I'm no luddite, mobile devices are amazingly useful, but their effect on people has not exactly been unmitigatedly positive.
Most parents want to be more active and involved in their kids lives but material conditions get in the way. Blame shit economic policy and the greedy clowns that sold out America’s industrial base. Phones are an intellectually lazy excuse that ignores the facets that absolve parents of some of the responsibility you’re trying to heap on them. This is not to say that some parents are lazy and use screens as replacements for parenting; they exist but if you want to cast a net this wide - bring receipts.
From :
https://www.prb.org/resources/do-parents-spend-enough-time-w...
"Time diaries indicate that married fathers spent an average 6.5 hours a week caring for their children in 2000, a 153 percent increase since 1965. Married mothers spent 12.9 hours, a 21 percent increase. Single mothers spent 11.8 hours, a 57 percent increase."
And then there's you, doing all the same shitty stuff everyone else has to go through, sitting on the toilet at work, scrolling instagram, and you don't see any of that, but you get an impression that everyone else is living a much better life, because you only see the highlights of their life. And then you save all that money, spend it on the same shitty bus, for the same shitty hotel and sewer infested beach, but you still crop out only the pretty stuff and post that.
> It’s literally just mobile devices.
It’s probably very unlikely that it is “literally just” mobile devices. I agree that is probably one of the major contributing factors. But when we’re discussing a very large complicated human problem, it almost certainly is not “ literally just” one thing.
If we want to accurately diagnose an issue so we can accurately address it, then we have to catch ourselves before we accidentally shut someone else down when they are very likely correct as well.
Many of the issues we’re facing are fractal level depths of human problems which are a result of years of denying the problems existed. They will almost certainly require many levers being adjusted, not “Just” one.
As I mentioned earlier, from my perspective, in addition to the GP comment, you’re likely also correct that mobile devices are a major source, I would add that it is almost certainly also unregulated social media companies, unchecked marketing, unregulated algorithms, and unchecked greed.
https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/escaping-the-matrix/
TL;DR: It's phones and social media. We're social creatures who rely on dynamic networks of diverse opinions, but social media perverts this. We build static networks affirming our own opinions and that leaves us afraid of the unknown.
My favorite point Jonathan made is that if you look at the world as a whole, the spectrum of morality is actually incredibly diverse! Nobody sets out to build an evil ideology. Empires, caste systems, and communism were all built from moral foundations, even if their values are alien to us. In light of this, instead of asking why so much of the world looks backwards from an American liberal perspective (full disclosure: my perspective), a more interesting question is why American liberals adopt such a narrow view.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQoNd9oEeoI
(The discussion on Haidt's book "The Anxious Generation" starts at 13:08)
Cowen also questioned Haidt's prescription about how social media companies and the government should regulate social media through (stricter) age verification etc.
I could see conservatives blaming Obamaphones - making them accessible to all classes.
I wonder how the Holden Caulfield's, Johnny Stabler's or the Over The Edge kids would have done with smartphones.