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More than one-third of 15-year-old children in the UK could be classified as 'extreme internet users', or those who are online for more than six hours daily outside of school.
A report from UK think-tank Education Policy Institute (EPI) states that children in the UK have a higher rate of extreme usage (37.8 percent of all UK 15 year olds) than other countries. Only Chile reported more.
The think-tank examined the relation between social media use (including online time) and mental illness:
While twelve percent of children who spend no time on social networking websites on a normal school day have symptoms of mental ill health, that figure rises to 27 percent for those who are on the sites for three or more hours a day.
Here's a hint: if one third of your kids think a certain way, it's a personality trait not a mental illness.
(Score: 4, Disagree) by takyon on Thursday July 06 2017, @02:57AM (8 children)
And if a chemical suddenly caused brain damage in 30% of the population, that would just be the new normal, huh?
Maybe the instant gratification design of gaming, the Web, and social media lead to behavioral addiction and cause increased mood swings and depression. Moreso than TV which was one-way and did not engage the viewer as much. Once you sit in front of a Web-connected general purpose computer, there is an essentially infinite amount of things for you to do. Many of which are a waste of time.
Today's post-Millennials have only known a world in which smartphones are ubiquitous and computers have multiple cores and fancy UIs. They are getting the latest in addictive UI design shoved at them from the moment they can grip a fondleslab. At least VR isn't in 50% of households yet. It could get there quickly by piggybacking on smartphones but the apps/games are not killer just yet. And the tethered headsets are unacceptable. Give it 10 more years or so, and kids will be born with good VR at arm's length. Plenty of parents will not care about setting limits (easier to do back when families had one TV or computer, much harder when everyone has a smartphone). Kids will be immersed into an ocean of dopamine.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by unauthorized on Thursday July 06 2017, @04:47AM (5 children)
If they are enjoying themselves, it's not a waste of time. You do not get to decide what's worthwhile in the lives of other people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @08:55AM (4 children)
That sounds reasonable until you think about it. A collective decision for the greater good is precisely the foundation of modern society. Education requirements, vaccination requirements, even things like requirements you wear a seat belt are society imposing rules on the individual for the greater good that, in a vacuum, only effect that individual. Having increasingly large chunks of the population that are mentally, socially, and/or emotionally under developed is not a good thing. Even if the purely voluntary processes that led to said underdevelopment made them happy.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Thursday July 06 2017, @10:57AM (3 children)
And for the holocaust. Just saying.
The rights of individuals should only be restricted to the bare minimum required to maintain a functioning society and ensure nobody else's rights are being violated. Anything more is tyranny.
Neither is smoking, drinking, watching TV, or whatever else is "ruining our children" today. Deal with it, nobody has to live up to your standards.
(Score: 1) by gtomorrow on Thursday July 06 2017, @11:26AM (1 child)
Okay, now you're just being difficult. How can you even begin to compare "collective decision for the greater good" to a (for lack of a better term) philosophy that intrinsically includes murder and hatred? No red lights go off in your reasoning? Really?
There is a huge multi-toned difference between "rights of the individual" and "tyranny". Following your logic chasm, I supposed you can't be bothered taking a shower every now and then because it interferes with your "rights of the individual."
Bringing this back on track, that's all we need for the future of mankind on the planet: more anti-social behaviour, staring straight into a screen instead of someone else's eyes. More Asperger's, please.
(Score: 1) by unauthorized on Thursday July 06 2017, @11:45AM
I'm not. All I'm saying is that it was also done in the name of "the greater good". The underlying implication is criticism of selling an idea because it's "for the greater good", which I assumed was obvious enough not to require spelling out, but apparently it was not.
Speaking of logic chasms, I fail to see how my decisions about my own life interfere with my rights. But even if I didn't take showers, how would that interfere with my rights? Nobody is going to force me to bathe, the worst people could do is avoid me and deny me entry to their property.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @02:26PM
Wearing a seatbelt is tyranny...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @07:30AM
If people are enjoying themselves, is it really a waste of time?
And even if it is, most people waste 8 hours a day, five days a week. It's called "working to make someone else rich".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @01:42PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_Stimuli [wikipedia.org]
"Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose is a book by Deirdre Barrett published by W. W. Norton & Company in 2010. Barrett is a psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. The book argues that human instincts for food, sex, and territorial protection evolved for life on the savannah 10,000 years ago, not for today’s densely populated technological world. Our instincts have not had time to adapt to the rapid changes of modern life.[1] The book takes its title from Nikolaas Tinbergen's concept in animal ethology of the supernormal stimulus, the phenomena by which insects, birds, and fish in his experiments could be lured by a dummy object which exaggerated one or more characteristic of the natural stimulus object such as giant brilliant blue plaster eggs which birds preferred to sit on in preference to their own.[2] Barrett extends the concept to humans and outlines how supernormal stimuli are a driving force behind today’s most pressing problems, including modern warfare, obesity and other fitness problems, while also explaining the appeal of television, video games, and pornography as social outlets.[3]"
See also:
"The Pleasure Trap" (about food specifically)
http://web.archive.org/web/20160418155513/http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx [archive.org]
"An abundance of food, by itself, is not a cause of health problems. But modern technology has done more than to simply make food perpetually abundant. Food also has been made artificially tastier. Food is often more stimulating than ever before—as the particular chemicals in foods that cause pleasure reactions have been isolated—and artificially concentrated. These chemicals include fats (including oils), refined carbohydrates (such as refined sugar and flour), and salt. Meats were once consumed mostly in the form of wild game—typically about 15% fat. Today’s meat is a much different product. Chemically and hormonally engineered, it can be as high as 50% fat or more. Ice cream is an extraordinary invention for intensifying taste pleasure—an artificial concoction of pure fat and refined sugar. Once an expensive delicacy, it is now a daily ritual for many people. French fries and potato chips, laden with artificially-concentrated fats, are currently the most commonly consumed “vegetable” in our society. As Dr. Fuhrman reports in his excellent volume Eat to Live, these artificial products, and others like them, comprise a whopping 93% American diet. Our teenage population, for example, consumes up to 25% of their calories in the form of soda pop! Most of our citizenry can’t imagine how it could be any other way. To remove (or dramatically reduce) such products from America’s daily diet seems intolerable—even absurd. Most people believe that if they were to do so, they would enjoy their food—and their lives—much less. Indeed, most people believe that they would literally suffer if they consumed a health-promoting diet devoid of such indulgences. But, it is here that their perception is greatly in error. The reality is that humans are well designed to fully enjoy the subtler tastes of whole natural foods, but are poorly equipped to realize this fact. And like a frog sitting in dangerously hot water, most people are being slowly destroyed by the limitations of their awareness. ... Tragically, most people are totally unaware that they are only a few weeks of discipline away from being able to comfortably maintain healthful dietary habits—and to keep away from the products that can result in the destruction of their health. Instead, most people think that if they were to eat more healthfully, they would be condemned to a life of greatly reduced gustatory pleasure—thinking that the process of Phase IV will last forever. In our new book, The Pleasure Trap, we explain this extraordinarily deceptive and problematic situation – and how to master this hidden force that undermines health and happiness."
Also:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/14/the-cyber-effect-mary-aiken-review-internet-social-media-psychology [theguardian.com]
"The reality is that digital technology (like most technologies) is both good and bad. And, as with oxygen, it’s not going to go away. So the only rational way forward is to figure out how to live intelligently with it. But in order to do that we need to understand it. The industry and its boosters have done a pretty good job in explaining the advantages. What we lack is an informed understanding of the problems, dangers and pathologies to which it gives rise.
This is the gap that Dr Aiken seeks to fill. As a psychologist, her prime interest is in the scientific understanding of online behaviour. “If I seem to focus on many of the negative aspects of technology,” she writes, “it is in order to bring the debate back to the balanced centre rather than have one driven by utopian idealism or commercialism. My job is just to provide the best wisdom possible, based on what we know about human beings and how their cognitive, behavioural, physiological, social, developmental, affective, and motivational capabilities have been exploited or compromised or changed by the design of these products.”"
"Most of our citizenry can’t imagine how it could be any other way. To remove (or dramatically reduce) such products from America’s daily diet seems intolerable—even absurd. Most people believe that if they were to do so, they would enjoy their food—and their lives—much less. Indeed, most people believe that they would literally suffer if they consumed a health-promoting diet devoid of such indulgences. But, it is here that their perception is greatly in error. The reality is that humans are well designed to fully enjoy the subtler tastes of whole natural foods, but are poorly equipped to realize this fact. And like a frog sitting in dangerously hot water, most people are being slowly destroyed by the limitations of their awareness. ... Tragically, most people are totally unaware that they are only a few weeks of discipline away from being able to comfortably maintain healthful dietary habits—and to keep away from the products that can result in the destruction of their health. Instead, most people think that if they were to eat more healthfully, they would be condemned to a life of greatly reduced gustatory pleasure—thinking that the process of Phase IV will last forever. In our new book, The Pleasure Trap, we explain this extraordinarily deceptive and problematic situation – and how to master this hidden force that undermines health and happiness."