Are Phones Making the World's Students Dumber? (msn.com) 123
Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shared this article from the Atlantic:
For the past few years, parents, researchers, and the news media have paid closer attention to the relationship between teenagers' phone use and their mental health. Researchers such as Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge have shown that various measures of student well-being began a sharp decline around 2012 throughout the West, just as smartphones and social media emerged as the attentional centerpiece of teenage life. Some have even suggested that smartphone use is so corrosive, it's systematically reducing student achievement. I hadn't quite believed that last argument — until now.
The Program for International Student Assessment, conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in almost 80 countries every three years, tests 15-year-olds est scores have been falling for years — even before the pandemic. Across the OECD, science scores peaked in 2009, and reading scores peaked in 2012. Since then, developed countries have as a whole performed "increasingly poorly" on average. "No single country showed an increasingly positive trend in any subject," PISA reported, and "many countries showed increasingly poor performance in at least one subject." Even in famously high-performing countries, such as Finland, Sweden, and South Korea, PISA grades in one or several subjects have been declining for a while.
So what's driving down student scores around the world? The PISA report offers three reasons to suspect that phones are a major culprit. First, PISA finds that students who spend less than one hour of "leisure" time on digital devices a day at school scored about 50 points higher in math than students whose eyes are glued to their screens more than five hours a day. This gap held even after adjusting for socioeconomic factors... Second, screens seem to create a general distraction throughout school, even for students who aren't always looking at them.... Finally, nearly half of students across the OECD said that they felt "nervous" or "anxious" when they didn't have their digital devices near them. (On average, these students also said they were less satisfied with life.) This phone anxiety was negatively correlated with math scores.
In sum, students who spend more time staring at their phone do worse in school, distract other students around them, and feel worse about their life.
The Program for International Student Assessment, conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in almost 80 countries every three years, tests 15-year-olds est scores have been falling for years — even before the pandemic. Across the OECD, science scores peaked in 2009, and reading scores peaked in 2012. Since then, developed countries have as a whole performed "increasingly poorly" on average. "No single country showed an increasingly positive trend in any subject," PISA reported, and "many countries showed increasingly poor performance in at least one subject." Even in famously high-performing countries, such as Finland, Sweden, and South Korea, PISA grades in one or several subjects have been declining for a while.
So what's driving down student scores around the world? The PISA report offers three reasons to suspect that phones are a major culprit. First, PISA finds that students who spend less than one hour of "leisure" time on digital devices a day at school scored about 50 points higher in math than students whose eyes are glued to their screens more than five hours a day. This gap held even after adjusting for socioeconomic factors... Second, screens seem to create a general distraction throughout school, even for students who aren't always looking at them.... Finally, nearly half of students across the OECD said that they felt "nervous" or "anxious" when they didn't have their digital devices near them. (On average, these students also said they were less satisfied with life.) This phone anxiety was negatively correlated with math scores.
In sum, students who spend more time staring at their phone do worse in school, distract other students around them, and feel worse about their life.
Betteridge says (Score:3, Informative)
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Yes.
Is this intended as a meta-ironic post? Betteridge's law of headlines says the question can be answered "no," so you're saying it says yes to show that your phone has made you dumber?
I'll agree with Betteridge's law on this: the answer is "no." Phones are making students adept at different types of things that what old tests measure. Not dumber, but smarter about things that the tests don't measure.
Re:Betteridge says (Score:5, Insightful)
I fail to imagine how knowing how to find the latest meme on TikTok, no matter what else they're supposed to be focusing on at the time, is a life skill that will help make them objectively productive members of general society.
Re:Betteridge says (Score:5, Informative)
Phones are making students adept at different types of things that what old tests measure.
Maybe you should read the report before answering.
The report says that phones are a distraction, that's why kids are doing worse. They collected data to show this.
Re:Betteridge says (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes.
Phones are making students adept at different types of things that what old tests measure. Not dumber, but smarter about things that the tests don't measure.
They're not though, outside of their ability to stab at a screen to do a search on google etc they're getting dumber at just about everything. Hell they don't even remember fundamental stuff any more because they've got used to not having to bother as they can just google whatever they want. And it shows because when they're not able to use their phones to do a search for something they're absolutely utterly fucked with even basic stuff.
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It is true that you don't need to know everything; you just need to know what to look for. In daily use you probably don't need to remember when the French Revolution happened; at most you'll need to know that it happened and it was in the late 1700s. That's enough to do a search for details, too.
The problem becomes when you don't even know that historical event happened. Without that knowledge you can't even search for it because why would you search for an unknown event?
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Lol. "Adept at different types of things than what the old tests measure."
Like math. I guess you are arguing that math isn't important to understand "any more".
You must use your cell phone a lot...
math [Re:Betteridge says] (Score:2)
Lol. "Adept at different types of things than what the old tests measure."
Like math.
If the "math" question asked things like "Johny can pick one peck of berries in a minute, and Susie can pick one in two minutes. If they are both picking berries together, how many bushels do they pick per hour?", yes, people in older times will be better at math than you are.
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So, units, of all things, are the sticking point? If that's the case then my point clearly stands.
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So, units, of all things, are the sticking point?
Units are ONE EXAMPLE of the many many many things that have changed between what people learned in the past and what they learn today. People are adept at different types of things that what old tests measure. Not dumber, but smarter about things that the tests don't measure.
Here, for another example, is an amusing one: https://newrepublic.com/articl... [newrepublic.com]
or this one
When I was a boy... (Score:1, Troll)
Old people thought calculators (before everyone has a computer in their pocket, accountants and students had portable math machines called 'calculators'). We still have advanced mathematics, and most of those old people concerned about calculator use are now dead.
Before that, we had people who thought typewriters heralded a future of illiteracy. Turns out we needed SMS and Twitter for that.
We're going to be fine.
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Re:When I was a boy... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Calculators made people less capable at crunching numbers."
No, it made people who needed to crunch numbers more productive.
"Typewriters made them less careful about spelling."
No, not in the slightest. Nothing about a typewriter ever contributed to illiteracy.
"Guess what a machine does that remembers history for you."
In the OP's case, nothing. He doesn't know history in the slightest.
If anything, typewriters made you more literate. (Score:1)
After a few times ruining a page and having to redo it because you mis-spelled a word, you made damn sure to know how to spell words after that.
Re: When I was a boy... (Score:5, Insightful)
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The maximum distraction a calculator afforded you was typing out 8008135 and showing it to the guy next to you. A phone offers far more distraction than that, which is the main problem.
Re: When I was a boy... (Score:5, Insightful)
The trope that “cell phones are making people dumber” is probably going to be about as accurate as that ancient greek philosopher who grumbled that writing was making his students dumber.
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The phone allows access to that, sure - but then it should be brought out (or an actual computer/laptop with a proper screen) when such information is required for the class. If you are listening to the teacher go over the mess that resulted in the French Revolution you don't need to do your own research on the subject in the meantime - you need to be listening, even if it's dry and dull.
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Exactly. The problem is not with the knowledge the phone *can* offer, it is with the knowledge the students request. If a student is doing a deeper dive into the topics of the class, great, but that's not generally the case. Instead of pretending they have a giant library in their pocket, assume they just have a TV tuned to Nickelodeon in their pocket. Because that's how it is generally used: to escape the learning environment. The obvious response: "Well, then the learning environment should be made more e
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Exactly. The problem is not with the knowledge the phone *can* offer, it is with the knowledge the students request. If a student is doing a deeper dive into the topics of the class, great, but that's not generally the case. Instead of pretending they have a giant library in their pocket, assume they just have a TV tuned to Nickelodeon in their pocket. Because that's how it is generally used: to escape the learning environment. The obvious response: "Well, then the learning environment should be made more entertaining." That's a fine idea, but no teacher can compete with FB and similar apps *designed* to subvert attention spans.
My kingdom for some mod points! Thank you.
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Theres some nuance here. Lets be specific. Calculators definitely made people worse at doing long division by hand.
If only it were that. It's actually worse than that. Many now struggle doing simple addition and subtraction of three or even two digit numbers without bringing out a calculator.
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The people at that level of intelligence can be nice, earnest, sincere, pleasant, assiduous and hard working. Most of them can become contributing members of society. Bu
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And that is what we should really be worried about with this current wave of automation - not everyone can be re-schooled to be a skilled coder.
Re:When I was a boy... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it made people who needed to crunch numbers more productive.
It made them less able to do mental arithmetic, even for basic sums. It has resulted in them getting answers that are wildly wrong and not realising because they've accidentally put in the wrong number or say a decimal point in the wrong place because they lack the abillity to do mental arithmetic to get a rough idea of the range an answer should be in.
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a) This effect is happening globally, far beyond USA.
b) The range of school systems across the USA is vast and extremely different state to state, with different funding models, different priorities, and different teaching methods. Anyone attempting to assert X is fundamental to the design of all schools across that diverse landscape is generally wrong, flat out. Any effect that does span those very different school systems does not have its roots within the schools. If you want to assert within a given st
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Which was, at the best of times, a minority of people. In other words, what I said is correct: Calculators made people less capable at crunching numbers.
On what planet does lack of diligence with spelling add up to "illiteracy"? It was just a preliminary statement leading up to the ultimate point...
Re:When I was a boy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Then smartphones... some kids do not know what to do with their brains anymore. Do an excercise which requires some thought, some puzzling. The instant the silence starts to dominate and you are supposed to start your inner monologue, they get very nervous. Probably because that's the moment that they start pressing buttons on their phone. Sir, I do not know what to do! I cannot see the solution! I have a blackout! I wish I was exagerating. Every few months I get a mail from parents telling me their kid had a blackout on one of my tests and want me to do a retest. When I look at their tests, they filled in all the routine work, but just ran against a wall in the questions that need some minor improvisation.
Worst part? I work in a school with a pretty good reputation. Most kids want to succeed and work hard, very hard, some too hard.
Re: When I was a boy... (Score:2)
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Who thought that typewriters would lead to illiteracy? Exactly what was the argument?
SMS and Twitter probably do cause a lowering in grammar/spelling capability.
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Who thought that typewriters would lead to illiteracy? Exactly what was the argument?
It was television that people complained contributed to illiteracy: the argument was that instead of reading for entertainment, people would just watch the tube.
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Who thought that typewriters would lead to illiteracy?
No one. The original suggestion was that typewriters led to poor spelling, not to illiteracy. Personally, I don't see a connection between typwriters and spelling skill, unless "typos" are considered to be spelling errors and not a reflection of poor typing skills or inadequate proofreading.
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A true historian here. Comforting to know the future from this version of the past.
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When we had slide rules (you didn't forget slide rules, did you) and then went to calculators, people saved time. When we went from longhand to typewriters, people saved time (both composing and having to read handwritten chicken scratch).
Phones are consuming the time and attention of the public. Leaving less for other pursuits.
Slipsticks [Re:When I was a boy...] (Score:3)
When we had slide rules (you didn't forget slide rules, did you) and then went to calculators, people saved time...
I slightly miss slide rules. What slide rules did was to teach you to pay attention to orders of magnitude, and also to keep only the significant digits of a calculation. These are useful thinking skills.
(You can still have those thinking skills without slide rules, of course, calculating on a slide rule just reinforces that lesson as a necessary skill, not an optional check. And calculators (and computers) are so vastly better at other calculations that it's clear that they're a superior technology, so I d
Re:When I was a boy... (Score:5, Insightful)
But we all didn't carry calculators around 24/7 and were addicted to using them were we?
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No, but we did reach for one every time we had to divide a number by anything more complex than 2 or 10.
Yes I'd call that an addiction. People reaching for calculators every time presented with a problem capable of being solved by hand is no different to any other addiction.
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Yes I'd call that an addiction. People reaching for calculators every time presented with a problem capable of being solved by hand is no different to any other addiction.
But it's NOT an addiction. It's not even close to an addiction. It's a convenience.
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"People reaching for calculators every time presented with a problem capable of being solved by hand is no different to any other addiction."
That is simply an idiotic statement and attitude. I/m not going to memorize nor divide by 7ths or 13ths or 27ths. It's simply a waste of time. I bet you walk everywhere because "cars are an addiction". After all the problem is able to be solved "by hand" (well, by *feet* actually). Lol, this is stupid.
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I had a fever.
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain, you would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become comfortably numb
Re: When I was a boy... (Score:2)
Worshipping Smartphones is not nearly as rad as worshipping Satan. The new generation is pretty lame compared to my generation. Even when I wear socks with sandals I am way cooler than these nerds.
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Re: When I was a boy... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Every generation is a narcissist, that's just how existence works. My generation just happens to be very cynical about it.
I also like finding the guys in the audience that can't detect irony even with radical hints. That shit makes my wife laugh when I show her.
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mental laziness (Score:3)
My kids spend way too much time on devices. I don't think it makes them dumber. I think it can, at times, make them mentally lazy. Where they know how to do some task that takes a number of steps, say long division, but they just don't want to work it out. They seem to need a good break from the devices to regain their focus for mental tasks.
Re:mental laziness (Score:5, Interesting)
The brain is a muscle.
You don't need to bench press one of your opponents when playing football, but football players still do bench presses to keep their muscles trained.
If we stop keeping the brain trained and just feed it snacks instead, guess what happens to its ability to suddenly burst into a sprint when needed ...
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My kids spend way too much time on devices. I don't think it makes them dumber. I think it can, at times, make them mentally lazy. Where they know how to do some task that takes a number of steps, say long division, but they just don't want to work it out. They seem to need a good break from the devices to regain their focus for mental tasks.
I think this is insightful.
It's not stupid. It's not a lack of ability to do a mental task. It's a lack of inclination to do so.
Anecdote: last night I picked up pizza for friends. The bill was $148.60 and I pointed out that the debit terminal wasn't asking me for tip options. The "kid" - about 20 - said he had to adjust the total, cancelled the transaction and asked me how much I wanted the tip to be. I said "one hundred fifty one and fourty cents". He didn't bat an eyelash at the size of the tip
Re:mental laziness (Score:5, Insightful)
...I don't think it makes them dumber. I think it can, at times, make them mentally lazy. Where they know how to do some task that takes a number of steps, say long division
I think this is insightful. It's not stupid. It's not a lack of ability to do a mental task. It's a lack of inclination to do so.
I'm no "kid," but that describes me. It's simply easier to just type a question in google than to do a simple calculation. I was just doing a task and needed to know the wavelength of a 95 GHz microwave, and it was simpler to just type "95 GHz in mm" in the search bar than to do the division... but, then I convert the answer to inches in my head (about an eighth of an inch.) (I'm American. I do science in metric, but my feel for sizes is in English.)
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My kids spend way too much time on devices. I don't think it makes them dumber. I think it can, at times, make them mentally lazy. Where they know how to do some task that takes a number of steps, say long division, but they just don't want to work it out. They seem to need a good break from the devices to regain their focus for mental tasks.
I believe that mental laziness, over time, DOES make people dumber. It's well known that mental exercises improve performance on IQ tests, and people who maintain vigorous mental activity have brains that age better. Mental gymnastics can even slow the onset of dementia. So I wouldn't discount the notion that having answers, info, and pre-digested opinions at our fingertips every waking moment does in fact lower a population's average IQ.
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There is an additive nature to children's content on modern devices, this should be illegal.
I suppose anything is bad for you in enough quantity and/or continually enough, too much water is fatal.
What I see in my kids seems to be temporary. More like their brain is tired, they are mentally exhausted from so much rapid fire content. They get away from it for a bit, get their mind off of it, and they find clarity. In our case, at least on school days, there are limits on the devices, and their wifi shuts off
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"Most humans with organically intact brains are capable of learning most academic subjects"
You are wrong. Most people are capable of learning some academic subjects. Few people are capable of learning most academic subjects. You obviously haven't spent enough time engaging in the lower percentile portion of the population to have this opinion.
Social media (Score:5, Insightful)
Not specifically the phones but rather Facebook and co. is the real issue.
Banning phone use on school grounds won't be enough to solve it, that's for sure.
New organ (Score:2)
Does the brain make the rest of the body dumber?
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No, but has made it weaker. Look at the gorilla, he can kill you with two fingers if you decide to fight him without tools.
I dunno (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, Siri, do phones make kids dumber?
Phone or Time (Score:5, Insightful)
Is paper making children stupid? (Score:2, Funny)
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I definitely cannot write as legibly as my parents did, my handwriting is terrible and my Chinese characters used put my teachers into a state of desperation and depression.
Yes, smart phones make people dumber. (Score:5, Interesting)
Smart phones are designed to be a distraction. All the way from the ultra-bright screens to the hypnotic scrolling, to the constant stream of mindless alerts, to the social stigma against taking more than a minute to respond to "texts".
You are expected to constantly look at your smartphone and view every advertisement that comes your way. You are supposed to love your smart phone more than anything else in the world because that is what the commercials say.
It also doesn't help that they act as a source of (mis)information.
When I was growing up, there was no internet, no smart phones, and no social media. All I had access to was a set of encyclopedias, a tiny public library, and parents with rocks for brains. So when I wanted to know something, I had to figure it out for my damn self.
What disappoints me is that it has taken this long for the media to finally start pointing out the negative aspects of smart phones. When the Apple iPhone and similar first appears on the market, the manufacturers were pumping so much money in to advertising, no media organization dared to say anything against them, and instead took every opportunity to glorify the smart phones of their advertising overloads.
Oh, look, sparkly pink dresses are on sale at Walmart!
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Smart phones are designed to be a distraction. All the way from the ultra-bright screens to the hypnotic scrolling, to the constant stream of mindless alerts, to the social stigma against taking more than a minute to respond to "texts".
About a year ago, right here on Slashdot, I saw the line that "attention is a finite resource, and should be treated as such."
I have started to treat modern media (especially "social" media) as a drain on my resources. Sure, I'm biased, and my sample size is one, but I have found that prioritizing my attention away from attention-whores has freed up some more time for other pursuits.
dumber? maybe a little (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure (Score:4, Interesting)
No, students aren't getting dumber. What's happening is they're getting smarter. i.e. they're hanging in there at school longer and making it further along. Fewer of them are getting tossed to the wayside because they couldn't keep up.
This makes test scores lower because it's not like these kids became geniuses, they just had access to a bit more info and tutorials allowing them to just barely squeeze through algebra 1 instead of getting abandoned into consumer math.
This is a well documented trend among educators where adding more kids into the education system and working harder to educate them makes the stats look bad.
But everybody *hates* teachers because our system puts us in an antagonistic position with them, so we tend to ignore them when they tell us stuff like "no shit test scores are lower, we're not kicking kids out of school or dumping them in fake B.S. classes before sending them off to die in wars or work in factories anymore!".
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Sorry but maybe I wasn't clear (Score:5, Interesting)
And then along came a whole bunch of professional educators who went out of their way to educate those kids and brought them up quite a bit in academic achievement. But what ends up happening is that those kids are still not going to get straight A's because they're struggling for a variety of reasons so they bring the average down.
The solution for raising the average is not to take anyone who's underperforming and remove them from the statistics. Those aren't real statistics. If the only kids I allowed to take my course in algebra are the ones who already knew how to do algebra very well then yeah my course in algebra is going to look like it's tremendously successful...
Re:Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, explain how the numbers kept going on an upwards trend until phones started becoming ubiquitous then. We haven't been "failing out the stupid people " or really ANYONE for decades. Yet only NOW we see the the trend of lowering scores, a trend that only "coincidentally" started just after smartphone and social media use among students skyrocketed? Methinks there are some smells of bullshit in your excuses.
Holy shit, that's only what, a thirty or forty year plus lag time.... a couple of whole generations, I'm SURE that's the reason
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Scores peaked in 2009 (Score:2)
The article literally compared students who spend 5 hours on a screen to students who spend less than an hour on a screen and even then only found a statistically significant increase in scores. I think it's safe to s
Rolls eyes (Score:3, Funny)
"Wot?"
Adults too. (Score:2)
The movie Idiocracy (Score:2)
...is now looking more and more like a documentary about the future.
It's not only students (Score:2, Offtopic)
I can assure you, people in general have become dumber. Within this past week alone I noticed multiple people coming out of the grocery store glued to their phones, oblivious to what was around them. They had no bags so it is always possible they were texting someone they couldn't find the product needed or weren't willing to pay the $5 for six ounces of chopped walnuts, but I doubt it.
There was a story on here not long [slashdot.org] about about multiple cars getting stuck on a dirt road in Nevada because The Goog told
Poor Parenting Skills (Score:2)
That allow their own children to be dumber than they were. The issue is that parents and their children are separated at an early age because school. Parents have to work so they are gone all day. Parents give them phones so they can entertain themselves because of no supervision and the parents too busy working to have a family trade that the kid can learn. It's fucking turtles all the way down.
Parents and teachers are doing it. (Score:2)
Most of the faults are coming from adults, not kids. Poor teaching and careless education is the real culprit. Not technology.
No statistical power (Score:3)
Well, it's the same with the OECD's PISA tests. They have little statistical power & are unsuitable for indicating causality. They're the educational equivalent of taking a national education system's temperature. Good for ranking countries in order of temperature (or academic achievement in literacy, numeracy, & science) but not much else.
Another common error that science illiterate journalists make is to look at what countries are doing now & say that's what's responsible for the differences between countries. There's so many things wrong with doing that, I don't know where to start.
Phones just change what students contemplate (Score:3)
Throughout history, changes in technology have changed what kinds of things humans have to think about.
When hunter-gatherers settled down and became farmers, they became "dumber" about how to hunt game.
When industrial farms replaced subsistence farming, people became "dumber" about how to raise crops.
When cars replaced horses as a mode of transportation, people became "dumber" about how to properly care for and ride a horse.
Humans have an amazing ability to adapt to the environment in which they find themselves. With each step in technology, they lose skills they used to possess, because they no longer need them. At the same time, they pick up new skills that fit their new environment.
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True. The problem is we have a device with apps specifically designed to sap attention span onto trivial and entertaining topics, away from anything that makes them more successful at the systems needed to survive. It's a long term problem.
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Every generation has this.
I grew up in the 70s. The device in those days that was specifically designed to sap attention span onto trivial and entertaining topics...was the television. People spent many hours a day watching it. Young people stopped going outside to play because of it.
There's always something.
Re: Phones just change what students contemplate (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)m pretty sure that a ubiquitous television that is always available with relatively infinite content is a big difference from a TV with a relative handful of channels.
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Yes of course, there is a big difference between cellphones and TV, in terms of what they are able to deliver. But in terms of the impact on young people, pretty similar.
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Your claim contradicts multiple studies, including the one cited in this article. I know of no data that supports your hypothesis.
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I don't see the contradiction you reference.
Here's some background on the effect of TV in the 1970s. https://www.britannica.com/top... [britannica.com]
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There isn't a TV continuously playing in every classroom while the teachers are teaching.
The content on TV in the 1970s was extremely limited compared to today.
The content didn't modify itself if your attention tried to wander off, and it didn't lead to suicides, eating disorders, and grade deflation anywhere near the current era, even accounting for market penetration.
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Your first three statements are true.
Your last statements, about what TV and phones lead to, are not.
TV has long been recognized as a depressant. https://www.news-medical.net/h... [news-medical.net]. Depression is the #1 cause of suicide.
TV leads to eating disorders. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov].
Grade inflation started in the 1960s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
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How so? You can't put a TV in your pocket and watch it anywhere anytime, including in class.
That alone makes cell phones a much bigger impact on young people, not "pretty similar" at all.
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The impact of TV in the 70's:
Depression: https://www.news-medical.net/h... [news-medical.net]
Eating disorders: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
Worse education outcomes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Same song, different verse.
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There is no doubt that technology, and its effects, both positive and negative, is progressing more and more rapidly.
But like Moore's Law, it can't continue to speed up forever.
I don't know about dumber... (Score:2)
And I don't think it's phones. But I think that the crushing of the attention span of the youth is ensuring us a dearth of people with deep skills in anything complex in the future. I do, however, think that the founders of Blinkist and similar services should take a long walk off a short pier. All they do is arm you with enough of a book's content to make you "appear" like you read it, or that you understand it. But that's it - it's surface layer. It's the literary version of the history channel - bad for
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Luckily, in the future, the AIs will be able to do our thinking for us. We're depleting our own abilties at the same rate we're bringing better automation tools into play. We just have to keep the AIs from spending all their time watching cat videos.
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Yeah... but no matter how good you think you are at it, there'll be an AI out there that can watch more cat videos in less time.
Yes. (Score:2)
Mostly through distraction, plus reduced initiative to investigate information, which dulls their efforts to create a thru line to new information. In that regard, they are much like the current vaunted AI systems, which are mostly regurgitating and remixing existing information. At least thereâ(TM)s fewer hallucinations in the classroom. Cogitation is being supplanted by âoeI'll just Google itâ. Which would not be horrible if Google was in the business of steering you to primary sources.
Phone take the lead! (Score:2)
Phones take the lead away from TV as to what is described as the idiot box.
Re: (Score:2)
It's definitely not that. No kid does research on their phones unless an adult is standing over them. They chat and passively consume video content most of the time, and that content is not current events or how-to videos. It's cat videos, make up application vids, and weird stunts. They aren't building awareness of the world, understanding its systems, or fostering the ability to think. They COULD do those things with the phone, and it CAN be a tool for vast improvement, but that's not how it is used.