The Atlantic: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?

[Destino]

Looking back on my childhood virtually all of my free time was out of the house.  I played sports, and that was just about the only structured and supervised play time activity I did.  Outside of that I was basically set loose upon my neighborhood every day.  Kids would actually explore their neighborhoods back then.  They knew every creek and hidden place.  Every useful hole to be found in fences.  I can't imagine what we smelled like but it must have been awful.  

 

If I allowed my daughter that sort of freedom when she's a little older, she's only 4 now, I'd have to deal with child protective services.  We're not allowed to let our kids run free and that's certainly part of the problem.  

 

[BornaSkinsFan83]

Yes. 

 

I've said before on here, as far as the brain is concerned, smart phone usage is very much like gambling. They both cause the brain to function in much the same way that drugs do. Pleasure zones lighting up and all that jazz. Thus, like gambling (know, firsthand, people in Vegas who would literally **** on themselves rather than get off a slot machine and use the bathroom), it's an addictive and mentally unhealthy behavior. I don't think you're necessarily going to see the ruined lives that you do with gambling, for obvious reasons (see $$$), but it's still harmful and we still don't understand the negative affects, both long term and short term. You throw a still-developing brain into the mix and who knows. I fully expect to see PA (Phone Anonymous) or TA (Tits & ...oops, Technology Anonymous) or whatever meetings in the not too distant future. 

[twa]

1 hour ago, Destino said:

  We're not allowed to let our kids run free and that's certainly part of the problem.  

 

 

 

Not allowed is a excuse, never let it stop me.

Kids are feeding off the parents mentality.

 

 

[PokerPacker]

7 hours ago, Springfield said:

But your lawn is where all the good Pokémon are...

haha, man, I never envisioned Pokemon making such a huge resurgence. I know my generation started to shy away from it as we got older as it was a "kiddy" game (though I may have secretly held on longer than some ).  I think there was a little nostalgia for it late in high school, but that was about all that developed into.  But then Pokemon Go happened.

[TheGreatBuzz]

Wow this thread makes me think back to all the good times I had as a child.  Being able to run around neighborhoods with almost no supervision.  Just doing crazy kid things.  Like there was the old WW2 vet that lived back in the woods in a beat up camper.  Everyone said he was a little crazy so we would go out there just to have fun with him.  Just little things like hiding around his camper and setting of fire crackers.  Man, he would freak out!  It was hilarious.  

We also used to go around to the houses that were in the middle of being built in light little fires in them to see how long it would take for someone to come put it out.  Sometimes, most of the house would go up before the fire trucks would come.  I loved seeing all the lights of those big trucks.  I heard one the the construction bosses actually went to jail because they thought he burned his own house down.  Suckers!  He was mean anyways.

I still think my favorite past time though was catching squirreles and cats and stuff.  We would tie them up and open them up to see how their insides worked.  One time I was able to actually see the heart beating.....until it stopped.  So cool!

 

Oh to be a kid again when you could to innocent kid experimenting stuff.  Now everyone is so judgmental.  Any of you do fun stuff like that?

[Springfield]

My wife gives me disgusted looks when I tell her that we used to pour salt on slugs and step on the end of caterpillars and watch them explode.

[Rocky21]

Great Buzz, I have notified the authorities. 

[AsburySkinsFan]

I thought this was an interesting bit,

 

As teens have started spending less time together, they have become less likely to kill one another, and more likely to kill themselves. In 2011, for the first time in 24 years, the teen suicide rate was higher than the teen homicide rate.

[grego]

18 hours ago, Destino said:

Looking back on my childhood virtually all of my free time was out of the house.  I played sports, and that was just about the only structured and supervised play time activity I did.  Outside of that I was basically set loose upon my neighborhood every day.  Kids would actually explore their neighborhoods back then.  They knew every creek and hidden place.  Every useful hole to be found in fences.  I can't imagine what we smelled like but it must have been awful.  

 

If I allowed my daughter that sort of freedom when she's a little older, she's only 4 now, I'd have to deal with child protective services.  We're not allowed to let our kids run free and that's certainly part of the problem.  

 

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/

 

how did we get here?

It’s difficult to know exactly why vindictive protectiveness has burst forth so powerfully in the past few years. The phenomenon may be related to recent changes in the interpretation of federal antidiscrimination statutes (about which more later). But the answer probably involves generational shifts as well. Childhood itself has changed greatly during the past generation. Many Baby Boomers and Gen Xers can remember riding their bicycles around their hometowns, unchaperoned by adults, by the time they were 8 or 9 years old. In the hours after school, kids were expected to occupy themselves, getting into minor scrapes and learning from their experiences. But “free range” childhood became less common in the 1980s. The surge in crime from the ’60s through the early ’90s made Baby Boomer parents more protective than their own parents had been. Stories of abducted children appeared more frequently in the news, and in 1984, images of them began showing up on milk cartons. In response, many parents pulled in the reins and worked harder to keep their children safe.

_________________________

 

I've posted stuff from haidt before (I should be getting paid for it ). I'm fascinated by it. 

 

The influence of media on our thoughts and behavior is stunning. 

[Llevron]

13 hours ago, Springfield said:

My wife gives me disgusted looks when I tell her that we used to pour salt on slugs and step on the end of caterpillars and watch them explode.

 

I used to do the slug thing until I got Old Bay in an open cut eating crabs. Then I realized that **** hurt and I was a monster. 

[Rocky21]

I can't quantify this but it seems like there is no more child predation now than there ever was it's just that the news media realized this type of news sold well and as there were more stories there were more overprotective parents.  Easier said than done I know but the loss of independence by kids makes me sad. 

[Bang]

I was outside a lot, unsupervised a lot, latch key kid.

Lived in an area that wasn't the best, but wasn't the worst. (Forestville / Suitland)

Ended up smoking a lot of dope, selling cocaine, and generally acting like a dip**** for the first 30 years of my life.

 

I think each generation has it's boogeyman. 

 

However, i think the notion of "what's wrong with kids today" is usually what is wrong with their parents.

Kids today seem self centered and ignorant of others.
Look at their parents and you'll see the same thing.

i can't say for any other generation, but as I became a parent and had to deal with parenting things, including other parents, it seems to me this notion of "my baby is so ****ing precious and everything they do is perfect and if there's anything wrong it must be because of YOU because everything my little angel ****s is just as perfect as perfect can be".. seems to be something coming along relatively recently.

BUT, since i was a kid previously, i never noticed that from the perspective of an adult, so it my have existed just as strongly as it does now back then.

toys and tools don't ruin kids. Parents do. Let the phone raise your kid, well, then you get what you deserved.

 

Nowadays it seems to me parents are consumed with making sure everything for their precious fits this idea of what is a 'magical' childhood. And it just seems to me that this insulated attitude of 'my child MUST have a "magical" childhood' only serves to create a self centered and insulated kid.

Fact,, as i look back on my magical childhood, it was probably not so good. I played in the street, I was exposed to drugs, I had problems with other kids, i dealt with racism, i dealt with violence, i dealt with ****ty schools, i dealt with an abusive single mom, i dealt with being at or near the poverty line.   and because i was a ****ing KID none of it really mattered overall. I enjoyed my childhood, warts and all. 

"Magical" is relative. To a kid, most of it is pretty good because your'e a kid and don't know better. Most of what people deem their child must experience to have a "magical" childhood is plastic, false commercialized ideas implanted as real life. Pressure created by parents trying to build what they think are winners, and typically compensating for their own failures.
  i never went to Disney world, and i never gave a crap that i never went to Disney World. I won exactly one trophy as a kid, and i had to come in first to get it. And i went to countless athletic banquets with the Forestville Boys and Girls club in which i wasn't going to get a single trophy and i didn't really care.  i didn't feel inferior to the kids who were getting one, and it didn't have anything to do with my own self esteem. i realized things that were truths, like Mike gets trophies because he's ****ing BETTER at hitting a baseball than I am. i try to hit it, but i'm not as good at it.  And Mike and I are friends anyway.
i had much more of a self esteem problem trying to play sports i was no good at because my mom signed me up... probably to keep me from being bored and out of trouble.

To me, the magic of childhood is you are blissfully unaware of almost everything of consequence, and as such you can be truly happy with the smallest things.

People forget that about being children,, they view their kids childhoods through the eyes of the adult they've become instead of through the eyes of the kid in front of them. And because they are now in the rat race and so many things are so important to them, they figure those things must be important to the kid as well.

And they're just not.

 

as far as smartphones..  parents have to do what parents always have done,, and monitor what is going on. These same things were said about comic books, TV, Rock and roll music, rap music, video games, any new thing kids are doing that parents don't totally understand because it isn't from their experience of childhood, is attacked the same way. "it is ruining this generation".  Comics turned kids gay, TV turned them into drooling morons, video games turned them into psychotic killers, and on and on and on.

Parents with ruined kids have only one thing to blame, and it's themselves. Kids are what you teach them to be. Period. Teach them what the toy is and what it can do. Obviously, online is a dangerous place for a kid. Parents should monitor activity closely.

Other than that, it's the new toy, the thing they all do. We played ball, they chat and text and all that.  (and play ball and everything else. Fact: kids still like to run and play and ride bikes.)

The new toy is also the very powerful tool that will guide most of their life in the broader scope of technology. Teach them how to use it and respect it, and they will. 

 

as usual, this post is all over the map. Hope it made sense.

 

~Bang

 

 

 

[Going Commando]

2 hours ago, AsburySkinsFan said:

I thought this was an interesting bit,

 

I just consider myself fortunate that, after having to spend all of that time with a teenaged me, my mom didn't kill me.  I cringe thinking about what a turd I was.  In my dark timeline I could have ended up being some horrifically insecure alt-Right piece of **** if I'd never met a girl who would talk to me.

[AsburySkinsFan]

12 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

I just consider myself fortunate that, after having to spend all of that time with a teenaged me, my mom didn't kill me.  I cringe thinking about what a turd I was.  In my dark timeline I could have ended up being some horrifically insecure alt-Right piece of **** if I'd never met a girl who would talk to me.

If you never met a girl you'd be LARPing every weekend with you medieval chauvinistic Alt-Right fanbois...you would literally be MSF.  

[Warhead36]

The thing is back in the day, everyone knew everyone in the neighborhood. Kids were outside all the time, and it didn't matter whos house you were at, your parents knew you were safe. Nowadays everyone's afraid of getting kidnapped.

[Bang]

Back then there were just as many freaks,, just better hidden. Not as much coverage, no cameras everywhere..  occasional stories and that was about it. No milk cartons with missing kids.. none of that when i was small.

Twice i was offered rides by people that probably would have never let me see daylight again.  back in the 70s. Once i was probably 10 and about 200 yards from my front door , the other time i was around 13 and riding my bike up Suitland road from  Iverson Mall.

Once my mom had to come outside and usher me away from a group of not so savory bikers who were showing me a handful of what i later learned were yellowjackets, speed. They just happened to be hanging out behind my apartment,, i was probably 5, and i thought the motorcycles were cool. Nice picturesque little Mayberry town of Newtown Square Pa.

While i was out playing and having a magical childhood. 

 

People are more afraid these days, and in some ways they should be. If i was home, I was safe. Not so anymore..  online predators are a very serious threat, and if I had a small kid, i'd be very tight with phone and online privileges. I was with my son.

 

~Bang

[Warhead36]

The ironic thing is the more you shelter you kids, the less protected they are for if/when they do run into a real lowlife.

 

 

[Bang]

This is true. Those encounters definitely taught me.

the bikers, i was young,, the other two , my mom never even knew about. 

Made me learn to be leery and to trust myself if something didn't smell right.

~Bang