Not to be pedantic, but smoking is actually the new smoking. Its just now being normalized through weed (which is rationalized as healthy or cool) and vaping (which is seen as less harmful than smoking cigarettes). The sheer number of smoke shops has exploded.
Yeah it really bugs me how inconsiderate weed and vaping smokers can be. I’ve had weed smokers casually walk by my family blowing smoke everywhere without care, like this was the 1950’s. In a sense this is even worse as not only did I not agree to me or my kids breathing in this cancerous cloud of smoke, but it is psychoactive too.
Yah the thing is weed smokers know a small bit of weed smoke is nearly harmless compared to an equivalent bit of smoke from a tobacco smoker. It is absolutely still inconsiderate but as far as I know there is little evidence that second hand weed smoke inhalation is much of a threat to anyone. Vehicular exhuast is most definitely far more of a health threat
> It is absolutely still inconsiderate but as far as I know there is little evidence that second hand weed smoke inhalation is much of a threat to anyone.
There is no reason to believe that weed smoke is any better or worse than cigarette smoke. Burnt plant matter is burnt plant matter and contains lots of garbage--most of which isn't good for anybody.
The only difference nowadays is that a lot of people consume both nicotine and THC using vaping and concentrated liquid. This is probably less damaging in terms of secondhand smoke as the temperature is lower and the goal is vaporization rather than oxidation.
> There is no reason to believe that weed smoke is any better or worse than cigarette smoke.
It is impossible to say one way or another as the internet is full of both sides of opinions. It is easy to find articles that say that weed smoking isn't as bad as cigarette smoke. I personally don't trust either side though.
But, from a logical point of view, they have very different compounds in them, so there must be some sort of difference.
I hadn't thought of cannabis consumption as being unequivocally associated with cancer risk.
I haven't paid much attention, but there was a pretty big JAMA paper a decade or so ago that didn't demonstrate much risk at something like "a joint per day for 40 years" level consumption.
Vaping may well have its own -- perhaps even greater -- risks, but I hadn't assumed propylene glycol to be particularly carcinogenic. Is it? CDC says doesn't seem to be raising major red flags: https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/ToxFAQs/ToxFAQsDetails.aspx?faqid=1...
Certainly not an area of expertise for me, I'd always thought of it as closer to a fog machine at a Halloween party than inhaling burning pieces of ash. Other than the vitamin e (?) associated illnesses a few years ago, is there good reason to think otherwise?
Smoking causes cancer. Not tobacco. Not marijuana. Inhaling smoke causes cancer, pretty much independent of what is being burnt. (Though obviously some substances are even worse still.)
For some reason people think it is tobacco that causes lung cancer, and therefore joints are safe/healthy. Ridiculous. It is inhaling all that ash that gives you lung and throat cancer.
Vaping avoids the carcinogens of cigarette smoke, but likely carries its own risks. As you mention it's like breathing in a Halloween/stage smoke. But why do you think that is safe to do?
Ultimately if the air is smokey, it contains particulate matter. That particulate matter is not good for your lungs, no matter what it is.
The amount of combusted material that one is exposed to makes a big difference in cancer rates (and other disease rates).[1]
I imagine that this is orders of magnitude lower for marijuana smokers than tobacco smokers, especially in this era with most flower being >20% THC by mass.
The reason weed is less cancerous than tobacco is because weed smokers typically smoke far less total volume of plant matter than tobacco smokers. Cigarette smokers light up many times every day. Most weed smokers only use it recreationally on an occasional basis, because it's not as addictive.
You seem to be conflating "looks smokey" with particulate matter, which I suspect is generally reasonable but perhaps not in all contexts. Water vapor can cause the air to look "smokey." If you go outside an a 5º day and exhale, does your exhaled breath contain more particulate matter than if you did so on a 50º day?
Not all marijuana vaping is done using vape pens containing Propylene Glycol. You can vaporize concentrate, which doesn't include any sort of additive and is tested for pesticides and heavy metals in places like California. PG just helps the concentrate "flow" into the wick of the vape pen. You also don't need to use a vape pen where the heating element is exposed to the airflow of the concentrate, reducing the chance of heavy metals being released.
There are also vaporizers that just pass hot air over marijuana flower.
> Ultimately if the air is smokey, it contains particulate matter. That particulate matter is not good for your lungs, no matter what it is.
This reads like medieval miasmatic theory.
In other news, breathing and living is the #1 cause of death.
The quality of the air you breathe is what affects your risk of developing cancer. Burning tobacco releases the most amount of harmful particles, and even then, many people spend years inhaling it without ever developing cancer.
Vaporizing marijuana is done by exposing it to much lower temperatures, which doesn't release the same particles as burning. Thus, it's not the same kind of smoke.
Additionally, marijuana doesn't have the chemicals linked to cancer to begin with. Tobacco even if ingested can increase the risk of cancer.
But ultimately, everything you do, from the city you live in, to your household environment, to your genetic predisposition and lifestyle choices, affects your risk of developing cancer. Living is a balance act between these risk sources and actually enjoying your life.
Vaping marijuana is probably not great for you, but many people do so for many years without negative consequences, and the risks compared to smoking tobacco are much, much lower. All of this is handwavy, of course, since the effects of marijuana have been historically poorly researched.
But making a blanket statement that all smoke causes cancer is fearmongering at best, and objectively wrong at worst.
Any smoke causes cancer. Anything which is not burned fully to completion (which is anything burnt outside of an oxygen-rich furnace) contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These aromatic compounds bind to DNA reverse transcriptase during cellular replication, causing a mutation. Accumulation of mutations over time causes cancer. QED.
You're repeating your absolutist take while ignoring any sense of nuance.
No, smoke doesn't _cause_ cancer. Breathing in anything other than clean air _may increase_ the risk of developing cancer, but there's no certainty that if you e.g. suck on a tailpipe you'll catch the cancer.
There's a substantial difference from inhaling the smoke from combusting tobacco laced with hundreds of harmful chemicals, and inhaling the vapor from exposing the cannabis flower to much lower temperatures. How much difference exactly? I'll wait for more research to be done to draw my conclusions, but you go ahead and think it's the same thing.
> Accumulation of mutations over time causes cancer.
Again, the keyword you're ignoring is "risk". Our cells go through millions of mutations throughout our lifetime, and there are many factors that determine each person's propensity towards cancer. The best way of minimizing that risk is by living in a bubble, but some people choose to live in polluted cities, drive ICE cars, enjoy eating grilled meat, and inhaling marijuana and even cigarette smoke. Just because you might be risk-averse to partake in any of this, doesn't mean that we should dump all of it under the same "causes cancer" category.
There are studies[0] indicating that PG/VG as vapor cause damage & inflammation to the lungs, independently of nicotine. The FDA's statement of GRAS mainly applies to PG used as a food additive, not necessarily it being inhaled as vapor. So, seems like potential damage from long term use, not necessarily on the scale of smoke but not necessarily great for you either.
There is vaping of the dry herb itself or or concentrates all of which involve zero Propelyne Glycol or Vegetable Glycerin or Vitamin E. Very much the more popular trend in weed vaping that has nothing to do with anti vaping propogandas and is unfortunately ignored by those that don’t partake.
That is where most weed smokers end up or plan to end up.
True, but in a relatively minor or even positive way. I similarly don’t get upset when someone brews coffee or tea next to me, even though I actually can’t be that close due to a medicinal interaction. I sometimes have to leave the room, but that’s not their fault.
Weed makes driving more dangerous, lowers motivation and focus, etc. You want to do that to unwind, fine. But do it at home or in a designated smoking area I can know to avoid.
I was going to mention something along these lines. I quit smoking 15 years ago because I realized I just felt dirty, sick, and depressed after a cigarette, no matter how much the addiction primed me to think otherwise leading up to it.
When operating a moving vehicle, in comparison to THC? Yes, absolutely. That was the context in which I was speaking. Nicotine calms nerves while improving focus. There's a reason people like smoking tobacco.
Marijuana, on the other hand, slows your reaction time and hampers decision making, as well as (in a small percentage of people, but including me) triggers depression, paranoia, and psychosis. Although it is legal to have and to smoke where I live, you still can't do it while driving a car or in public spaces. Doesn't seem to stop people though :\
Consumption of marijuana in public places is perfectly legal depending on your jurisdiction. Allowing smoking of marijuana wherever smoking of nicotine is allowed seems “only fair.” Examples in the USA include Oklahoma and New York.
On the other hand. The impairment you are talking about has been shown to affect non regular users more.[0] and to be negligible to regular users.
I wouldn’t want to be driving on the road with someone after they smoked their very first cigarette. I remember what that was like the first time I inhaled. It’s all relative. Marijuana can be less psychoactive than nicotine depending on the person and their tolerances. Just anecdata but people also report some cultivars of marijuana calms nerves while improving focus.
> Allowing smoking of marijuana wherever smoking of nicotine is allowed seems “only fair.”
I agree, in either tobacco or Marijuana, your not going to accidentally get high just existing in a smoking area. Marijuana however smells gross from a distance, I would be polite where you light up. Thats just common sense.
> I wouldn’t want to be driving on the road with someone after they smoked their very first cigarette. I remember...
As someone who had regularly done both, this is very wrong. First time smoking tobacco, yes I'd never want to drive in that state, but nicotine I would argue helps me pay attention, especially when driving for hours in a straight line. (Guess where I live) Marijuana however impaired me every time, and similar to alcohol I would never drive in that state.
Only if they live in a detached house. In my experience it’s rapidly become incredibly prevalent indoors in apartments in both North America and Western Europe, even with solid construction. It’s very good at traveling through buildings, vents, etc.
Smoke shops have exploded but it isn't clear to me that there is higher availability - every convenience store in the US sold cigarettes and most still do. Even pharmacies like CVS/Walgreens used to sell them. I think just now you have dedicated storefronts for certain types of smoking products.
I think the difference is that cigarettes and packaging were almost completely uniform - the same size and footprint regardless of brand. As such they were relatively easy for stores to maintain. I think the sheer variety and variability of vaping hardware and packaging almost requires a dedicated smoke shop to be able to service customers.
interestingly you had head shops(paraphernalia) before legalization. everyone knew what they where for but nothing illegal until it was used for that specifically. you can even buy crack pipes in some of the seedier neighborhood stores.
The vice was the war on drugs that was disproportionately applied to minorities. Legalizing weed is taking one weapon out of the arsenal of the police state.
In other countries it was applied to their majorities (who could be minorities in the US). The war on drugs was not a U.S.-only thing. It was worldwide. Because it was a losing battle (products easier to grow manufacture AND transport, they’ve pretty much all realized it’s a losing battle —with some major exceptions like Japan and Singapore who still take drugs seriously and will incarcerate for small amounts.
"Smoking" in the common vernacular means regularly smoking cigarettes, which is a nicotine addiction in most cases. Comparing nicotine addiction to weed, which has it's own very different abuse profile, only because they often share a method of ingestion, makes no sense.
Vaping nicotine has indeed replaced a lot of the consumption of old fashioned cigarettes. But that has nothing to do with weed.
Vaping is significantly less dangerous than smoking, it’s not just some “false” perception. Without added flavors you can argue it is completely harmless and in some ways beneficial (nicotine has several health benefits).
What grease? The base is vegetable glycerin that hospitals use in their nebulizers, used in smoke generators at concerts and has been repeatedly proven to be absolutely safe for human inhalation.
Many, many people point this out but most of them don't seem to have much insight beyond the symptoms.
I've thought about the apparent paradox that I keep distracting myself with a phone/computer while also not getting any fulfillment out of it. Right now I think it is about self-loathing and hating my own company. I hated being undistracted since that meant more attention for my thoughts. Those nagging, awful thoughts.
I've also had some experience with meditation. I was never succesful. But I did manage to have the mini-insight that I am not my thoughts. So I didn't pick up meditation again but I did try to carve out some 10 minutes here and there where I just sat with myself, focused on the moment, and didn't look at my phone. I used to get super-annoyed at myself when I did this because my mind would always start to wander. But that mini-insight might have actually had some lasting effect, since now I was able to not get annoyed when I noticed myself -- um, I mean my thoughts -- just blahblahblahing. Because chatty mind is fine as long as you can observe it with detachment. At least at my level.
I don't know if it did anything, but it has correlated with a change in attitude towards these distractions. I now have better impulse control, am more optimistic, have more initiative, less irritable. And I have a better attitude and partial control over those nagging thoughts—I can either let them play out in the background or pivot them. Sometime. Total mastery of the chatty mind is a long ways off.
So how do I resolve this paradox? Before I hated myself and my mind—which I identified with myself—so much that I instantly reached for distractions whenever nothing was happening. Was past me an idiot for doing that? No. He simply didn't know any better; he was knee-deep in the ramblings of the chatty mind, either reacting to it or arguing with it.
Writing periods like this down feels like I am a leaving a note to my future, possibly confused self. From my now-lucid self.
For me I can’t even say I’m using it to escape negative thoughts, it’s just a compulsion. I pull my phone out and scroll when I pee. Yep, apparently I can’t even have 1 minute of downtime without my hand automatically reaching for my pocket.
> I did try to carve out some 10 minutes here and there where I just sat with myself, focused on the moment, and didn't look at my phone
You say you didn't pick up meditation again but what you describe sounds like meditation to me :p
The meditation guide I use always assumes that my mind will be wondering off and gently reminds me to come back to focus, just like you've been doing by yourself!
You’re correct :) Specifically I meant that I haven’t picked up formal meditation again. Which for me means sitting and walking meditation.
The goal though is of course to practice meditation all the time. And I guess I didn’t do much of that back when I meditated more formally. Maybe that was my biggest mistake? Refer back to my frustration with mind-wandering. My more gentle approach now feels much better. :)
When traveling, I carry a dumb phone, specifically a Nokia feature phone that doesn't even connect to The Internet. The only distraction on it is the Tetris app which kills time waiting for the bus, or waiting to be seen by a doctor, etc
I dedicate a small window of time (1 hour at most) to social media, and trained all my feeds to be high signal, so I come out of scrolling educated and informed.
I don't engage in phubbing[0] which is a portmanteau of 'phone snubbing'.
Hm, you could argue that the Tetris app is not designed with casino-like blinking/vibrant colors/success sounds to induce endorphine rushes. Also Tetris is relatively fair and does not have pay-to-win schemes (notice how that unbeatable Candy Crush roadblock level suddenly becomes easy after you have swiped your card again).
Serious question and not snarky (despite appearances): How come you comment on HN? It looks like it falls in addictive experiences, albeit maybe necessary to keep on top of IT news. If the theory of “quitting” was right, we wouldn’t see anyone commenting about quitting while still online. I’m asking because I wonder how to keep on top of things / what part should news-reading take in my less-dopamine life.
Just for the record, karma is a useless metric to me. It gives visibility into how one of my submissions performs, but that's it. I don't chase karma.
> It looks like it falls in addictive experiences
Addiction is when a thing controls you, and you don't control it. I am in charge of my experience here on HN, and as I said, I don't chase upvotes & karma.
Equivalent to what a Youtube or Instagram user would say. So, if I understand, you see any other app as bad, but you don’t see HN as bad because you are in charge of your own experience?
I personally think I don’t want to masquerade my participation as something else than an excitement to be part of an interesting online community, an interest in being up to date with trends, but nonetheless, an addiction, since it takes time and doesn’t create that much value in my life, and if I had to quit it, I would be doomed by being unoccupied.
It's very hard to quit Internet 100%. Way harder than alcohol. Most of the people try to limit. When you limit, I guess most of the people would still come to HN, for interesting world news and industry news as you mentioned.
When you limit, articles like this pique your interests (my thinking: "New smoking? I would say it's internet/smartphone addiction, I wonder if I'm right"). So I believe it's not unusual that you find a lot of quitters/limiters in threads like this. Is it still addiction?
Also it's very hard to talk about experiences of quitting Internet. 99% of my friends don't want to quit, don't see anything wrong with Internet. I am alone and can talk about that only through Internet. Ironic I know, but what gives? Internet is not 100% toxic like alcohol, limiting totally would be not only very hard but also probably too strict.
I miss smoking (well, not really; I'm not a smoker). But all the rituals around it were very important for modulating the cadence and even nature of conversation, offering shared rituals, give-and-take, and, by convention, forced but acceptable pauses.
That's interesting because it does seem like despite how unhealthy it is, it was very much a social activity. And I think the indoor smoking bans only reinforced that social ritual as smokers were forced to gather outside bars and restaurant to smoke. "Do you have a light" has probably been one of the biggest conversation starters in history. What I see now is mostly people having a cigarette in one hand and the smart phone in the other. The chatting with fellow smokers seems to have been replaced by scrolling. A smoke break used to literally be taking a break from whatever it was you were doing. Now it looks like more of an opportunity to satisfy two addictions at the same time. It seems kind of depressing.
Lots of people use coffee (cafe culture) for that here in Australia, which has the benefit of actually slightly reducing all-cause mortality.
I pop out at least once a day for a coffee break away from our work building, often with a coworker or two. I try to basically never get a takeaway, it’s so much better to pause and have a real worm break sitting at the cafe.
The thing about the cigarette rituals is that they were at a higher resolution: you'd sit in a cafe with a cup of coffee talking to someone and the smoking rituals silently punctuated the conversation itself.
Someone's gotta invent a cigarette that's actually good for your health!
(Oddly enough this might actually work. My understanding is that nicotine is not actually that unhealthy; it's mostly the other stuff in cigarette's that's bad for you. Additionally, based on an old coworker of mine who quite smoking successfully, a big part of the addiction is just having something to put in your mouth.)
I used to work in drug delivery and many people joked about how smoking is a drug delivery system. There are of course asthma inhalers but those directly address the lungs themselves.
The only inhaled drug delivery system I know of was an insulin delivery system (Exubera) which AFAIK failed in the market for some reason.
this is basically the idea behind vaping. partially replicating the ritual makes it much easier than switching to a pure nicotine maintenance vehicle (ie, patches).
it doesn't replicate the social ritual of a "smoke break" though. a single cigarette burns for about as long as you'd usually want to have a light conversation with a stranger. a vape "lasts" indefinitely long, and you never need to ask someone for a light. you can also probably get away with just doing it inside if you're discreet.
Interesting point, re the pauses to take a drag on a cigarette. The only thing I can think of like that now in a workplace or chance social encounter is taking a drink of water or coffee, but I suppose it hasn't really replaced smoking. Maybe carrying a small water flask to give ourselves moments to pause meaningfully in a conversation!
All true. It’s not free of government involvement however... Notable is the mention of TikTok, which supplies CCP-curated content that differs by country.
Heck, even pornhub shows you different content in different countries... at least a friend told me so.
I guess CCP involvment is guaranteed in some form, but I would expect rather light touch and strong monitoring. To spot dissent early and weed it out in the roots. And to have something for blackmails on everybody in future.
These are all claims by one guy (Tristan Harris) who's made a career out of speaking against social media. He claims that the Chinese version of TikTok is the "spinach" version and serves more wholesome science content. He doesn't say that this is because of CCP involvement, ByteDance manipulation on their own accord or because Chinese children choose this type of content. He does go on to say that as a result of this, most children express desire to be astronauts when they grow up. If this last part isn't true, why should we believe anything else he says? Even if it is true, why should we believe him? He doesn't offer any evidence.
It's a bit weird to find myself in a position of defending a social media app. There are a lot of people in the US who have a reason to be upset with its existence. I think it played a key role in the last election, because that's where Gen-Z spends their time. Similarly the execs at Google and Facebook have a reason to want it gone, but you don't see them publicly lamenting how they don't make as much ad revenue as they used to. The negative comments here on HN at least are always some version of "national security" and "think of the children".
I mean he's right. At some point if we're just robots playing candy crush or watching tiktok after tiktok - what's the real downside of just matrixing our society. I mean yes there are people that still skateboard or ski or hike, but if the population that finds meaning in activities disappears in the next 100 years, there's no reason to have physical anything. Might as well call it or fight back.
Digital and real world hobbies are not mutually exclusive. If you have an outdoor hobby, you've probably noticed it being busier than ever over the last few years. Hiking trails, beaches, surf breaks, running paths, etc have all been the busier than they ever were before COVID. People may be spending more time than ever online, but people are also spending lots of time in nature.
Out of the 63 national parks and thousands of state parks in the USA, can we have just one experiment with totally blocking those apps? The obvious place would be a park that has had problems with people going off the trail to take photos when they're not supposed to.
I know you'll still need to offer people cell service so they can call 911 in emergencies, but why not block everything else, as an experiment? Put a big sign at all entrances to that park so people know what they're getting into.
And then the big question would be... would taking this step increase park usage, or decrease it? I honestly have no idea, but I'm incredibly curious to find out.
I recently read How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell. In it she advocates we "wrest our focus from the attention economy and replant it in the public, physical realm". Chapter 4 in particular covers being outdoors, in physical public spaces.
The message I took from Jenny's book seemed more about rebuilding
human relationships. My tagline in Digital Vegan was "take back tech"
because I see technology as complementing and facilitating human
relations. Currently it's designed to do the opposite, to corrode the
interpersonal and make us more insular and selfish.
It pains me seeing how nature is being treated when large amounts of lowest common denominator visit the woods. Lots of noise, junk food wrappers, bottles, beer cans. In that sense, it's more "valuable" having these types away from nature
Dang don't gatekeep so strongly. Sure, no one should litter, obviously; but among those amateur casuals making first trips out into nature are budding, next generation more "hardcore" real adventurers that might pass your standards as they gain more experience. Everyone has to start somewhere.
It's better that some next generation folks are out enjoying nature and building up some care and appreciation for it than not, right?
I'd imagine there's a lot less motivation to build new physical recreation spaces like skateboards etc if almost everyone is starting at a screen every waking minute.
It isn't like they were really building these places before smartphones, though. These are things that are generally either services and cost money rather than make them or they are for-profit places that don't always have much demand. I don't know why it seems surprising that the "motivation" to build these isn't there now since the same restraints are still there.
I agree. Local skateboarding places that are free get pretty well-used. Hiking is still popular but requires a bit more time unless you live near somewhere suitable.
Part of the problem is so many people don't have free time and/or money to do anything more than scroll on their phones. That goes for people with good career jobs with long hours, and those scrolling on the bus as they go from one of their low paid part time jobs to another.
At the same time, appearances are more important than ever, so it might make business sense to sell equipment to people who want to pose with them. Same with rec spaces too, people don't actually have to partake in the activities, they just have to pay for the membership (and the tagging rights)
I think this is a somewhat self-manifested societal dichotomy requiring debate. One route leads to, as you say, a "matrix" society, which may or may not be a good thing. But we as humans need to make the decision if it's correct, because ultimately the humans profiting from the setup will end up irrelevant, and I don't think that's understood (ironic).
The people who spend all day sitting and staring at screens will end up with lower reproductive fitness due to obesity, weakness, and various endocrine system disorders. So over a long enough time scale, evolution will sort us out.
Nah.. we'll evolution won't get a chance. Between cybernetics and genetic engineering we'll eventually overcome issues with our physical bodies way before evolution comes into play.
A new-to-me term I learned recently which I feel quite nicely relates to this post is Consumer neuroscience.
Wikipedia clinically describes the field as "The goal of the field is to find neural explanations for consumer behaviors in individuals both with or without disease." Personally I have a less favourable description of it. How to make people addicted to your product, and spend more money than they should.
BJ Fogg [1] is someone who could have contributed to our recent
"Things you built and regret" thread. His "Persuasive Computers" paper
gets blamed (for example by Tristan Harris) for the explosion of
attention economics. That's perhaps unfair as his Tiny Habits work
seemed geared toward wellbeing.
Fogg was pretty early in identifying some of the risks, although at the time (late 90s) I don't believe he took them seriously. One of the earliest critics from inside the industry, that I can find, was Joe Kraus, a partner at Google Ventures. You can watch his 2012 (I think) talk at https://vimeo.com/240721308
ETA Is Google Making Us Stupid?, Nicholas Carr, 2008
Having worked in related industries, I've always referred to this as the "dopamine / reward loop" (I think this is fairly well accepted?). Some people are predisposed to hardcore exploitation (e.g. gambling addicts), but from what I understand, and generally speaking, we're all capable of falling victim to some degree (we're all susceptible to some level of superfluous dopamine response). Not helping, industry shaping our society to modulate where the average falls on this spectrum. A normal child having a cellphone is very similar to a normal child taking amphetamines, both yielding unnatural amounts of dopamine. Both can very well cause ADD-like symptoms after being taken away. There's also a parallel here to sugar and Type 2 diabetes, and other disorders.
I think there may be a balance, but whatever is happening today is totally exploitative and should be regulated in some way, at least up until a certain age.
> should be regulated in some way, at least up until a certain age.
Its called proper parenting. As a father of little 2 miracles, I can clearly see how easily they get addicted to basically everything-screen, and many more things like junk food. And its 1-way road.
The hard part is going into full relentless battle with your own children who will use various psychological tricks, just like adult addicts, to get their kicks. Almost nothing is off the table. So you often end up with verbal contracts like you are buying next twitter to have some rule of sanity, but kids tend to ignore it anyway.
We personally are +- not there yet, so its relatively easy to manage 1 and 3 year olds for screens. But we see lost battles all around us, kids small and big glued to phones, tablets, tvs, just that parents can have some time off. Not everybody fails, but we see success mostly with parents that simply dont have tv at home and use (rarely) phones more like old nokias (with attached camera) rather than smart phones. You can't expect kids to respect prohobition when parents are clearly ignoring it.
Proper parenting these days is hard, I guess also due to higher bar for parenting success than just 'kids are alive when entering adulthood'.
Totally agree. I cannot imagine how difficult it is for modern parents to manage this issue. By "regulated" I did mean 90% parenting, but it's also a larger, systemic societal issue that needs to be at least considered, quickly, before the current generation(s) who realize it no longer have influence and the issue solidifies as normal in our culture.
On the other hand, it's probably just the, albeit sad, natural order.
Maybe the trick is to clearly label these addictions across whole society as harmful, the lower the age the more intense/deep/long lasting harm and act accordingly. When we managed it rather quickly globally on proper narcotics this should be achievable.
I've met parents who were saying 'we have digital kids' when their kids were acting like heroin addicts on withdrawal just to play on phone another 30 mins, and they were saying this as something normal. I get it why, admitting you are raising hard addicts and it was you who failed to prevent that must be outright unacceptable for many. People have this innermost desire to feel good about their actions and decisions and this would be properly undefendable if hard truths were told.
But it comes back to parents too - spending more time with kids instead of chasing career and money kids have 0 interest in (which is smart!), more meaningfully, be an example in ie activities, sports and hobbies. In an age when obesity jumps through the roof, people are seriously messed up after 2 years of covid lockdowns and all news are about doom and gloom. Tough.
> I've met parents who were saying 'we have digital kids'
Never heard this. Very interesting.
To your point, I agree. I am curious if there's been an official term coined for this... is it actually "digital kid?" I am curious if there will end up being a stigma applied to whatever it is as a sort of natural course-correction, or if it becomes the "norm." Humans love labels and their connotation.
PS: Hats off to you and the other parents in this thread with similar understanding.
If there is one thing that I took from my marketing classes, it is that marketing basically starts with trying to understand people as they actually are. You cannot sell stuff well if you do not understand how people work. For example, as annoyed as I was to discover it, it is genuinely hard to argue with Patzer's looks[1] and how perception can alter my disposition towards buying something.
I genuinely hate the ads-tech, ad-ridden web, and ads in general, but I cannot help but to admire it for starting from a very simple 'this is how things really are'.
> This extends to video games, usually of the free-to-play type.
Free games are mostly hot garbage, with a couple of rare exceptions. Many of these are also pay-to-win games which strike me as the most preposterous use of time imaginable.
A good heuristic for determining whether a game is worth your time is to determine if the game will provide the same experience regardless of when you play it. If the answer is no, the game probably isn't worth your time and you probably shouldn't be playing it.
Features that require you to play a game n days in a row or that require you to play a game at certain times of the day or that require you to stop playing the game and come back the next day are red flags in terms of the game being low quality because there's no need to exploit people's FOMO if you've actually created a good work of art that stands on its own merits.
I also more or less completely ignore phones as gaming platforms. Those platforms have such bad reputations that a game (that isn't a port of a retro classic like the early Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy or Grand Theft Auto games) even being available on them tends to be a red flag that it is a low quality game. There's no reason why good games can't be released on iOS or Android but generally speaking they aren't because of the stigma that those platforms have due to all of the "free-to-play" garbage that has been released on them over the years.
I disagree with this in the sense that some games are only relevant when they are new, due to online play. I've played some great games for a year or however long until everyone moved on that I consider worth the experience.
Mobile phone games are why I bought a 3DS. Some were good, almost all being paid games, but so many were just repetitious gambling for worthless achievements, portable slot machines. When I quit putting games on my phone and used that time for books and 3DS games my life got notably better. Breaking that repetition and proceeding through a story with characters and new ideas is so much more rewarding.
This frustrated me the most. In the particle walking about League of Legends and Warzone as two examples. It has nothing to do with the fact that it's free to play, its to do with how addictive they are to play, they're fun games afterall.
People used to walk about World of Warcraft being incredible addictive and that's not free.
I've never smoked but I used to date someone who did.
Part of what makes it so addictive is that it's a social activity. With smoking having been marginalized to zones ever further away from buildings - for example, not even on hospital grounds any more, never mind the buildings - the smoker areas tend to be little social hubs. Quit, and you lose that cameraderie. You can get over the nicotine dependency in less than one (unpleasant) week but what is harder to quit is the ritual.
If you don't count the smartphone interaction itself as cameraderie, then the problem with these things is actually the opposite! Instead of marginalized people engaging in real social interaction, you now have social interaction banished e.g. even from restaurant tables as everyone is busy with their little addicto-gadget.
Was there actually a moral panic about TV in general? There was one about TV violence specifically. The general concerns about TV like reduced physical activity are still a concern and aren’t imaginary.
Early usage of TVs consisted in living the tv set turned on constantly, which in the hindsight was insane. With time, we learned to « master » the technology that was put in our hands. Much along the lines of what this article points out.
The voice of inexperience with early TV sets is loud here. You would never do that with early sets, as the damn vacuum tubes would burn out very quickly, then Dad would get mad, take the back off the set, take ALL the tubes out, cart them down to the drugstore, use their tester to find the burned out tube, and buy a replacement. Dad, being a busy man, would not appreciate doing this very often, and so tightly controlled our use.
We didn’t get our first color + solid-state set (a huge marketing term back then) until 1978. That was probably about 5 years later than typical. It was a Zenith Space Command, also our first with a remote control. It used no batteries, pressing a button struck a metal tuning fork set for an “ultrasonic” frequency that a microphone in the set listened for. I quoted “ultrasonic”, because as a child I could definitely hear it.
There are still people who do leave the television on constantly.
Far worse, there are many, many, many public spaces --- waiting rooms, bars, restaurants, cafes --- in which televisions are ominipresent and, again, always on.
This has become far worse, rather than better, with thinner and cheaper displays.
That's considerably more prevalent in the US.
I choose my bar and restaurants by the abscence of large screens. ( Not only obviousely but if it can be avoided, I do )
If the current attention economy was merely a linear, or even quadratic, step from TV, that would be one thing. We are seeing, however, an exponential increase in the scale, scope, and methods of persuasion. In the same way computers made mathematical calculation not just faster, but completely different, so too persuasive computing makes risks to society completely different.
The printing press (~1440), and subsequently cheap pulp-based paper (despite its rapid decay due to high-acid content), and increasingly-capable powered presses, and greatly-expanded literacy (19th century) did revolutionise the world, splitting the Christian faith, launching first the 100 Years War then the Long 19th Century (1789--1914 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_nineteenth_century), including the Revolutions of 1848 in which over 50 nations saw some form of political ferment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1848).
Radio played a huge role in the rise of fascism in Italy (Mussolini), Germany (Hitler), and the US (Father Coughlan, McCarthyism). Television revolutionised US politics, particularly at the presidential level (Kennedy-Nixon debates), as did cable television, talk radio, and the nascent Internet.
In The Matrix (1990), John S. Quartermann's introduction details the influence of then-nascent computer and fax networks on the Tienanmen Square protests in China. Even early in the 1990s, the role of Usenet and BBSes in conflicts in Yugoslavia and Turkey was noted (see especially Serdar Argic: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serdar_Argic>).
McLuhan (who influenced Eisenstein), Harold Innis (who influenced McLuhan), Neil Postman (another McLuhan protege) Edward S. Herman, Jerry Mander, Noam Chomsky, Robert W. McChesney, Andrew Shapiro, and many others have made similar observations (bibliography here: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7k7l4m/media_a...).
If you change how information flows through a system, you change that system. This applies directly to media and its influence on culture, politics, business, and more.
The reason that the fears seem so quaint is because we live in the landscape that emerged. We are the consequence. The Time Before seems so difficult to conceive of and understand because it was all but entirely supersceded.
We face a similar situation in all likelihood with further algorithmic-driven media and GD ML AI ourselves.
Tangent, but I never understood the cargo-cult anti-smoking culture in the US; it was a perfect reflection of their media hypnotization. The people that would do a thousand different rebellious, risky, or damaging stuff would recoil in horror if you ask if they ever had a cigarette, as if one puff will char and shrivel your lungs or something.
You're 100% right and I see this kind of attitude all the time and it drives me crazy. Especially when people are worried about what others are doing, or complaining about second hand smoke outdoors, etc.
People really need to learn to just live their fucking lives. Or at least shut the fuck up and let other people live theirs.
Something that’s helped in a “high leverage” way is interrupting the impulse to open an app that takes me into glazed eyes territory, or “licking the phone” as I describe it to my kids. :)
None of the kids actually want to waste time on social media… but we all still struggle with it. I ran across an (iOS) app that they've come to accept and even appreciate. Rather than blocking apps completely, it adds a pause of maybe 8 seconds; enough time to take a breath and maybe your higher self gets a word in edgewise. It’s free (though I think you pay for more apps) and it’s called “One Sec”. Installing it requires a few steps, but I found myself opening Youtube much less so the next day was “ok kids, bring me your phone.”
I think this could be a really helpful tool. Whenever I find myself having a compulsion (check my phone, order fast food, skip the gym) I try my best to make myself wait 10-15 minutes (depending on the circumstances) and most of the time I’m no longer interested because I’m thinking more clearly. Very much applies to shopping as well. Do I really need a new laptop? Let’s see how I feel next week, there’s always another sale.
Social media and its consequences (adtech) have been a disaster for the human race. We're still largely oblivious to it though, and mostly see the benefits. Similar to smoking and before that, fossil fuels, we just see it as something that improves our lives at little cost. In 50 years we will wonder how we were so naive.
Surprised not to see Cal Newport's "Digital Minimalism" on the list - though the author may just not know about it.
I finished the audiobook yesterday, and highly recommend it. When framed against the active, intentional social media strategies suggested in the book, the argument that "normal, every-day" social media usage is just like smoking becomes very persuasive.
EDIT: Also recommend "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman. It's about television, but every salient point applies directly to modern social media as well.
In the past, if you wanted to smoke, you’d have to take out a cigarette and light it. There was a physical barrier to you smoking, and you were aware of the act of smoking. Nowadays, it’s so much easier to smoke: you just pull out your phone and have a cigarette. The problem is that you don’t realize you’re smoking. You don’t realize the time you’re wasting by looking at your phone. When you’re scrolling through social media, you’re not aware of the time you’re wasting. You’re not aware of the mental health damage you’re doing.
I’ve been spending too much time on my phone and it’s been affecting my mental health. The more I use social media, the more I get sucked into the algorithm and the more I get depressed. Social media is designed to keep you hooked, and it’s been affecting my mental health. That is why I’m quitting social media. I’m not saying you should never use social media, but be aware of how much time you spend on it and whether it’s really worth your time. If you’re not careful, social media will take over your life.
The way social media platforms were designed is a big part of the problem. I’ve been on social media for a long time and I’ve seen how social media has changed in the past few years. Social media used to be fun, but now it’s a lot more serious. It’s become a place where people are constantly arguing with each other and it’s become stressful.
The way social media companies have changed their algorithms is the main reason why social media has become so toxic. The new algorithms reward you for posting controversial things that get a lot of engagement. The more engagement you get, the more the algorithms will show you content that’s similar to yours. That’s why people are constantly posting things that are controversial and the algorithms keep showing you more of the same. It’s a vicious cycle.
Social media companies are using the same techniques that casinos use to keep people hooked on gambling. They’re using the same techniques that slot machines use to keep people hooked on gambling.
Every time you open your phone, you are opening a slot machine. You don’t know what you’re going to get. You could get a like, a comment, a message, or nothing at all. That’s what keeps you hooked. The more we understand how these products are designed to keep us hooked, the better we can manage our own use of them.
I thought it was a rather vapid comment but it just slid right past my relevance filter, easily ignored in a stream of people sharing their opinions as a weak form of anecdata.
Until that last footnote. And the dawning realization that this is my opinion of 98%+ of comments and yet I read them anyway.
And even here now as I respond with yet more drivel and unsolicited anecdotal opinion vaguely attempting to contribute to an already obsolete comment thread. I question everything.
Nice. Nitpick but the writing sounded off to me. Too much use of the word "social media" where a person would have used "it" or some other language construct.
This resonates with me for some things, but there are two very unrelatable parts.
I play video games with acquaintances and friends who I've known for years. They're fulfilling in the same way a zoom chat or phone call is, and they're much better than watching alone. Video games aren't a substitute for in-person contact, but what is? Some of the malaise from games seems to come from the ephemeral nature of matchmaking, where you're not playing with or against people you know and there's no community, but this is a solvable problem.
When I'm head-down on a train staring at my phone, I'm either messaging the people I'm about to meet up with, or I'm reading a book. Conor's problem seems as much aesthetic as behavioural: he doesn't like the cold sterile white rectangle, but at a guess he'd be happier if I was holding a warm off-yellow-beige paper slab and turning the pages.
The real question for me is how do we fix it? Both at the societal level but especially at the personal level for me I’ve been aware of this habit but unable to kick it for years now.
The way I am trying to solve this is by building a different kind of content feed. One that is not optimized for "time-spent-on-site" but for "will you be happy to have spent time on it".
This is how https://linklonk.com works: you upvote content that you found useful and the system gives more priority to users and RSS feeds that posted this content in your future content recommendations. As a result you see content from those who have brought to you useful information in the past - a feedback loop that is better aligned with your needs.
Tax and regulate the everloving heck out of the field.
Prior to the 1830s, Britain had exorbitantly high tax rates on advertising, I'm given to understand. (I've found relatively little material on this fact, and forget where I picked up the information.)
We can't if we keep running a society that's working people into a minimal life.
Reduce work and living expenses to give people back some time and energy to actually pick up something more complicated than social feeds or digital entertainment.
Totally agree with this principle although that’s not what drives me to use my phone. I have a very generous amount of free time for my age, and I squander it for some reason.
> ’m starting to believe a lot of the technology we engage with on a daily basis is doing us more harm than good
Who is "us" here? The users of the technology? Absolutely, it's terrible for your mental health. Or so you mean the owners of the technology who deploy it? In which case it's great, it super profitable and barely regulated.
But I expect you mean society as a whole where we have to integrate the above. Good question.
"When each round of League of Legends or Warzone finishes, I’m just left wondering what the hell the point in all that was and feeling very unsatisfied in a similar way one feels after eating fast food."
I don't think free to play has anything to do with it. People used to say that World of Warcraft was way too addictive and that's pay to play.
Self-promo: I recently wrote a book critiquing gamification of this kind, examining it across health and fitness and lifestyle apps, video games, workplaces, finance, and more. It’s called You’ve Been Played and you can find a bunch of excerpts and reviews and discussions here: https://www.metafilter.com/197065/Youve-Been-Played
I think I have a unique perspective on the topic as CEO of a games company (Six to Start), designer of a fitness game with 10 million players (Zombies, Run!), and being a former neuroscientist.
This is why China released comprehensive regulations governing algorithms that are aimed at companies which use dark patterns and ranked newsfeeds to fuel addiction and also exploit hourly workers, like delivery drivers, whose livelihood is determined entirely by an app. Interesting that they are ahead on this problem, of all things.
Not to mention kids playing too much video games, which is also a concern.
Yes the thing which China does well is regulated capitalism, they permit capitalism, they allow billionaires and so on, but only if it's in the interest of the state, which still reigns supreme. In the US and the West, the corporations give orders to the governments.
Stupid parenting is what causes current issue. Yes, they're too busy to take care of their children, so let's just give them a phone and done, you're free!
If all parents forbid their children to touch the phone, problem solved.
I don't think keeping phones away from kids is enough to solve smartphone addiction. There are lots of smartphone addicts who were already adults before smartphones were invented-- I was well into my 20s when the iphone was invented, so I definitely wasn't using it as a kid, yet I don't think I have a healthy relationship with the technology.
I also don't think it's particularly helpful to blame individual parents (most of whom are doing the best they can at a very difficult job!) for what is ultimately a social issue that all of us contribute to.
Boomers, few of whom are presently toddlers, pre-teens, or even adolescents, seem as prone to screen-addiction as any other age group.
This is unlikely a result of bad parenting brought about by an extant technological environment in their own youth:
"Baby boomers can’t stop staring at their phones" November 12, 2022
But there is another demographic that is struggling with putting down their devices: Baby boomers. Smartphones came into their lives late, but they were quickly won over. Now some of their children say they are hooked, staring at their screens constantly, even when they should be paying attention to their own grandchildren. Two-thirds of boomers own a smartphone and about 6 in 10 are on social media, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center survey.
