
how stupid what they wrote is?

------
modells
Turn off some notifications.

Limit motion effects / animation.

Enable grayscale filter.

Don't whip out the phone every 10 seconds or around other people.

^- problem (somewhat) solved

------
weliketocode
This underscores why I'm almost inherently biased against most regulations. In
a lot (not saying all) of cases, we figure out what's bad for us and make
decisions to help solve it. Social, legal, and economic issues in our society
often appear to work themselves out when left to their own devices.

Yet, so many have the _opposite_ gut reaction: Teens using too much social
media? Regulate the industry! Tax them! Take away their phones!

I'm glad to see things working themselves out with social media usage and hope
its successes help increase our ability to avoid expensive and fruitless
regulations in the future.

~~~
burkaman
I genuinely don't think I've ever heard anyone suggest teenage phone use
should be regulated. Generally regulations are suggested when bad actors are
blatantly unwilling or unable to regulate themselves.

~~~
slx26
Yeah, I believe that the key point here is that regulations should prevent
"harm" to others, not "self-harm". And as far as I know, that's how it goes
most of the time.

------
misterbowfinger
Uhhhh... what?

 _This particular survey featured interviews with 1,058 parents who belong to
the panel and have a teen ages 13 to 17, as well as interviews with 743 teens_

Link: [http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/08/22/teens-and-screen-
time-...](http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/08/22/teens-and-screen-time-
methodology/)

I get that surveys are really hard, but.... 743 seems like a ridiculously low
number.

Looks like the surveys are through the "NORC AmeriSpeak panel".

Pew links to this about AmeriSpeak:

[http://www.norc.org/PDFs/AmeriSpeak%20Technical%20Overview%2...](http://www.norc.org/PDFs/AmeriSpeak%20Technical%20Overview%202015%2011%2025.pdf)

I don't know.... maybe someone who understands surveying & statistics can
validate these numbers & their significance better than me?

~~~
hammock
Something like this, any sample size 300 or above (assuming it was drawn in a
representative way) is generally regarded as legit.

Source: I run and analyze surveys for a living

~~~
buntress
300 is kind of a paltry number. One high school’s population, for a medium
sized town.

Look at one high school, then another. Take each high school from opposite
ends of the country. Same results? Not sure about that. But hey, magic number
says we’re all good. Run the article, right?

~~~
sakarisson
You've just illustrated in your own comment that it really isn't as much about
the number of participants as it is about the random distribution of
participants.

Would you think it was any better if it was 3000 people from the same area
rather than 300? Probably not a lot.

If you pick 300 or more random people throughout the country, you've going to
get a pretty accurate representation of the average person.

