I've seen versions of several of these ruin people's lives very close to me. For example, I knew someone who played WOW to the detriment of his schooling, health, and social life. WOW is another product that is explicitly engineered to be addictive. The difference between then and now is cell phones and social media are consumed at a scale that affects almost everyone, to a degree that hasn't been seen before. It's worth studying whether this is something we should worry about or not.
I spent very significant time during my childhood using computers. At the time, I would have had scarcely anything to prove that time was in any way "useful". I would have been hard pressed to convince others that my behavior was not detrimental.
Because I did spend so much time freely using computers, I learned how to use them. I learned about Linux, partitioning, bootloaders, programming, 3D modeling, etc.
My childhood learning experience happened over the course of more than a decade. It was full of totally pointless endeavors, a very significant part of it was just paying video games (which evolved into modding video games years later), and none of it would have happened with overbearing parents obsessed with the merits of my interests.
I would imagine a lot of us here who grew up in 90s would have the same experience. However, I do not see the same parallel to using a mobile device dominated by facebook, Snapchat, emojis and games. There is nothing to tinker with. I also don’t believe that mobile device use bridges to computer use — which could possibly cause a child to show interest in ‘how are these apps made?’
It seems like no one cared that when we got powerful supercomputers that fit in our pockets, we couldn't use them like real computers.
These arbitrary limitations are the real problem. I don't think adding to the collective fear of children using computers will help change that. It's more likely to convince parents to choose more control and censorship.
I've got to say that I agree. We've been caring for three of our sisters kids recently. They are absolutely mesmerized by the ipads. To the point that you could drop a stack of dishes next to them and they would barely register.
Taking them to the museum is a exercise in frustration when you find that they ignore any chance to play with the dinosaur bones or look at the solar system models. Present them with a screen and they are captured. I was shocked to see them staring at a monitor that had a scrolling error message on it.. I don't think they are brain damaged, but you would not know it to see them anyware near a tv or monitor. It seems that they have little ability to process the world if it is not presented on a screen.
Even if I am in a slim minority, I think it is impossible to tell what children will find similar interests. A culture that keeps children away from those experiences affects everyone.
I fail to see how the technical minutia that differentiate desktop PCs, laptops, tablets and phones affects their ability to create dopamine-producing feedback loops on demand. Everything past that is just semantics between platforms and interaction styles.
Even if we change nothing else, what needs to be done is we need to put serious time and money into addiction treatments. We have so many companies and scientists of varying stripe all researching exactly how to punch dopamine out of people's brains in the most efficient way, starting early on with food sciences and the tobacco industry, into today with social networks and casual games. We now know how to trick people into thinking literally ANYTHING is fun and to do it compulsively, but we haven't the slightest goddamn idea how to reverse that process for those who need it.
Don't forget porn. It's really new that everyone can find decades worth of porn, anytime. It's causing serious issues like erectile dysfunction and social problems. It's really taboo to talk about and people don't realise they're addicted to porn. Masturbation might be normal but constantly filling your mind with pornographic pictures and associating them to orgasms is proven to be detrimental.
to be honest, this happened to me and i don’t blame my parents at all.
looking back on it, how were they to understand the difference between wow and everything else i played? it’s all the same to them.
we had frequent fights about how long i spent playing, when they’d ask me to do things in the middle of a raid (multi player coop thing; up to 40 players back then). in my head, it was incredibly important to me. now, i realise how stupid that was.
most people i think don’t realise how games can effect people mentally. to his day, 10 years later i still have dreams about my character sitting in a void, alone, asking me to come and play.
this is serious addiction, and you can’t blame parents for not understanding it.
Raiding at least taught teamwork... Some of the best people I knew in WoW ended up being very successful in their own right... for example the guy who was THE best raid-leader ever ended up managing a chain of stores
It might be and you would notice this is the norm with smartphones. Parents find it much easier to jam a smartphone in front of their child when out and about than to deal with their boredom.
Yeah, no. The moment content creators realized they can engineer addiction by borrowing ideas from the gambling industry and often innovating in this area, we have a problem. Especially when more and more companies profit from 'habit forming'.
Read up on why Dong Nguyen pulled Flappy Bird off the app store and why Steve Jobs was a low-tech parent.
I agree, we shouldn't think of the children, we should probably think of the adults also.
Exactly! If it wasn't a problem before then it won't be a problem today either. Nothing fallacious about that. The evolution of technology usually has very limited impact; WW1 and WW2 were barely more destructive than the wars that preceded them, after all, and WW3 will surely be no worse.
Edit: The above is sarcasm. It probably deserves the downvotes, but at least I want to make clear that I don't mean this stuff. The amount of psychological research, behavior tracking, and personalization that goes into keeping people "engaged" with their phones has never been seen before. It just seems so outlandish to argue that it won't be a problem because we turned out fine despite having TV as kids, nevermind that it only offered a handful of completely un-personalized TV channels and zero user tracking (apart from the tiny fraction with a Nielsen box). I just don't get it, especially here on HN where I'm sure many people have an idea of what's going on behind e.g. the Facebook feed.
And what's more, television certainly did drastically change people's attention spans, the nature of news and the public debate, etc. Compare the rhetoric of 19th-Century politicians with what you hear today.
Serious question, I don't know the answer to this: was the rhetoric of 19th century politicians different because people were more civil/thoughtful in general or just because there were (most likely) proportionally fewer people paying attention?
What's wrong with doing all of these studies? Aren't you glad we know about the harmful effects of tobacco smoke, UV light, radiation, too much sugar etc.?
If using a computer is addictive, what is the response?
I am concerned with any action that takes a child's privacy or liberty from them. I haven't heard a proposed solution that does neither, and most do both.
Someone with the absolute best intentions it's likely to take seriously harmful actions when privacy and liberty are disrespected.
My god, what if someone forced a child to eat their vegetables? Or read a book? Or clean their room?? What if someone said a kid can't go to their friend's late night unchaperoned party??
Real answer:
If using a computer is addictive, then parents and schools will manage kids' use of computers (most already do), and arm kids with that knowledge and help them learn to manage it themselves as they get older.
Sending a kid out into the world purposefully ignorant of risks they might face is a terrible idea. This is also why sex ed is important, BTW.
I understand where you are coming from, and don't disagree with you, but we aren't just talking about parents teaching their children.
It's perfectly reasonable for a parent to decide their child should spend time away from computers.
It's also very easy to take this reaction too far. Deciding what a child should do with a computer, or even that a child should not spend more than 10-20min. at a time using a computer seems reasonable, or even necessary to a lot of parents. Such a situation would have been extremely detrimental to my childhood.
It's easy to overcompensate for things like this, just like it is easy to overcompensate for safety. Parents who know better are likely to ignore studies like this, but others will definitely use these studies to excuse their own draconian censorship, privacy violation, etc.
> This is also why sex ed is important, BTW.
Correct thoughtful sex ed is important. Teaching children to stay away from or fear their sexuality is detrimental, yet it is still common practice. It would be nice to be able to expect a reasonable reaction from everyone, but the fact is that we simply can't.
I think the focus of studies like this misses the mark. Children need variety, so it's important for parents to push them out the door from time to time. Unfortunately, a lot of parents find it more important to schedule every moment of their child's life, make every decision for their child, or be somewhere in between. That attitude leads them to awful things like censorship, and privacy intrusion.
Children have little of either privacy or liberty because they are still in the process of learning how best to utilize their privacy and liberty under the guidance of a parent.
Now, if you were to empirically argue (with data/evidence) on the importance of privacy and liberty in children, that’s a different story, but since when was parenting driven by science? :O
I know a lot of parents who are over-concerned with their child's "safety". That extends to reading through teenager's texts, severely limiting their exposure to computers, etc.
Naturally, every child is different, and most won't have similar interests to what I had as a child, but speaking from experience: I would not have flourished in such an environment. I would never have had the liberty to mod video games, install Linux, etc. in a situation like that. I wouldn't have even encountered an interest in such things.
A concern with what a child does on his or her own can easily evolve into overbearing control and censorship. I want every parent to understand that.
Also, commonplace firewalls that are made to keep them away from porn, but track them, have serious false-positives, and are often trivially circumvented, giving a false sense of security.
Another thing that really bothers me is that Microsoft convinces practically every school to use their software by giving it to schools "for free", and convincing educators that there are no viable alternatives.
Children usually don't get any opportunity to use a computer freely, i. e. installing other OS's, or even installing software. This means the only opportunities they get are at home, and many don't have their own authority over a real computer at home, either.
It's commonplace for young teenagers to learn how to circumvent arbitrary "security" measures so that they can find liberty, but that isn't always trivial enough to happen. These barriers do more damage than good.
showing signs of decreasing attention spans and cognitive abilities [1]. This may be misdiagnosed as ADHD and then medicated. Yeah, they're fine, you guess. I'll cite you the next time someone brings it up to assure them the kids are fine.
The idea that phones are changing our attention span and giving rise to harmful addictive behaviors, especially applied to children, does not strike me as outlandish or unworthy of investigation.
Did any of the pre-internet Time sucks have the ability to monitor billions of people’s usage patterns and incrementally fine tune so as to increase time/money spent? No, I didn’t think so...
One of the most effective things about capitalism is that when new things replace old things, the new things are preferred by consumers over the things they replace.
This is an extremely good feature when talking about most consumer goods. Modern cups are just as good as old cups but way less expensive. Modern cars are significantly better in basically all ways (perhaps excepting repairability).
There may be a danger, however, when talking about technologies that people use, in part, to keep themselves from being bored - to absorb their attention in other words.
For me personally, Facebook/Internet/Computer Games >> TV >> Radio >> Books at capturing my attention. I suspect that this isn't a very unusual experience.
It may seem reasonable on its face to not let technological artifacts push you around or manipulate you, but honestly, it's not just a computer or a TV. Between TV, the Internet and Computer Games, it's the very best and most able of hundreds of thousands of people working every day to capture your attention.
Honestly, I have no idea if the current generation of attention capturing technology is dangerous. But I do know that what ever displaces what we have now will be better at capturing our attention. And the next generation will be better than that. And eventually, if the trend continues, there will be something that's so good at capturing attention that it is dangerous.
Each of those was progressively more addictive (well, barring D&D which involved reading books and thinking).
In 2020s, it will might be VR, in 2030s, it might be they spend too much time socializing with artificial beings, and so on. There is a point where it is worth thinking about whether it is a good thing or not. I know I will for my kid.
The annoying thing (to me) is, I think it would be awesome to have a study (or studies) of how X [fill in X for the appropriate decade] affects/interacts with children. But not just children, how about people of all ages?
I'm pretty sure that there weren't studies about comic book addiction and dungeons and dragons addiction, although there were studies on the influence of violent comic books, and possible associations of violence and dissociation with reality with D&D.
Other than those two, video game, internet, and Facebook addiction are real things. And now, video games and Facebook are being intentionally and consciously designed to encourage addiction.
The only thing I'd agree with you about is that it's just as bad for adults as it is for children. Presumably, though, we generally allow adults to make their own decisions about their addictions, and just offer help when they want to break them. Also, kids are creating the habits that are going to be the substrate for their thinking over the rest of their lives. If you think somebody who got hooked on heroin in their 20s has a tough time quitting at 40, imagine somebody trying to quit at the same age but who started at 10.
The WHO actually defines addiction to video games as a (psychological) disease now in their ICD. Not sure if the new list is in effect already, my last update was "will be on the 2018 list".
I vaguely remember the Jonathan Blow video where he talked about Facebook games and how gaming companies hire psychologists to make sure that skinner rat feeling is maximized. It was pretty disturbing at the time, these days tons of games seem to be "optimized" this way. My guess is higher addiction rates are a logical conclusion.
Looking at some Pokemon Go players or WoW players gives me enough anecdotal evidence to think one can get addicted t games quite quickly.
Why one would expose children to this psycho-lab unsupervised...I don't know.
Kids are going to use whatever their parents put in their hands. All of my nieces and nephews has some type of smart device (tablet, or phone). They are on it all the time. They never paid for it but it was given to them by their parents.
If parents stop giving their kids smart devices, then they will use that spare time doing something else (e.g. video games, homework, hanging out, smoking, idunno). There's no need for a study at all. Kids, in general, don't have money to buy an $800 device.
Funny, but I feel phone/Internet addiction in my own life. I don't need a study or concerned parents to know it's real, at least for some susceptible people.
Why is scientific inquiry bad? It was certainly warranted for television, and the deregulation of children's telvision in the US is widely regarded as a mistake.
If there is no evidence (as for example, there is no evidence of anytbing more than a small group of people causing a brief TV panic about D&D, a remarkable preview of Facebook-like credulitiy culture?), then intentional reflection on the impact of the products we make on society is a rational and reasonable precaution.
The first step in scientific inquiry is identifying the problem. Since that hasn't been done -- just as it wasn't done in the other examples cited -- that suggests the motivation for "investigation" is politics rather than science.
My favorite example is probably the video game moral panic. Nobody seemed to care that the juvenile crime rate took a steep turn down right around the time FPS games began making the news. That wasn't an example of "scientific inquiry," it was a politically-motivated witch hunt. What, exactly, is different this time?
This isn't even wrong. It's so divorced from the method as it is commonly taught it makes me wonder if there is a language barrier at play.
It's possible to inquire, "For a reasonable definition of 'addiciton' do we see those effects?"
Your cherry picked anecdote is cancelled out by mine: standards in television broadcasting for children. Let's leave subsequent anecdote bandying aside and trust in the scientific method a bit, okay?
What opinion is expressed here? There's a vague implication of "this is unfounded" they cannot even be bothered to put in clear words, much less make a case for, while trying to make up for that by repetition. So it's not okay to "think of the children", ever, but let's play good Samaritan for what is nothing more than a meme because it's a "valid opinion". Got it.
The observation is that whenever kids fixate on some new activity, the previous generation will always become extremely suspicious that it's harmful. If this hasn't been borne out in the past, then we can't take those suspicions as much evidence that there's anything to worry about.
And in the past, sometimes it's been a problem and sometimes it has not. It stands to reason that as we hyper-optimize for attention seeking applications we might start making things that children cannot realistically resist.
Television deregulation in the US is the precedent here. Given the modest costs of these sorts of inquiries compared to the massive profits enjoyed by Apple, Google, Samsung et al, it seems like a reasonable use for corporate tax dollars is to be an advocate for the general populace and make assurances these products are not in fact harmful.
Why is this such a challenging idea? No one is saying, "These are proven bad." They're saying, "We should have a definition of bad and then validate it."
The idea that we're not even allowed to ask the question because it's offensive? Why, that's positively irrational.
But we're soley not operating on "extreme suspicions because something is new" here. The letter does cite some studies, for starters. And you're mixing up "haven't always borne out exactly as predicted by the most worried people" and "have never borne out".
There was a time when using x-ray machines in shoe shops seemed totally benign, like a fun, useful thing. Suspicions about that "new thing" as well as others were correct. Including here, that list starts with "comic book" and ends with "internet and facebook" addiction, which are absolutely worth studying.
Sure, but surely these suspicions would exist anyway. The fact that we're probably thinking about this because of some bias is important to note, because that bias is likely to continue affecting people's thinking moving forward.
>And you're mixing up "haven't always borne out exactly as predicted by the most worried people" and "have never borne out".
I don't think I am. Any randomly selected hypothesis has some possibility of being true, especially one like "is <thing that exists> harmful". The fact that some of them have been borne out doesn't necessarily mean that "new things kids like are especially likely to be bad" is a good heuristic.
It's not that it's impossible that "phone addiction" is hurting kids. It's that we've seen this pattern over and over, and when people's thinking is biased, they're likely to continue believing there's a problem long after the majority of evidence suggests that there isn't. Pointing that out to raise people's skepticism is productive.
> doesn't necessarily mean that "new things kids like are especially likely to be bad" is a good heuristic
That heuristic is a strawman. Who employs it? Quote someone, I doubt you can. And then there's the countless new things kids like that nobody on the planet says a peep about, how do those figure in?
As for "heuristics", consider the notion that if kids like something new and untested en masse, they themselves may not be able to discern what is going on, so adults need to pay attention. Full stop, that's before getting into the actual signs that this particular issue might not be all peachy.
A study is just a study. You can hardly fearmonger about Apple sponsoring studies that skew the results against mobile devices. So why does this thread even exist? Because FUD exists, and even though this isn't FUD, it needs to be pre-emptively countered by false assurances in the form of memes?
Last but not least, it's not as if "let's study X" is how it used to be said... so to imply the equation "let's study X" == "X is of the devil for sure!" shouldn't slip under the radar the way it does.
1960's Can we have a study of Television addiction in Children.
1970's Can we have a study of Dungeons and Dragons addiction in children
1980's Can we have a study of Console game addiction in Children.
1990's Can we have a study of Computer game addiction in Children.
2000's Can we have a study of Internet addiction in Children.
2010's Can we have a study of Facebook addiction in Children.
Oh would you please think of the children...