I'm actually commenting based on my own experience and perception, not some abstract panic about "the children". I'm obviously typing this from a web browser, with both of us using this site that is not user hostile yet still creates a dopamine procrastination loop. HN specifically has had a noprocrast feature forever, for a quite real reason.
There certainly does appear to be a recent media panic, but unfortunately societal feedback suffers from heavy hysteresis. Is it sensible to dismiss the fallout from Snowden based on the prevailing wisdom of 2010 that most everybody is fine with surveillance? People who actually care say "about time" rather than "no news here".
As technologists, we see through the technicals rather than abstracting them as magic. There has been a very real social change in the past decade whereby computers aren't functioning as people's agents but rather remote agents of companies with their own diverging interests. Ignoring the implications and symptoms of this setup, especially as a trite "every generation has concerns", is just basic ignorance.
I have read the studies. The science is early and tenuous.
I also remember what it was like to be a metalhead in the 80s.
This is still mostly mindless fear mongering. Sometimes it also is about parents who have had problems parenting kids that slipped into addictive behavior patterns, and blaming the thing rather than just engaging with human nature.
I have two kids, they use screens (with some reasonable limits), and they’re doing fine, but we need to be watchful and actively engaged in their screen use to ensure they know how to to put it down. Some kids needed extreme interventions, I get that. But addictive things aren’t bad things necessarily, they can be very good things in moderation. The world is a big place with more to do than screens. I don’t understand why thy extremes some rich SV families have had to implement is now some kind of “consensus”. The hell there is consensus.
The screen also offers a rich world of its own and ample opportunity for personal advancement. Children need to learn how to manage it for their own ends. Thankfully both of my kiddos seem to be able to put the screen down after a bit and go outside to play.
Oh my god, what hyperbole. This is like the cringey hyperbole equating rock 'n roll with devil music back in the 50s.
Things will be fine. Every older generation thinks the newer generation is "mad". It's not the end of the world.
Is hacker news mostly grandparents now? Just worried about every new technology? So many comments here feel like my grandparents talking.
It's so sad how old and scared HN has gotten. HN isn't supposed to be like it.