Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?

[rangerrebew]

Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?

More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis.
Jasu Hu

    Jean M. Twenge September 2017 Issue Technology
 

One day last summer, around noon, I called Athena, a 13-year-old who lives in Houston, Texas. She answered her phone—she’s had an iPhone since she was 11—sounding as if she’d just woken up. We chatted about her favorite songs and TV shows, and I asked her what she likes to do with her friends. “We go to the mall,” she said. “Do your parents drop you off?,” I asked, recalling my own middle-school days, in the 1980s, when I’d enjoy a few parent-free hours shopping with my friends. “No—I go with my family,” she replied. “We’ll go with my mom and brothers and walk a little behind them. I just have to tell my mom where we’re going. I have to check in every hour or every 30 minutes.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/

[Sanguine]

I was listening to someone last week who was talking about why don't we have heroes now?  Where are the Churchills, Doolittles, Sam Houstons, Corrie TenBooms?  And, the answer was along the lines of people rise to what they have prepared for.  If you haven't faced a lot of challenges, you are not going to be able to suddenly and with no further preparation, rise to being a leader and surmount extraordinary difficulties.

[Oceander]

Interesting article. 

[goatprairie]

I don't know about destroying a generation, but the wife and I are constantly amused at the numbers of people addicted to their smart phones. I have a cell phone, and I the last time I used it was three or four months ago.
Go to a concert or some other event, and here are  people of all ages peering at and playing around with their cell phones.
How did people manage to survive before cell and smart phones? It's a mystery. 

[dfwgator]

It's a tool, nothing more, nothing less.

[DCPatriot]

It's a tool, nothing more, nothing less.

Looking thru that vein, I'm suddenly reminded about how 'current' society would react to the loss of electronic digital communication.

Where the only ones able to possible communicate are glass tube powered shortwave radios, and the only cars on the road will have plugs, points and condensers.

I emphasized "current" above, because as a Baby Boomer of 71, we'd at least be able to survive awhile longer than the Twenty-Somethings of today.

The effects on them would be essentially the same as Tom Hanks' Chuck Lolan with Wilson.   

[truth_seeker]

The smartphone is an amazing little device for actually doing work, which I see many modern productive people doing.

-phone
-phone message mach.
-text
-email
-calendar
-calculator
-navigation/map
-yellow pages
-encyclopedia
-newspaper
-personal computer

-and more

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Yeah remember when people would interact with each other in public?



 

[Wingnut]

It's a tool, nothing more, nothing less.

A tool that turns it's users into a tool.

[dfwgator]

A tool that turns it's users into a tool.

That ship sailed long before they got the smartphone.

[Wingnut]

That ship sailed long before they got the smartphone.

I remember when "Management" went all gaga over that damned Blackberry craptastic device.  In like  a very short period of time  say maybe a year or so you couldn't get half of them on the phone anymore.

[EC]

Did rock and roll destroy it's generation?

[Sanguine]

The smartphone is an amazing little device for actually doing work, which I see many modern productive people doing.

-phone
-phone message mach.
-text
-email
-calendar
-calculator
-navigation/map
-yellow pages
-encyclopedia
-newspaper
-personal computer

-and more

Yes, I love mine.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Yes, I love mine.

Both Apple maps and google maps, have traffic avoidance, so I use them every day for driving to work.

[Wingnut]

Did rock and roll destroy it's generation?

It could be argued that it did.   Not by me mind you, but by others.

[DB]

Did rock and roll destroy it's generation?

It certainly contributed to my hearing loss...

[roamer_1]

The smartphone is an amazing little device for actually doing work, which I see many modern productive people doing.

-phone
-phone message mach.
-text
-email
-calendar
-calculator
-navigation/map
-yellow pages
-encyclopedia
-newspaper
-personal computer

-and more

Yeah... I thought that too, not so long ago. A little before smart phones, my tether was a laptop and a cell phone... Turns out to all be bullsh*t. None of it important.

[Wingnut]

It certainly contributed to my hearing loss...

That is why we don't have 11 on the vol control knob anymore.

[Fishrrman]

I read the whole thing (it was long).

I don't own a smartphone.

I actually do have a cell phone, an old Samsung. It's sitting downstairs hidden away near the door, turned off. I'm not even sure if it's still charged (I'll check after I post this). I pay pagepluscellular.com $10 every four months to keep it alive -- $30 for the whole year.

It's ALWAYS turned off. I take it on road trips for emergencies.
Might have made two calls on it last year. Maybe not that many.

Actually, I neglected it so long earlier this year that the time ran out, I had to get it re-subscribed (they couldn't revive the old number, had to give me a new one, doesn't matter because next-to-no one has the number anyway).

The landline phone rang about three times today.
Didn't answer it.
Nomorobo took care of 'em all.

[roamer_1]

I actually do have a cell phone, an old Samsung. It's sitting downstairs hidden away near the door, turned off. I'm not even sure if it's still charged (I'll check after I post this). I pay pagepluscellular.com $10 every four months to keep it alive -- $30 for the whole year.

It's ALWAYS turned off. I take it on road trips for emergencies.
Might have made two calls on it last year. Maybe not that many.

Actually, I neglected it so long earlier this year that the time ran out, I had to get it re-subscribed (they couldn't revive the old number, had to give me a new one, doesn't matter because next-to-no one has the number anyway).

Exactly the same scenario here... Every time I need the bloody thing it's been shut off long enough that it has to be re-registered with a new number... 

I am stuck on a business line 9 to 5, and wherever I am on my route, my laptop is open, and folks can get to me with skype or slack...

By the time my time is my own, the LAST thing I want is a cellphone.

[berdie]

The only time mine is on is if there is some crises brewing in my family.

The rest of the time...sorry...they can reach me the "old fashioned" way. Most calls really are just nothing calls.

[Bunny Watson]

At 13, I spent my summer vacations getting up around 11 or noon, reading books on my bed in front of a window air conditioner, and generally avoiding anyone outside my family except during trips to the public library. Did books ruin my life?

[Wingnut]

At 13, I spent my summer vacations getting up around 11 or noon, reading books on my bed in front of a window air conditioner, and generally avoiding anyone outside my family except during trips to the public library. Did books ruin my life?

Where did you bury all the body's.... under the crawl space of your house?

[Bunny Watson]

Where did you bury all the body's.... under the crawl space of your house?

I had to use an abandoned house next door - we had a basement.

[Wingnut]

I had to use an abandoned house next door - we had a basement.