There’s loads of evidence linking excessive phone and social media use with mental health issues, and taking phones away is an easy win.
this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
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I don't have time to review all the research that has been done on the topic, but fortunately others have done a review of the existing studies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9200624/ concludes "Despite the fears held around wireless technologies, we believe that at this stage there is not enough evidence supporting a causal negative relationship between MP/WD use and children and adolescent’s mental health to justify particular public health interventions."
And this isn't a review, but here's one additional study:
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2022/11/children-mobile-phone-age.html says "Stanford Medicine researchers did not find a connection between the age children acquired their first cell phone and their sleep patterns, depression symptoms or grades."
So I did a quick search through the scholarly literature and the consensus is overwhelmingly the opposite of your claim. So much so that I’ve decided not to link any studies (there are literally thousands). Science isn’t perfect and statistics alone guarantee many ambiguous results, some of which you seem to have found.
It would help if you could link to at least one of the thousands. What's one you think makes a strong case? I'm not sure if you're referring to actual studies or, maybe, confusing blog posts and "expert" opinions with actual studies.
These are fine studies (or summaries), but they don't say cellphones are good. They say that they can't say whether cellphones are bad. For now, common sense is the most effective tool we have to deal with cellphones and kids. So I'd say, enjoy but do it responsibly. Much like drugs and alcohol. (In the Netherlands we have the public health slogan for alcohol "geniet maar drink met mate", which is "enjoy but drink with moderation". I think that sentiment applies here too)
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Theme: tell me you are 16 without telling me you are 16
Mom: "Honey, try reading a book or something for once. You're almost about to graduate from high school and you've literally never read a book to completion in your entire life. Actually, I'm going to say only 1 hour of cell phone time a night until you finish a book of your choosing."
OP: *This post*
I'm 30+ and, granted, I haven't given my daughter a cellphone, and I think well of parents who are careful about how their children use technology.
It's a meme. It's not super clear, but it's memorable.
One belief I'm trying to express with this meme is that most laws created "to protect the children" are not really about protecting children. I know that's a hot take (/s). For example, my state has recently said "to protect the children, let's require all adults to upload their government ID before posting on any website", and the skeptical part of me thinks that's not really about the kids.
I think the issue here encompasses several factors: 1) you seem to be conflating the kind of moral panic driven legislation which has historically always existed with a silencing tactic aimed at dismissing youth-driven cultural criticism and 2) this meme screams low hanging fruit, appealing to the emotions of young people for whom having their phone taken away is like torture while also engaging in the, at the moment, very popular denigration of older Americans as being out of touch and dismissive of continuously worsening societal issues. Point 1 is understandable, as criticizing new things as being a corrupting influence on young people is as old as dirt, as is the propensity for the powers that be to dismiss cultural and material criticisms of the worsening state of peoples' lives in hard times. And while they may exist as a part of a shared rhetorical and ideological ecosystem, their relationship is too complex to be purely causal, as your meme seems to be suggesting.
Pretty sure excessive phone use leads to this kind of doomerism so might not be a bad idea to force kids to touch some grass.
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How are these related?
Kids are sad and have problems, people think this is because of cellphones, so they want to take away the kid's cellphones, but maybe kids are sad because of other problems.
See: https://lemmy.world/post/12059331
In general, there's been lots of talk and bills related to regulating social media, a year or two ago it was "ban tik tok", now it's regulate social media and take away kid's cellphones. Lot's of talk about it, lots of time on the evening news about it. Meanwhile, nobody does anything about the big problems and the evening news wont mention them.
Yes kids are sad in part because of their cellphone, online harassment and bullying is worse than it's ever been, it's an issue in classes too and it's one thing that can easily be fixed.
If the news you check don't cover the other issues then change your news sources.
Edit: Funny that you ignored the comments in your link
Now you make OP sad and he has to look for different fediverse to find commenters that align with his view... Or maybe you need to find posts that make you supportive, idk...
I'll go with the first option and continue calling out people who see the world in black and white.
"They ban cellphones instead of taking care of the environment!"
As if a government is unable to take care of more than one thing at a time.
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lemmy.world really did become a cesspool of rightwing cancer, huh?
This thread confuses me. Are you or GP suggesting I have a certain political leaning based on this post? I'm curious to know what you think that political leaning would be?
Given that social media usage has primarily resulted in right wing radicalization, it’s possible that your politics are informing your stance. However, I suspect this is more about your intelligence.
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Explain how taking a kid's phone away makes them more capable of defending against online harassment. That seems super counterintuitive. If a kid doesn't have a cell phone their bullies can spread whatever rumours they want online and it won't be challenged or reported.
I think a lot of those things are good. Limit cellphones in schools, good. Require websites to put a "content rating" in their HTML responses which would help make filtering the internet a lot easier, good. Require cellphone manufacturers to give instructions on how parents can setup filters on their children's phones, good.
Require all adults to upload their government papers before participating in the most important speech forum of our time, bad. I think the laws created to "protect the children" aren't really about protecting children (not exactly a hot take).
I have a challenge for you, and then a prediction:
My challenge is to look at this graph and form a world view that explains it. Certainly there's more behind these numbers than cellphones. Suicide rates were also high around 1990, why?
My prediction is that if we take away kid's cellphones, it will not actually help them and they will still be unhappy, and people will throw up their hands and say "what more can we do?". Well, what more we can do is address those big problems in the first panel of my meme.
I see that and I think both can't be compared as the curve is much more concerning at the moment so it would be illogical to assume the reason why it's going up must be similar.
Otherwise just look at the people in power and the geopolitical situation at the time. Increases during Republican mandates (public services reduced) except for under GWB where the US had "something to fight for".
That first chart I posted made it look like suicide rates were going into exponential growth recently, but "the curve" does plateau and seem to hover around the 1990's levels. See following chart, also, note how this chart makes things look unprecedented because they cut off the 1990s.
Sure but it still doesn't prove that the reason why it increased is the same as it was in the 80s though, the only way we could know isn't with those two graphics but by analyzing the reasons why they do it. You're coming to a conclusion without enough information, that's very dangerous.
Speaking of "enough information":
I think blaming cellphones, and even blaming social media to some extent, is like blaming video games in the 90's. There's lots of opinions, lots of "experts" who also have opinions, and not a lot of scientifically valid research to support those opinions. This is what I'm making fun of in the meme.
You say that is "very dangerous", maybe. I'll note that (at the time of writing) I'm the only one who has linked to anything in support of my views and conclusions. So my views are, apparently, the least "dangerous" in the thread.
I love everybody missing the point by trying to be super smart and tell you that you can use phones too much. Computers of all sorts folks just cause you browse lemmy on your pc doesn't mean you are better than anybody else.
Primarily I think the issue is social media. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook you know the ones. If you use these platforms a ton you should uh stop you'll feel better. One of the best decisions I made was deleting my Instagram, Twitter and Facebook account something like 5 years back. If you can't just delete your account put a time limit on how long you can use the app. Have a good think about how much of your day you want to be mindless scrolling.
Best thing about Lemmy is there's only 10 minutes of new content a day.
Whataboutism
You really think OP is trying to derail discussion of the effects of kids having phones, and not, say, trying to draw the attention to the fact that the people in charge are doing fuck all to solve much more serious problems that also cause anxiety in kids?
It's not that deep. This "meme" was made by a kid who is salty that their own shitty decision making got their phone taken away.
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Even more bait trash.
Meanwhile in the 18th century during the reading fever: "You mean, take the kid's books away, right?"
And so it is that you by reason of your tender regard for the writing that is your offspring have declared the very opposite of its true effect. If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.
What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only the semblance of wisdom, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much while for the most part they know nothing. And as men filled not with wisdom but with the conceit of wisdom they will be a burden to their fellows.
- Plato, 370 BC
Also greek philosophers: Farts are bits of the soul leaving the body.
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Any excuse to further marginalize young people and exclude them from society. Fellow old people never fail to disappoint me.
Stop playing on your phone in class, kid
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