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Comment by redux13 | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if any parallels can be drawn between this and the inordinate amount of time children today spend starting at smartphones. While my personal opinion is that it is probably harmful to have so much of our attention focussed on phones at such a young age, we don't know how future societies will view this activity in retrospect.

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People in the future will probably view smartphone use/ the internet in general similar to how many people view television now: as an activity that is fun on occasion, but is mostly a boring waste of time and generally bad for kids.

Television and smartphone/internet use are only comparable to some extent, though. Television had a much more limited amount of power compared to internet usage. You could clearly get by without a TV; it was just a convenience and a form of entertainment. The internet has had a lot more influence in our daily lives in contrast.

Apparently the average adult watches 5 hours of TV a day. How the hell do you even fit that in? My social media is about an hour a day all up, and it still feels like too much...

[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/business/media/nielsen-su...

Yeah this is fucking nutty to me. It's not like you can watch TV at work.

I don't know about this. Is HN, and much of the internet, not full of people who spend all their time absorbing information? TV is far more homogenous due to the high barrier to entry and pressure for it to appeal to the least common denominator 100% of the time.

My prediction is that everyone will be fine just like every other time a new thing came around, and phones won't finally be the one "it's different for real this time super seriously" thing.

Or, if everybody is affected the same way then nobody will know the difference.

My prediction is they will continue the decline that's been going on for a long time.

I'm not convinced they were wrong about chess either.

When in the past was the peak?

Hunter / gatherer.

Back when everyone agreed on libertarianism

You may be right, but it's clear that the _level_ of the addiction, and its ubiquity, are more powerful than anything before. It's basically everyone is doing a minimum of a couple hours a day (but spread out, so without any prolonged cessation), with the average now like 4-5 hours I believe. Television is probably the closest competitor, but that was typically confined to blocks of after-work hours.

Search phrase most likely to match previous moral panics: "You may be right, but it's clear that..."

Ha! True enough. In fairness, "they" weren't wrong about TV...

Just like how cigarettes were completely fine for a few generations, or added sugar took over fat in every food product? I mean, if everyone does something bad, does it make it fine or only invisible?

More "kids these days are doing this new thing and it's going to cause the downfall of the next generation"

Another thing that might (no strong studies AFAIK so this this straight out of my behind) be a consequence of our increased phone use is myopia.

There is some evidence that myopia incidents(diagnoses?) have increased but I don't think there is proof that it is caused by our increased time spent looking at things close to us.

I also think it is harmful to have so much exposure especially because the most popular apps on smartphones are designed to grab our attention constantly and create this dependency on getting a notification.

Hopefully we see some great studies in the next 10-30 years that can properly map the effects the so-called "attention economy" has had on us

To the best of my knowledge, current studies seem to suggest the cause of myopia is insufficient exposure to bright light (i.e. sunlight) during the developmental phase. That's why it looks like TV/phones/etc might be the cause yet every controlled study was unable to find a link.

For that matter, what do you suppose is the effect of hours and days spent focusing on intellectual abstractions in school and work.

In my experience it is extremely consciousness-altering. And the effect sticks. It can become "reality" for a person.

In the meditation scene we have a technique for altering your consciousness through prolonged concentration. The Buddhists call it "Samatha". It is potent.

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