"Next generation is doing X WRONG" is such a hard topic to discuss. On the one hand, there's quotes from ancient civilizations arguing as such. On the other, I really do think that the spread of...
"Next generation is doing X WRONG" is such a hard topic to discuss.
On the one hand, there's quotes from ancient civilizations arguing as such. On the other, I really do think that the spread of the internet, and by extension, EXTREMELY targeted marketing to children I feel must be having an affect.
I'm hesitant to comment on personal anecdotes or the data presented, but just from a simple first glance I find it impossible to believe that entire industries popping up around manipulating the younger generations bodes well. Influencers like today didn't exist until this millennium to my knowledge. Convincing a bunch of kid, across the world, that you could do no wrong wasn't profitable enough. I think that's changed a ton.
IMO it’s not targeted ads or algorithms or whatever. At least not directly. There was also some segment of the population who were going to have social anxiety and poor social skills due to their...
IMO it’s not targeted ads or algorithms or whatever. At least not directly. There was also some segment of the population who were going to have social anxiety and poor social skills due to their upbringing or just how they are.
Before, it wasn’t feasible to just be in your room all day. Without TV, without phones and computers and video games and the internet it would be unbearably dull to do so. Not to mention that few people were wealthy enough to do so anyway back then. Children worked for most of human history. So people braved the thoughts inside their head and were forced to interact with people, for entertainment and sustenance.
Personal technology allows people to fall into a local optima - a place where it’s too scary to interact with people, and your phone gives you enough pleasure and your discord groups gives the social animal part of your brain enough of a tickle to keep you sane. But it’s a worse spot than if you have a more active social circle (which is highly correlative with good health - as much as frequent exercise is)
I think it’s more general than just being an issue confined to shut-ins, although that’s certainly a visible aspect. I think @Eji1700 is correct to point at influencers. Related anecdote time: I...
I think it’s more general than just being an issue confined to shut-ins, although that’s certainly a visible aspect. I think @Eji1700 is correct to point at influencers.
Related anecdote time:
I spend a lot of time in the Canadian Rockies. In the last 5 years I would guess there has been a ~5x increase in the number of deaths of young climbers and hikers. There are a lot of “free solo” YouTubers these days attempting routes where most people are roping in without any ropes. This was kicked off by professionals but these days you can find a bunch of twenty somethings with very little alpine experience partaking in the trend and unsurprisingly there’s an increase in deaths. See https://willgadd.com/scrambling-and-soloing-to-death/
It’s not exactly related to conscientiousness but it’s a similar effect where we have some content creators trying to maximize their content for publicity and then that becomes part of the building blocks for the next generation’s culture. Luckily there’s plenty of good content out there too, I just don’t know if it gets the same kind of view count.
But to be fair, probably a certain number of ancient peoples also couldn't deal with being pushed outside of entertainment/sustenance and just...died, too. Some in voluntary seclusion with little....
But to be fair, probably a certain number of ancient peoples also couldn't deal with being pushed outside of entertainment/sustenance and just...died, too.
Some in voluntary seclusion with little.
Or if they had access to power, arrange their lives such that they have women and children provide them with entertainment/sustenance. It's very new in history that most non-poverty class young men have to find their own mates, and that their mates can't run away from being forced to entertain/support a non-contributing spouse.
I hate it when people bring up that “the youth now love luxury. . .” quote (usually attributed to Sophocles but actually kind of a paraphrase of various writers from around the same time). Largely...
On the one hand, there's quotes from ancient civilizations arguing as such.
I hate it when people bring up that “the youth now love luxury. . .” quote (usually attributed to Sophocles but actually kind of a paraphrase of various writers from around the same time). Largely because that generation of writers it’s attributed to WERE RIGHT. The youths they were talking about would go on to destroy Athenian power on an ill-advised glory-whoring military campaign, fall under the sway of a bunch of deranged demagogues like Kleon and Alcibiades, and then eventually sell the city state out to the Persians, thus ending Athenian democracy.
Yeah people have always complained about young people, but also society being gripped by certain specific derangements stemming from entitlement, greed, and status anxiety are things that have happened cyclically throughout history and things get very bad when it does. Younger generations should be inculcated into certain civic virtues to ensure the social contract remains strong and if they are not you end up with this rapidly degrading husk of a civilization we find ourselves in.
To be clear not the quote I was actually thinking of, although I am aware of it. Was more intending the Plato quote about how writing is going to ruin everyone's ability to reason because they...
To be clear not the quote I was actually thinking of, although I am aware of it. Was more intending the Plato quote about how writing is going to ruin everyone's ability to reason because they won't have to memorize things.
I’ve started to come around on this one too TBH. Less with writing, largely because I’ve known how to write for so long I don’t actually know how people think without it. But I do regularly...
I’ve started to come around on this one too TBH. Less with writing, largely because I’ve known how to write for so long I don’t actually know how people think without it. But I do regularly interact with accounting and finance people who are so excel/calculator dependent they can no longer do basic arithmetic in their heads. Trying to work through a problem that involves doing math (as one does when trying to work out a project budget) is a huge slog because they can’t keep up at the pace of a conversation. Yeah the aids are helpful, but we can’t actually talk through anything with a math component if your brain is just going to the Sunken Place any time I start adding more than 2 sets of numbers together.
I don’t think this is true in the slightest. I’m talking about people with literal degrees in accounting. You think there aren’t people with college degrees who wouldn’t be able to do elementary...
I don’t think this is true in the slightest. I’m talking about people with literal degrees in accounting. You think there aren’t people with college degrees who wouldn’t be able to do elementary school level arithmetic if calculators didn’t exist?
I think in general the majority of societal advancement has come about because we've lowered the bar and stood on the shoulders of giants so to speak. The people who have accounting degrees now...
I think in general the majority of societal advancement has come about because we've lowered the bar and stood on the shoulders of giants so to speak.
The people who have accounting degrees now but live in excel just would have flunked out in an era before calculators and gone into something else. There's some mild level of offloading skills, but in general I think the raw % of people who can "do X naturally" doesn't much adjust with technological advancement because it's mostly down to if you're going to put in the time and effort to learn it.
A lot of moving society forward is lowering the bar to learn/achieve something, but I don't think that lowers the general skill level of society. Just matches the rather large lack of skills better.
I don’t think they would have because arithmetic isn’t some inherent ability it’s just a matter of practice. They’re out of practice so their brains don’t work anymore. If they did practice they’d...
I don’t think they would have because arithmetic isn’t some inherent ability it’s just a matter of practice. They’re out of practice so their brains don’t work anymore. If they did practice they’d be fine.
That's my point. Most people don't practice. If you give them an easy way to do it, they'd do it. If you don't, they won't. Removing the assistance just means fewer people do it. Those who do...
That's my point. Most people don't practice. If you give them an easy way to do it, they'd do it. If you don't, they won't. Removing the assistance just means fewer people do it. Those who do practice practice other things
It’s literally their job. I have no idea what you’re trying to say here. That a professional accountant shouldn’t put a bit of effort into keeping their accounting relevant skills, such as basic...
It’s literally their job. I have no idea what you’re trying to say here. That a professional accountant shouldn’t put a bit of effort into keeping their accounting relevant skills, such as basic mental arithmetic, sharp?
My point is that doing their literal job no longer requires those skills, so more people can do that job. If you rip away the tools that are allowing those people to do that job they’re not...
My point is that doing their literal job no longer requires those skills, so more people can do that job.
If you rip away the tools that are allowing those people to do that job they’re not magically going to become more diligent. They’re going to fail out and do something else (best case).
A lot of societal advancement has been making tools so that the less skilled can be more productive because you lowered the barrier to entry.
So yeah, there’s lots of accountants who are bad at math and barely able to use excel and that’s still “good enough”. Those people would not be any better at mental math if they didn’t have those tools
No I’m sorry but this is complete nonsense. I am talking about the rudiments of very basic numeracy here, simple addition and subtraction. Anyone without a learning disability can do this. It’s...
No I’m sorry but this is complete nonsense. I am talking about the rudiments of very basic numeracy here, simple addition and subtraction. Anyone without a learning disability can do this. It’s not some esoteric skill or knowledge gap, it is pure atrophy of core competencies due to overreliance on a crutch and it has made them objectively worse at their job. It’s not adding to the pool it’s just making everyone in it perform worse.
They absolutely would be better at mental math if they did it at all because it’s a skill developed through practice. It is absolutely not “good enough” because I already demonstrated that they are causing inefficiencies in being able to budget and strategize by not being quick enough to keep up in a meeting.
You seem to be ignoring what I'm saying. You are claiming these people are bad at math. I agree You are claiming that if they did not have these tools they would bet better at math I disagree. By...
No I’m sorry but this is complete nonsense. I am talking about the rudiments of very basic numeracy here, simple addition and subtraction. Anyone without a learning disability can do this. It’s not some esoteric skill or knowledge gap, it is pure atrophy of core competencies due to overreliance on a crutch and it has made them objectively worse at their job. It’s not adding to the pool it’s just making everyone in it perform worse.
You seem to be ignoring what I'm saying.
You are claiming these people are bad at math.
I agree
You are claiming that if they did not have these tools they would bet better at math
I disagree.
By your very own point these are EXTREMELY simple skills, and yet they have not bothered to learn them. By what evidence do you think that had these tools not existed that they'd suddenly be MORE willing to practice and learn, rather than find a different path of least resistance.
They absolutely would be better at mental math if they did it at all because it’s a skill developed through practice. It is absolutely not “good enough” because I already demonstrated that they are causing inefficiencies in being able to budget and strategize by not being quick enough to keep up in a meeting.
And yet they have those jobs. Again you're taking the view that "everyone would be better at their job if only....", and i'm saying the same people who are not very good now would be just as bad, and unhireable in that position because there is no crutch.
There's quite a lot of evidence to support this across most industries. New skills start as very difficult things that demand higher pay and attract the few who can do them. New tools are made until the masses can now handle this skill due to a lower barrier to entry. The masses do not, traditionally, suddenly get smarter (or dumber) because of something that helps them do something. Sliderules do not make you better at math. They self select for the people who were already good at math because mistakes are more punishing.
Most of modern society has not been built on making everyone smarter. It has been built on making everything easier.
I don't think this is going to be a productive conversation
You are claiming that if they did not have these tools they would bet better at math
I disagree.
By your very own point these are EXTREMELY simple skills, and yet they have not bothered to learn them. By what evidence do you think that had these tools not existed that they'd suddenly be MORE willing to practice and learn, rather than find a different path of least resistance.
I don't think this is going to be a productive conversation
I don't know, guys. Twenty years ago, the "attitude determines altitude" said it was personality. Then ten years later, folks resold it to me as "Grit". Seven Habits was 1989, and they are: Be...
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conscientiousness (the quality of being dependable and disciplined)
I don't know, guys. Twenty years ago, the "attitude determines altitude" said it was personality. Then ten years later, folks resold it to me as "Grit". Seven Habits was 1989, and they are:
Be proactive
Begin with the end in mind
Put first things first
Think win win
Seek first to understand, then to be understood
Synergize
Sharpen the saw
The first and sixth already favour extroverted people. Three to five require mental bandwidth that folks with mental health or traumatic pasts might have challenges with. The seventh of which is most in resemblance to grit and conscientiousness etc, and is infamous for being difficult if one has ADHD.
As an older adult now who came to understand I'm neurodiverce, with early childhood adversities, and seeing the mid life falling apart of many adult friends who seemingly had their earlier adult lives in order, full of grit and conscientiousness, I'm really suspicious of all this not simply being survivor bias on steroids. Successful people beget successful people, who live into older ages being successful.
Folks with easier genetics and healthier environment grow up more successfully than those without.
That's not at all doomerism that nobody else can beat the odds. I'm just saying that this type of survey is usually used by those in power to dismiss challenges as "merely not trying enough", and prescribe poverty and challenges as willful moral failings.
As a counterpoint, first and second-generation immigrants show unusually high levels of grit and conscientiousness, and they often outperform native-born Americans despite starting off poorer and...
Successful people beget successful people, who live into older ages being successful.
Folks with easier genetics and healthier environment grow up more successfully than those without.
As a counterpoint, first and second-generation immigrants show unusually high levels of grit and conscientiousness, and they often outperform native-born Americans despite starting off poorer and in more challenging environments. The difficulty of the immigration process naturally selects for gritty people.
I think of all the Chinese restaurants I've been to where the parents work 10+ hour shifts while their children sit at a corner table dutifully doing their homework. Their children most often will break out of the working class into the middle or upper-middle classes.
I think that kind of attitude requires optimistic self-delusion. In habitually poor communities, there's often a self-defeating, nihilistic attitude that "we've been poor and we'll always be poor so there's no point in trying" which can be reinforced by well-meaning narratives that "it's not your fault, it's the system keeping you down". Which may be partially true, but I think it also feeds self-defeating attitudes and can prevent people from attaining aspirational attitudes.
In my own personal life, I went to an affluent public school in a mixed-but-generally-affluent town. Our Black student body was divided into two cohorts: those who had educated, professional parents, and those whose parents moved from the inner city to our town on Section 8 vouchers. The former cohort did well, went on to study at tier 1 schools: state flagships, Ivy League, prestigious privates, or elite HBCUs like Morehouse. But then the latter cohort did really badly—one had a teen pregnancy, I know another is in prison for attempting to murder his girlfriend after high school—because their attitude, was "the system is out to keep us down no matter" so they often rebelled, skipping classes and resisting the school's interventions. I remember, come senior year, the school counselor essentially wrote them off as lost causes and let them skip classes and hang out in the hallways. This is despite having access to the same educational resources as the former cohort. Interestingly, there was little/no social mixing between the two cohorts.
Those experiences made me realize that people have these internal narratives about their lives and where they're meant to go. And the ones who can convince themselves most strongly of their own narratives eventually make it.
I think it's likely there were more complex reasons that "that cohort did poorly because of their attitude.". And there's no world in which they had the same educational resources, they had some...
I think it's likely there were more complex reasons that "that cohort did poorly because of their attitude.". And there's no world in which they had the same educational resources, they had some of the same resources, but definitely not all. Money and parents with that life experience navigating those systems make a huge difference.
And all of that is definitely incredibly demoralizing. But when even the adults whose job it is to help give up, they were certainly proven right that the system didn't care anymore.
ETA: I work with college students of all backgrounds now but those who are struggling in particular and I've worked with young adults on parole. In both cases they make choices and need to be responsible for those, but it's not with the same resources and the race track they're running on has many more obstacles on it.
They definitely had access to the same resources. The school overflowed with resources and caring adults. This is one of the very well-funded progressive school districts where everyone (once) got...
They definitely had access to the same resources. The school overflowed with resources and caring adults. This is one of the very well-funded progressive school districts where everyone (once) got an iPad and every school computer was a brand new Mac. Good class sizes. Well-maintained facilities. Well-paid and highly-motivated teachers and staff.
Famous authors would come give talks. Obama made a stop once. The late Howard Zinn visited twice, at the invitation of one very liberal teacher who was a particularly big fan. Guidance counselors, specialists, and therapists galore. I got to see a school therapist every other week. Classes at level ranging from remedial to normal to honors to every AP class to beyond-AP (multivariable calculus, linear algebra) to individual studies for outlier children. Technical classes were available for the more vocationally minded: we had a full woodshop and makerspace with 3d printers, heat presses, etc. A team for every kind of sport, even golf.
Whatever you wanted to do, there was an adult ready to help realize it. Teachers happily sponsored all kinds of student clubs: GSA, philosophy club, cooking club (once a month after school we'd cook a group dinner to share between the kids, it was a ton of fun), and so on. Too smart and testing out of everything and interested in an academic subject that wasn't offered? Do an individual study plan with a teacher. My family moved to the town just for the school district.
The adults cared for years until they thought it was futile. You can throw all the resources you want at students but so long as they don't care or see the point then they won't utilize them.
As I said, they had some of the same resources. But quite clearly those resources weren't all that was needed by everyone. You pointed out family environment differences, wealth differences,...
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As I said, they had some of the same resources. But quite clearly those resources weren't all that was needed by everyone. You pointed out family environment differences, wealth differences, parental educational differences and then laid it at the feet of "attitude." We've seen numerous articles about how teacher expectations can indirectly or directly bias students' outcomes.
As just a single example, Can you stay late for cooking club if you have to watch your siblings? Do you feel comfortable there if you've never used some of the equipment, it's not something anyone has in your neighborhood? If the food being served isn't what you eat? Can you buy these foods on WIC as a teen mom? If you come home later, is your neighborhood less safe than getting home right after school? If you feel excluded by lack of shared social experiences do you want to hang out even? Because these folks don't feel like your peers since they don't "mix"? Probably they make fun of you for being poor? And are the spaces truly welcoming or is some of that implicit bias leading teachers to discourage certain students from attending? Those are a lot of possible hurdles to get over.
The specifics aren't the point, the generalizing poor black students as hopeless is. In my eyes, if the vast majority of poor black students are failing - the system is failing them maybe long before school. Your anecdote is basically demonstrating that generational wealth is key to success, for example.
Another consideration I hear frequently is that racism and sexism are often invisible to people who don't experience them directly. A good friend of mine (who is Black) was told, in my hoity toity...
Another consideration I hear frequently is that racism and sexism are often invisible to people who don't experience them directly. A good friend of mine (who is Black) was told, in my hoity toity high school full of high-achieving students (who were primarily white), that she didn't "need" to take a language class because it would be too hard. She didn't want to push back because she was trying to respect the counselor, and so she ended up not actually getting that opportunity because the adult in charge assumed for her that she wasn't capable. She first told me this when we were 38. I had no idea until then! A lot of these assumptions and actions are made behind the scenes, and can feel incredibly humiliating to the people who experience them. There is far, far more going on here than just "attitude", and subtle signs of welcoming and belonging (microaggressions!) make very clear to children when they are not wanted. Why remain in a space where people don't respect you and treat you like you don't belong?
And many of us, when we're not the ones experiencing the more invisible discrimination will try to come up with a reason why the thing wasn't actually racist or sexist. "Well I'm sure that's not...
And many of us, when we're not the ones experiencing the more invisible discrimination will try to come up with a reason why the thing wasn't actually racist or sexist. "Well I'm sure that's not what they meant", "What if you're just misinterpreting it", "I know she's not a bad person, so she can't be racist." Etc.
It's a bad habit and one to try to correct.
But there was just a study posted here that compared test scores with math class placement focusing on race, and the justifications teachers made even after being confronted with the disparities they themselves were creating by discouraging black students from higher placed classes were born out of low expectations and nominally trying to "protect" students from discrimination.
And just to counter the anecdote with my own, I went to private Catholic high school (and K-8 and college) which was predominantly white. Teen pregnancy happened and the student dropped out (which is btw not a failure of attitude, it's a failure to provide sufficient sex ed, and actual support for pregnant and parenting teens, but society focuses on the "failure" of the girls in question.), my younger sister's classmate killed his wife a few years ago in divorce/custody dispute, in jr high my class was split into essentially an "honors" and a "basic" class and the kids in the "basic" class caught the insult, while the teachers lied about the reason for the class.
And yeah some people give up. But I'd guess attitude is more effect than cause there.
I knew a lot of kids who had absolutely everything money could have bought them. But most of them were short on parental love and time. They had a lot of challenges I never did. I don't assume bad...
I knew a lot of kids who had absolutely everything money could have bought them. But most of them were short on parental love and time. They had a lot of challenges I never did. I don't assume bad things about their attitudes, only that in their place I probably would do worse than them. A lot of the times, we don't choose our own internal narratives, the outside circumstances and our mental processes do.
This is not unusual in any way. "Snobby rich kids" and "poor kids getting what they don't deserve" rarely do. I do think you're generally correct though. The only caveat being that educated,...
Interestingly, there was little/no social mixing between the two cohorts.
This is not unusual in any way. "Snobby rich kids" and "poor kids getting what they don't deserve" rarely do.
I do think you're generally correct though. The only caveat being that educated, professional parents tend to have more free time and motivation to take a genuine interest in their kid's education, instead of being burnt out and having no energy to do more than collapse on the sofa after a 13 hour shift.
That may be true, but working-class Asian parents are also working extremely long hours — the ones running or working grueling shifts at restaurants, laundromats, donut shops, nail salons—and...
That may be true, but working-class Asian parents are also working extremely long hours — the ones running or working grueling shifts at restaurants, laundromats, donut shops, nail salons—and their children are able to go toe-to-toe academically with middle-class white children. Their children often grow up with the narrative of, "my parents worked extremely hard and sacrificed so much to give me opportunities."
While I accept there are systematic factors, I think our culture veers too much into nihilism and throwing our hands up in the air and saying it's all the system's fault. I believe that too much of that narrative disempowers us and robs us of our sense of agency, and then we lose sight of the tremendous power that attitude and human willpower hold.
I've been observing a lot of that talk among young Gen Z folks who doomscroll a lot of narratives on Tiktok telling them that they're all screwed no matter because of unstoppable climate change, Trump, systematic racism, the billionaires, private equity, Zuckerberg, big tech, China, or this or that. There isn't a sufficiently healthy counterweight of "you can overcome it" narratives.
I feel like this is trending a bit into East Asian immigrant stereotypes. I know they get trotted out frequently in "model minority" examples, as well as in affirmative action criticisms, but I...
I feel like this is trending a bit into East Asian immigrant stereotypes. I know they get trotted out frequently in "model minority" examples, as well as in affirmative action criticisms, but I personally know zero Asian families that were like this with their kids growing up.
Meanwhile, my white immigrant grandparents generally worked themselves to the bone to send their kids to college, and had some Old Country ideas about hard work that would get you the belt if you slacked off (especially if you were a daughter). I think it's more the unflinching parental rules and expectations that leads to exceptionalism for some immigrant children, rather than any specific outsider "cultural" values.
Professional parents also tend to know people who can get their kids placed in a job or internship that goes along with their goals. Not to mention those kids learn the social niceties of that set...
Professional parents also tend to know people who can get their kids placed in a job or internship that goes along with their goals. Not to mention those kids learn the social niceties of that set and will do better in interviews as a result.
I agree with you completely and want to add that on top of the painting of this as a moral failing, the undertone to these types of 'kids these days' discussions is that they are somehow...
I agree with you completely and want to add that on top of the painting of this as a moral failing, the undertone to these types of 'kids these days' discussions is that they are somehow permanently broken. It's disrespectful and infuriating, unwarranted superiority complexes dressed up as pity.
No, the kids aren't broken and weaker than you were as a kid. Give them a chance to stabilize and live without constant stress and falling living standards, and these markers will rebound.
This sounds awful, but I just don't believe the graphs. This is incredibly anecdotal, but it doesn't track at all with my everyday life. I live in a town that has a pretty even breakdown from age...
This sounds awful, but I just don't believe the graphs. This is incredibly anecdotal, but it doesn't track at all with my everyday life. I live in a town that has a pretty even breakdown from age 15-85, so we skew old, but it gives me a pretty good distribution of interacting with everyone from 10 year olds to 90 year olds. I play volleyball with folks ~18-40, I swim with the 25-65 crowd, and I engage in municipal politics with the 60-90+ crowd.
While I do think younger folks can be a little less empathetic (enter Homers dad's gif here), the real problem in our town in the entitled, offensive, narcissistic older folks. Honestly, GenX doesn't do much better than their predecessors. This sticks of the usual kicking down that the media likes to do to the generation in their 20s/30s.
I think Covid knocked the benevolence from many of us, but this feels like self reported data. Has anyone read the actual studies and seen what their methodologies were?
As an older Gen Z, the graphs in the article completely track from what I've seen. There was a dramatic, step-size change in the psychology of kids some years younger than me that could not be...
As an older Gen Z, the graphs in the article completely track from what I've seen. There was a dramatic, step-size change in the psychology of kids some years younger than me that could not be explained by them just being younger. In particular, I would say being born before or after 2004 was a huge turning point.
Edit: the data comes from a large and robust survey conducted by USC.
As an elder millenial, I've noticed this split for both Gen Z and Millennials. Us elder millenials have more in common with X by a huge jump the same way you see with Z. I have some ancedata...
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As an elder millenial, I've noticed this split for both Gen Z and Millennials. Us elder millenials have more in common with X by a huge jump the same way you see with Z. I have some ancedata within ny own family that also confirms this with many conversations with siblings. There is an 8 year gap between me and my youngest sibling. My young X cohorts have noticed it too. The Millenial dividing line is somewhere around 1990.
I posit it is caused by the availability and nature of technology available at home around prepubescence, 8-12. The extremity is roughly tied to wealth as well, as wealthier kids have more access earlier. So it's not a hard line, but a fuzzy one centering around critical mass. Some arbitrary markers to highlight. 4 years is a nice gap it seems.
1988 (the last of X turns 8): The NES is the highest tech hitting homes. Sony Walkman portanle cassette player is everywhere, the hottest portable music around.
1992 (I turn 8): Computers just start entering homes. DOS is most popular OS.
1996 (sibling): Internet at home, Windows 95. Cellphone use getting close to ubiquitous. Discman/walkman is on the scene, MP3 players on the horizon.
2000: Broadband becoming more available/affordable. Windows 98. Most of the Internet Oligarchs are nestling into place. Napster has come and gone, ipods are everywhere.
2004: Windows XP. PC computing is relatively painless and ubiquitous. Firefox tearing holes in IE marketshare.
2008: Windows 7. The introduction of smartphones. Google Chrome.
2012: Smartphones everywhere. Tablets rising.
2016: Windows 10. Tablets everywhere.
Sorry, running out of time so those last few were hacky and incomplete. But the point is that the tech is accellerating, getting easier, being targetted to children more, and is much more exploititive.
Looking back at those turning points we noticed, the 1990 crowd turned 8 when computers started to mostly work. The 2004 crowd turned 8 when smartphones were everywhere and tablet use exploding.
And while there have been many arguements about how this actually influences tech savviness, there are a few undeniable facts:
Smartphones and Tablets are much more exploititive than dumbphones and PCs.
Games and "The Internet" are explicitly designed to be more addictive than the past.
While I think @stu2b50 has a good point about enabling introversion, I think it ignores the intentional manipulation that is encourages the isolation and addiction over socialization. You ever try to forcibly intervene between an addict and their vice? Generally not pretty. Addiction does nasty things to people.
My final piece of ancedata comes in the form of my eldest child and their peers: People constantly tell me how well-behaved, intelligent, kind, and creative my kids are. Best I can tell, there is only one major difference: I don't give my kids free range of a phone, tablet, TV, or game console the way most of my parent peers do. Thus my children are exceptionally good at being bored, and that gives them the superpowers of being patient and thinking about stuff without a dopamine generator.
Right now, as I edit and spellcheck this post while I poop, my two children at 8 and 4, are playing in the yard without a fence, next to a fairly high-traffic road. They have access to all manner of sharp tools. The highest tech thing in their vicinity is a garden hose. I have no idea what they are doing, and I am not worried. This is more a comment on trying to kill helicopter parenting, but I feel they are somewhat related.
My kids always had access to tech, but it wasn't unlimited and not without robust guardrails. But we also prioritized family outings and IRL activities over anything technology related. But it's...
My kids always had access to tech, but it wasn't unlimited and not without robust guardrails. But we also prioritized family outings and IRL activities over anything technology related.
But it's not all on parents, though a big portion of it is. Society has deemed it unacceptable to let kids take risks (or to let parents let kids take risks). While I don't think this opinion essay picks the ideal case to argue, it gets to the point.
But since we are all pulling out the anecdata cards, personally I've noticed that those who have pulled back from society to any significant degree, such as hiding in niche digital spaces, etc, have all regressed socially regardless of age. I know Gen X and boomers and young people all become less able to interact, more rude and uncaring, largely to whatever extent they retreated. And COVID made a lot of people retreat (as well as politics)
Social skills are a mental skill, as much like a muscle as any other mental skill. And letting it atrophy, for whatever reason, whether it is avoidance of people you disagree with to simple discomfort, just makes it worse and more difficult and uncomfortable to engage socially.
Hoo boy, I say this all the time. Social skills are just that, skills and need to be honed. I used to think of myself as socially awkward (I mean, I still think I am), but I started dating and...
Social skills are a mental skill, as much like a muscle as any other mental skill. And letting it atrophy, for whatever reason, whether it is avoidance of people you disagree with to simple discomfort, just makes it worse and more difficult and uncomfortable to engage socially.
Hoo boy, I say this all the time. Social skills are just that, skills and need to be honed.
I used to think of myself as socially awkward (I mean, I still think I am), but I started dating and later married an extrovert who loves to be around people and loved to go to big parties constantly. The longer I spent with them and the further I got into my career, I realized socializing was easier, I didn't have to think about it so much and it didn't bother me like it used to. That's when it all clicked into place for me that it wasn't that I was a just a certain way and that was that, it was that I hadn't sharpened my skills outside of my immediate friend group.
We definitely see this in some of the Zoomers in our family. Good kids, but they retreat rapidly into themselves and avoid social situations; it's easy to see a lot of the same behaviors in them as I saw in myself. That said they're only in their early-mid 20s and I was well into my 30s before I realized the change, so we'll see.
Age of tech exposure probably does have some bearing on it all. I fall a bit before that 1990 line, but my childhood has facets in common with that of someone raised in the 80s. Lived in a...
Age of tech exposure probably does have some bearing on it all. I fall a bit before that 1990 line, but my childhood has facets in common with that of someone raised in the 80s.
Lived in a somewhat rural area. Didn’t have a computer of any kind around until 96, I didn’t have a computer I could call my own until 2000 (which was the 96 machine as a hand me down), and I never had a game console. Didn’t have cable until about 2000. The family computer was usually occupied by my mom and so there was a lot of times where the most entertaining things around were a tiny handful of OTA TV channels and a bunch of VHS tapes that’d been watched many times already. Boredom was no stranger.
The most common antidotes were getting lost in imaginary worlds with siblings, sitting quietly doodling, goofing around in the yard, or maybe reading a book. Sometimes I’d just lie on my bed and ponder some random thing that’d been on my mind.
And yeah, even after getting a computer it wasn’t exactly a full time mindless entertainment box. Just using a computer was a skill set and browsing the internet was an activity that took considerable time and effort, with how poor search engines were. Early on the things I spent the most time on when using the computer was going down desktop customization rabbit holes, including making themes, desktop pictures, etc myself and just generally figuring out what the upper bounds for possibilities were for this magical new machine.
I have similar experiences with my kids, roughly the same age. I've banned YouTube for them, with the exception of about 15 minutes worth of shorts in evening, but only with myself or Mom, so we...
I have similar experiences with my kids, roughly the same age. I've banned YouTube for them, with the exception of about 15 minutes worth of shorts in evening, but only with myself or Mom, so we can monitor what's being watched.
No tablets or smart phones, both my kids need to use a full PC to play games or watch TV and they in usually get about 2 hours worth of games or TV before dinner and after that, it's playtime. Otherwise, they have run off the neighborhood, which isn't too much, given they just go to the next street over to play with other kids in the hood.
I can see how easy it is to fall into just giving them a phone or tablet and I've seen it happen with other kids in my family, but I'm just so vehemently opposed to it, I'll tolerate the meltdowns and frustrations, even if it's maddening. We rarely go out to eat, but when we do, it's up to them to be calm and entertain themselves and we realize that we have maybe a maximum of 1 hour before the kids can't take anymore and need to leave. Sure we could give them a screen so we could sit there a little longer, but being a parent is about making sacrifices so your kids can learn and I guess that's just part of it for us.
But my oldest has started to ask about a phone, as kids in his school have them (they're only just starting 2nd grade, which is nuts), I told him he could have one when he's 13, but even that might be too early, I feel. But I guess it'll be up to me to educate him about things he encounters and put some boundaries on that phone use.
Keep up the fight! I know it can't be easy, but when they're grown up I strongly suspect your children will appreciate your firm guidance on technology usage and appreciation for meatspace. I wish...
Keep up the fight! I know it can't be easy, but when they're grown up I strongly suspect your children will appreciate your firm guidance on technology usage and appreciation for meatspace. I wish my parents had been so thoughtful!
I certainly hope so. My niece and nephew are now teens and have devices at this point, but they're very good kids and would generally rather interact with the rest of the family than look at their...
I certainly hope so. My niece and nephew are now teens and have devices at this point, but they're very good kids and would generally rather interact with the rest of the family than look at their own devices.
I try to maintain healthy boundaries, but again, we'll see. It's especially tough given I've been a Gamer for most of my 41 years, so they see me on screens a decent amount, but usually I'm playing a game rather than consuming mindlessly.
But we'll see, they certainly stress me out, but I'm hoping I'm raising good adults.
Honestly, intentional computer usage that requires deep thought like a decent video game is... very far from modern smartphone and tablet consumption. When I was a kid, I used to spend hours...
Honestly, intentional computer usage that requires deep thought like a decent video game is... very far from modern smartphone and tablet consumption. When I was a kid, I used to spend hours practicing and improving my skills and understanding of the small number of video games I had physical copies of.
Mindlessly consuming short-form video for hours could not be more different! I think if you can encourage thoughtful computer use while discouraging the 'empty calories' of mindless scrolling, you've won well over half the battle. Fortunately, these platforms are becoming less and less p2p social over time, so the social pressure is actually lessening to use them, unlike the pressure in the heyday of Instagram and Facebook. You can avoid TikTok entirely and only miss out on dumb trends and memes, whereas avoiding Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat in 2015 essentially made you a hermit in my age bracket because that's where everyone hung out and planned events.
I'm not sure that pressure is totally gone yet.. My niece and nephew are definitely on Tiktok, it just seems they have a healthier relationship with it. I'm hoping as mine get older, they'll...
I'm not sure that pressure is totally gone yet.. My niece and nephew are definitely on Tiktok, it just seems they have a healthier relationship with it. I'm hoping as mine get older, they'll continue to play videogames with each other and I'll join in from time to time as well.
I am hoping they learn some computer skills too.. They've at least got launching Steam down and my almost 8 year old is just beginning to understand Alt-tab to go back to steam and force shut down games if he's having a problem. I figure touch interfaces are pretty natural, so they can learn that later and hopefully develop skills with PC interfaces now.
I’ve seen suggestions that a parent restricting touch screen access in the early years is somehow damaging or might stunt their adeptness with touch UIs relative to unrestricted peers, but I...
I figure touch interfaces are pretty natural, so they can learn that later and hopefully develop skills with PC interfaces now.
I’ve seen suggestions that a parent restricting touch screen access in the early years is somehow damaging or might stunt their adeptness with touch UIs relative to unrestricted peers, but I disagree and align with your thoughts here. As a 30-something who didn’t even have a cell phone period until college I don’t think I’m appreciably worse with touch UIs than a 14 year old raised on an iPad is.
More ancedata for the pile: My 4 year old can use a mouse like it's their god-damn job. And figuring out what the keys do without knowing how to read. All because they get to play some PBS games...
More ancedata for the pile: My 4 year old can use a mouse like it's their god-damn job. And figuring out what the keys do without knowing how to read. All because they get to play some PBS games on the PC while sibling codes.
I’ve seen suggestions that a parent restricting touch screen access in the early years is somehow damaging or might stunt their adeptness with touch UIs relative to unrestricted peers
This is the most insane thing I've ever heard. Humans want to touch the flashing light. You know how many times I had to clean my monitor because nobody could do a hover-finger in 2001?
Well that's bizarre. I'm 41, I don't recall the first time I used a touchscreen, but first smartphone was probably like 2010 and I've adapted just fine. Seems to me that touch is probably the...
Well that's bizarre. I'm 41, I don't recall the first time I used a touchscreen, but first smartphone was probably like 2010 and I've adapted just fine. Seems to me that touch is probably the easiest interface anyone could possibly use and the only people who really have trouble with it, already had issues with interfaces anyway (my Boomer parents.)
I agree that most kids will probably be fine if they don’t learn about touchscreens until later, like we did. But I don’t agree that touchscreen interfaces are simple. There are a lot of ways to...
I agree that most kids will probably be fine if they don’t learn about touchscreens until later, like we did.
But I don’t agree that touchscreen interfaces are simple. There are a lot of ways to do things accidentally. For example, my mother has trouble taking photos with a phone because she will accidentally long-press instead, taking a short video. Or she hits some other button by mistake, and has no idea what she just did and how to recover. The guestures phones recognize also make mistakes easier.
Touchscreen input is pretty inaccurate. There are a lot of UI tricks to help users avoid mistakes. Also, with experience we learn how to correct our mistakes, often so quickly that we hardly notice.
It is uncanny how "good" one can get at touch screens. As someone that has had to use my nose occasionally in the winter - if your fingers are too cold even the touch screen gloves don't work well...
It is uncanny how "good" one can get at touch screens. As someone that has had to use my nose occasionally in the winter - if your fingers are too cold even the touch screen gloves don't work well - I can hit the right spot with what I consider a strange amount accuracy. Idk if it's the haptic feedback or the experience or what, but I find it somewhat fascinating. My partner is older than me, less of a tech user naturally - but needs to be more of one now due to his disability - and he struggles with figuring out how to do new things on his own. Where I'll just poke around and find a setting
Oh yea I see that happening. Also a ton have those phone-a-parent smartwatches that have way too much functionality for me to be comfortable handing a 2nd grader. We threw a microbit at our kid...
as kids in his school have them
Oh yea I see that happening. Also a ton have those phone-a-parent smartwatches that have way too much functionality for me to be comfortable handing a 2nd grader.
We threw a microbit at our kid and said they can have a smartwatch if they make it themself. They're doing surprisingly well for just entering the 3rd grade.
That was a bit me using "googling" for web searching. MP3 players were ubiquitous. And my memory was hazy and I was overconfident enough to bother checking.
That was a bit me using "googling" for web searching. MP3 players were ubiquitous. And my memory was hazy and I was overconfident enough to bother checking.
You don’t count 8-bit computers (Apple II, Commodore 64) as computers? That was in the 80s. Without any networking besides dialing into bulletin boards, though, they were pretty harmless, used...
You don’t count 8-bit computers (Apple II, Commodore 64) as computers? That was in the 80s.
Without any networking besides dialing into bulletin boards, though, they were pretty harmless, used mostly for games and word processing.
I am kinda referencing the widespread explosion of them. While those were both present, they didn't see nearly the same level of adoption in homes. Computer sales were increasing in the homes on...
I am kinda referencing the widespread explosion of them. While those were both present, they didn't see nearly the same level of adoption in homes. Computer sales were increasing in the homes on the order of 33% per year starting around 1993ish.
For what it's worth, my Gen Z sister said to me the same thing as you a few weeks ago. The clear divide in Gen Z itself. 2004 would put that cohort at a very vulnerable age when COVID hit and when...
For what it's worth, my Gen Z sister said to me the same thing as you a few weeks ago. The clear divide in Gen Z itself. 2004 would put that cohort at a very vulnerable age when COVID hit and when ultra-short form content really took off.
The most telling thing to me in the graphs is the demoralization crosses all age groups. Among the long recession post-2008, prolonged terror of the COVID lockdowns, the diminished opportunities...
The most telling thing to me in the graphs is the demoralization crosses all age groups. Among the long recession post-2008, prolonged terror of the COVID lockdowns, the diminished opportunities for younger people, the rise of global conflict, unaffordable housing, stagnant wages... Is anyone else suspicious of a narrative which blames technology for reduced conscientiousness?
Yes, distractions have become more affordable and ubiquitous. But if you really want people to stop caring, then lock them into a cutthroat job market for bullshit or Torment Nexus work, feed them a diet of terror propaganda, eliminate the political possibilities for positive change, and keep them chained in debt.
I think technology can be at least partially blamed, because technology can be at least partially blamed for the current state of the world - or at least social media can. I agree with the rest...
I think technology can be at least partially blamed, because technology can be at least partially blamed for the current state of the world - or at least social media can. I agree with the rest though, it shouldn't be at all surprising that kids growing up in a largely hopeless society that seems to be actively deteriorating have become demoralized. It was bad enough growing up with at least a glimmer of optimism for the future and having it be completely destroyed over the last decade. I can't imagine how nihilistic and hopeless I'd be if the current state of things is basically all I'd ever known.
This isn't the first time there's been a moral panic over the impact of a new or emerging entertainment technology. Yes, we're immersed in easily accessible distractions. Yes, we're increasingly...
This isn't the first time there's been a moral panic over the impact of a new or emerging entertainment technology.
Yes, we're immersed in easily accessible distractions. Yes, we're increasingly socially atomized. Yes, these things aren't good for anyone, let alone children. But the context is that we have so many conditions which beg for ease and escape. We have fewer outlets that don't require money and social/environmental resources.
If you're looking for causal attribution of a distinct negative trend in "personality" indices, you could just as easily blame PFOAs, microplastics, particulate pollution, and long COVID among other environmental stressors that have been increasing concurrently with the period of smartphone and social media use. Much like the co-occurance of peak tetraethyllead use and television viewing.
Putting on my statistical hat, I'm going to largely call bullshit. (I don't do social science, so take my biases into consideration.) The referenced study specifically measures changes in...
Exemplary
Putting on my statistical hat, I'm going to largely call bullshit. (I don't do social science, so take my biases into consideration.)
The referenced study specifically measures changes in personality trait scores immediately during and following the pandemic, so, 2020-2022. This is a time when a lot of people were experiencing great turmoil, so primarily what I read here is that what's novel is a global pandemic was associated with a measurable change in personality as measured via testing, something deemed highly unlikely previously. Specifically, neuroticism declined in 2020, whereas the other four traits declined "significantly" in 2021-2022.
However. The authors note that the magnitude of change (effect size) was a tenth of a standard deviation. That's really, really small. And while that might be new compared to previous research, I'm not convinced that such a change is actually meaningful. One trick they don't teach you in stats class is that there are two components to inferences - statistical significance, and biological relevance. With frequentist testing, you can game the system and get a "significant" result just by having a lot of samples. Literally. Test 100k people and it doesn't matter what the difference between groups is - your p-value will be vanishingly small! Amazing! However, "meaning" is at least equally important, and if the difference between groups is a tenth of a standard deviation, I would call that not meaningful. (Typically, you decide a priori what a meaningful effect size actual is, but unfortunately, a lot of scientists don't care - gotta get that significant p value above all.)
Are you referring the the PLOS study? The article refers to that to say that, back in 2022, there were warning signs. The conclusions of the article and the graphs refer to a longitudinal survey...
Are you referring the the PLOS study? The article refers to that to say that, back in 2022, there were warning signs. The conclusions of the article and the graphs refer to a longitudinal survey from USC.
Yes, because I can't access any main study details from USC, and without published numbers, just graphs (with no error bars...), I don't think you can take what is essentially a blog post and some...
Yes, because I can't access any main study details from USC, and without published numbers, just graphs (with no error bars...), I don't think you can take what is essentially a blog post and some contextless graphs as evidence.
The "landmark" longitudinal PLoS study that is cited in the post says in its abstract that the effect may be temporary and "suggests...events can slightly bend the trajectory of personality." That is academic speak for "this could be bullshit.". This is not something to take at face value. If there is a new publication, I would evaluate it, but at this point I am very skeptical.
In the body of the PLOS study, they note that "that personality changes, on average, about one-tenth of a standard deviation per decade of adulthood". If it's observed that an entire population...
In the body of the PLOS study, they note that "that personality changes, on average, about one-tenth of a standard deviation per decade of adulthood". If it's observed that an entire population experienced a personality change equivalent to a decade of individual personality development, that's arguably pretty significant. To determine whether a statistically significant result is conceptually significant requires some familiarity with the subject itself, which differs between biology and population-level social psychology.
And that's not what I think it's saying. It appears to say, mathematically, that the effect size per decade - the amount of change measured via tests - was a tenth of a standard deviation, meaning...
And that's not what I think it's saying. It appears to say, mathematically, that the effect size per decade - the amount of change measured via tests - was a tenth of a standard deviation, meaning a tenth of normal observed variation within a population of adults. Per decade. It's not that it's a decade worth of change, is that's the level of change is only a tenth of what is normally expected between individuals. In other words, the variation between individuals is greater than what's within them, making it very hard to say that any definitive change has occurred at all.
To me, this is not a difference in understanding across disciplines, it's interpreting statistics-speak.
"Next generation is doing X WRONG" is such a hard topic to discuss.
On the one hand, there's quotes from ancient civilizations arguing as such. On the other, I really do think that the spread of the internet, and by extension, EXTREMELY targeted marketing to children I feel must be having an affect.
I'm hesitant to comment on personal anecdotes or the data presented, but just from a simple first glance I find it impossible to believe that entire industries popping up around manipulating the younger generations bodes well. Influencers like today didn't exist until this millennium to my knowledge. Convincing a bunch of kid, across the world, that you could do no wrong wasn't profitable enough. I think that's changed a ton.
IMO it’s not targeted ads or algorithms or whatever. At least not directly. There was also some segment of the population who were going to have social anxiety and poor social skills due to their upbringing or just how they are.
Before, it wasn’t feasible to just be in your room all day. Without TV, without phones and computers and video games and the internet it would be unbearably dull to do so. Not to mention that few people were wealthy enough to do so anyway back then. Children worked for most of human history. So people braved the thoughts inside their head and were forced to interact with people, for entertainment and sustenance.
Personal technology allows people to fall into a local optima - a place where it’s too scary to interact with people, and your phone gives you enough pleasure and your discord groups gives the social animal part of your brain enough of a tickle to keep you sane. But it’s a worse spot than if you have a more active social circle (which is highly correlative with good health - as much as frequent exercise is)
I think it’s more general than just being an issue confined to shut-ins, although that’s certainly a visible aspect. I think @Eji1700 is correct to point at influencers.
Related anecdote time:
I spend a lot of time in the Canadian Rockies. In the last 5 years I would guess there has been a ~5x increase in the number of deaths of young climbers and hikers. There are a lot of “free solo” YouTubers these days attempting routes where most people are roping in without any ropes. This was kicked off by professionals but these days you can find a bunch of twenty somethings with very little alpine experience partaking in the trend and unsurprisingly there’s an increase in deaths. See https://willgadd.com/scrambling-and-soloing-to-death/
It’s not exactly related to conscientiousness but it’s a similar effect where we have some content creators trying to maximize their content for publicity and then that becomes part of the building blocks for the next generation’s culture. Luckily there’s plenty of good content out there too, I just don’t know if it gets the same kind of view count.
But to be fair, probably a certain number of ancient peoples also couldn't deal with being pushed outside of entertainment/sustenance and just...died, too.
Some in voluntary seclusion with little.
Or if they had access to power, arrange their lives such that they have women and children provide them with entertainment/sustenance. It's very new in history that most non-poverty class young men have to find their own mates, and that their mates can't run away from being forced to entertain/support a non-contributing spouse.
I hate it when people bring up that “the youth now love luxury. . .” quote (usually attributed to Sophocles but actually kind of a paraphrase of various writers from around the same time). Largely because that generation of writers it’s attributed to WERE RIGHT. The youths they were talking about would go on to destroy Athenian power on an ill-advised glory-whoring military campaign, fall under the sway of a bunch of deranged demagogues like Kleon and Alcibiades, and then eventually sell the city state out to the Persians, thus ending Athenian democracy.
Yeah people have always complained about young people, but also society being gripped by certain specific derangements stemming from entitlement, greed, and status anxiety are things that have happened cyclically throughout history and things get very bad when it does. Younger generations should be inculcated into certain civic virtues to ensure the social contract remains strong and if they are not you end up with this rapidly degrading husk of a civilization we find ourselves in.
To be clear not the quote I was actually thinking of, although I am aware of it. Was more intending the Plato quote about how writing is going to ruin everyone's ability to reason because they won't have to memorize things.
I’ve started to come around on this one too TBH. Less with writing, largely because I’ve known how to write for so long I don’t actually know how people think without it. But I do regularly interact with accounting and finance people who are so excel/calculator dependent they can no longer do basic arithmetic in their heads. Trying to work through a problem that involves doing math (as one does when trying to work out a project budget) is a huge slog because they can’t keep up at the pace of a conversation. Yeah the aids are helpful, but we can’t actually talk through anything with a math component if your brain is just going to the Sunken Place any time I start adding more than 2 sets of numbers together.
There wouldn’t be more people who could do the math in their heads. There’d be less people able to do the job at all.
I don’t think this is true in the slightest. I’m talking about people with literal degrees in accounting. You think there aren’t people with college degrees who wouldn’t be able to do elementary school level arithmetic if calculators didn’t exist?
I think in general the majority of societal advancement has come about because we've lowered the bar and stood on the shoulders of giants so to speak.
The people who have accounting degrees now but live in excel just would have flunked out in an era before calculators and gone into something else. There's some mild level of offloading skills, but in general I think the raw % of people who can "do X naturally" doesn't much adjust with technological advancement because it's mostly down to if you're going to put in the time and effort to learn it.
A lot of moving society forward is lowering the bar to learn/achieve something, but I don't think that lowers the general skill level of society. Just matches the rather large lack of skills better.
I don’t think they would have because arithmetic isn’t some inherent ability it’s just a matter of practice. They’re out of practice so their brains don’t work anymore. If they did practice they’d be fine.
That's my point. Most people don't practice. If you give them an easy way to do it, they'd do it. If you don't, they won't. Removing the assistance just means fewer people do it. Those who do practice practice other things
It’s literally their job. I have no idea what you’re trying to say here. That a professional accountant shouldn’t put a bit of effort into keeping their accounting relevant skills, such as basic mental arithmetic, sharp?
My point is that doing their literal job no longer requires those skills, so more people can do that job.
If you rip away the tools that are allowing those people to do that job they’re not magically going to become more diligent. They’re going to fail out and do something else (best case).
A lot of societal advancement has been making tools so that the less skilled can be more productive because you lowered the barrier to entry.
So yeah, there’s lots of accountants who are bad at math and barely able to use excel and that’s still “good enough”. Those people would not be any better at mental math if they didn’t have those tools
No I’m sorry but this is complete nonsense. I am talking about the rudiments of very basic numeracy here, simple addition and subtraction. Anyone without a learning disability can do this. It’s not some esoteric skill or knowledge gap, it is pure atrophy of core competencies due to overreliance on a crutch and it has made them objectively worse at their job. It’s not adding to the pool it’s just making everyone in it perform worse.
They absolutely would be better at mental math if they did it at all because it’s a skill developed through practice. It is absolutely not “good enough” because I already demonstrated that they are causing inefficiencies in being able to budget and strategize by not being quick enough to keep up in a meeting.
You seem to be ignoring what I'm saying.
You are claiming these people are bad at math.
I agree
You are claiming that if they did not have these tools they would bet better at math
I disagree.
By your very own point these are EXTREMELY simple skills, and yet they have not bothered to learn them. By what evidence do you think that had these tools not existed that they'd suddenly be MORE willing to practice and learn, rather than find a different path of least resistance.
And yet they have those jobs. Again you're taking the view that "everyone would be better at their job if only....", and i'm saying the same people who are not very good now would be just as bad, and unhireable in that position because there is no crutch.
There's quite a lot of evidence to support this across most industries. New skills start as very difficult things that demand higher pay and attract the few who can do them. New tools are made until the masses can now handle this skill due to a lower barrier to entry. The masses do not, traditionally, suddenly get smarter (or dumber) because of something that helps them do something. Sliderules do not make you better at math. They self select for the people who were already good at math because mistakes are more punishing.
Most of modern society has not been built on making everyone smarter. It has been built on making everything easier.
I don't think this is going to be a productive conversation
I don't know, guys. Twenty years ago, the "attitude determines altitude" said it was personality. Then ten years later, folks resold it to me as "Grit". Seven Habits was 1989, and they are:
The first and sixth already favour extroverted people. Three to five require mental bandwidth that folks with mental health or traumatic pasts might have challenges with. The seventh of which is most in resemblance to grit and conscientiousness etc, and is infamous for being difficult if one has ADHD.
As an older adult now who came to understand I'm neurodiverce, with early childhood adversities, and seeing the mid life falling apart of many adult friends who seemingly had their earlier adult lives in order, full of grit and conscientiousness, I'm really suspicious of all this not simply being survivor bias on steroids. Successful people beget successful people, who live into older ages being successful.
Folks with easier genetics and healthier environment grow up more successfully than those without.
That's not at all doomerism that nobody else can beat the odds. I'm just saying that this type of survey is usually used by those in power to dismiss challenges as "merely not trying enough", and prescribe poverty and challenges as willful moral failings.
As a counterpoint, first and second-generation immigrants show unusually high levels of grit and conscientiousness, and they often outperform native-born Americans despite starting off poorer and in more challenging environments. The difficulty of the immigration process naturally selects for gritty people.
I think of all the Chinese restaurants I've been to where the parents work 10+ hour shifts while their children sit at a corner table dutifully doing their homework. Their children most often will break out of the working class into the middle or upper-middle classes.
I think that kind of attitude requires optimistic self-delusion. In habitually poor communities, there's often a self-defeating, nihilistic attitude that "we've been poor and we'll always be poor so there's no point in trying" which can be reinforced by well-meaning narratives that "it's not your fault, it's the system keeping you down". Which may be partially true, but I think it also feeds self-defeating attitudes and can prevent people from attaining aspirational attitudes.
In my own personal life, I went to an affluent public school in a mixed-but-generally-affluent town. Our Black student body was divided into two cohorts: those who had educated, professional parents, and those whose parents moved from the inner city to our town on Section 8 vouchers. The former cohort did well, went on to study at tier 1 schools: state flagships, Ivy League, prestigious privates, or elite HBCUs like Morehouse. But then the latter cohort did really badly—one had a teen pregnancy, I know another is in prison for attempting to murder his girlfriend after high school—because their attitude, was "the system is out to keep us down no matter" so they often rebelled, skipping classes and resisting the school's interventions. I remember, come senior year, the school counselor essentially wrote them off as lost causes and let them skip classes and hang out in the hallways. This is despite having access to the same educational resources as the former cohort. Interestingly, there was little/no social mixing between the two cohorts.
Those experiences made me realize that people have these internal narratives about their lives and where they're meant to go. And the ones who can convince themselves most strongly of their own narratives eventually make it.
I think it's likely there were more complex reasons that "that cohort did poorly because of their attitude.". And there's no world in which they had the same educational resources, they had some of the same resources, but definitely not all. Money and parents with that life experience navigating those systems make a huge difference.
And all of that is definitely incredibly demoralizing. But when even the adults whose job it is to help give up, they were certainly proven right that the system didn't care anymore.
ETA: I work with college students of all backgrounds now but those who are struggling in particular and I've worked with young adults on parole. In both cases they make choices and need to be responsible for those, but it's not with the same resources and the race track they're running on has many more obstacles on it.
They definitely had access to the same resources. The school overflowed with resources and caring adults. This is one of the very well-funded progressive school districts where everyone (once) got an iPad and every school computer was a brand new Mac. Good class sizes. Well-maintained facilities. Well-paid and highly-motivated teachers and staff.
Famous authors would come give talks. Obama made a stop once. The late Howard Zinn visited twice, at the invitation of one very liberal teacher who was a particularly big fan. Guidance counselors, specialists, and therapists galore. I got to see a school therapist every other week. Classes at level ranging from remedial to normal to honors to every AP class to beyond-AP (multivariable calculus, linear algebra) to individual studies for outlier children. Technical classes were available for the more vocationally minded: we had a full woodshop and makerspace with 3d printers, heat presses, etc. A team for every kind of sport, even golf.
Whatever you wanted to do, there was an adult ready to help realize it. Teachers happily sponsored all kinds of student clubs: GSA, philosophy club, cooking club (once a month after school we'd cook a group dinner to share between the kids, it was a ton of fun), and so on. Too smart and testing out of everything and interested in an academic subject that wasn't offered? Do an individual study plan with a teacher. My family moved to the town just for the school district.
The adults cared for years until they thought it was futile. You can throw all the resources you want at students but so long as they don't care or see the point then they won't utilize them.
As I said, they had some of the same resources. But quite clearly those resources weren't all that was needed by everyone. You pointed out family environment differences, wealth differences, parental educational differences and then laid it at the feet of "attitude." We've seen numerous articles about how teacher expectations can indirectly or directly bias students' outcomes.
As just a single example, Can you stay late for cooking club if you have to watch your siblings? Do you feel comfortable there if you've never used some of the equipment, it's not something anyone has in your neighborhood? If the food being served isn't what you eat? Can you buy these foods on WIC as a teen mom? If you come home later, is your neighborhood less safe than getting home right after school? If you feel excluded by lack of shared social experiences do you want to hang out even? Because these folks don't feel like your peers since they don't "mix"? Probably they make fun of you for being poor? And are the spaces truly welcoming or is some of that implicit bias leading teachers to discourage certain students from attending? Those are a lot of possible hurdles to get over.
The specifics aren't the point, the generalizing poor black students as hopeless is. In my eyes, if the vast majority of poor black students are failing - the system is failing them maybe long before school. Your anecdote is basically demonstrating that generational wealth is key to success, for example.
Another consideration I hear frequently is that racism and sexism are often invisible to people who don't experience them directly. A good friend of mine (who is Black) was told, in my hoity toity high school full of high-achieving students (who were primarily white), that she didn't "need" to take a language class because it would be too hard. She didn't want to push back because she was trying to respect the counselor, and so she ended up not actually getting that opportunity because the adult in charge assumed for her that she wasn't capable. She first told me this when we were 38. I had no idea until then! A lot of these assumptions and actions are made behind the scenes, and can feel incredibly humiliating to the people who experience them. There is far, far more going on here than just "attitude", and subtle signs of welcoming and belonging (microaggressions!) make very clear to children when they are not wanted. Why remain in a space where people don't respect you and treat you like you don't belong?
And many of us, when we're not the ones experiencing the more invisible discrimination will try to come up with a reason why the thing wasn't actually racist or sexist. "Well I'm sure that's not what they meant", "What if you're just misinterpreting it", "I know she's not a bad person, so she can't be racist." Etc.
It's a bad habit and one to try to correct.
But there was just a study posted here that compared test scores with math class placement focusing on race, and the justifications teachers made even after being confronted with the disparities they themselves were creating by discouraging black students from higher placed classes were born out of low expectations and nominally trying to "protect" students from discrimination.
And just to counter the anecdote with my own, I went to private Catholic high school (and K-8 and college) which was predominantly white. Teen pregnancy happened and the student dropped out (which is btw not a failure of attitude, it's a failure to provide sufficient sex ed, and actual support for pregnant and parenting teens, but society focuses on the "failure" of the girls in question.), my younger sister's classmate killed his wife a few years ago in divorce/custody dispute, in jr high my class was split into essentially an "honors" and a "basic" class and the kids in the "basic" class caught the insult, while the teachers lied about the reason for the class.
And yeah some people give up. But I'd guess attitude is more effect than cause there.
I knew a lot of kids who had absolutely everything money could have bought them. But most of them were short on parental love and time. They had a lot of challenges I never did. I don't assume bad things about their attitudes, only that in their place I probably would do worse than them. A lot of the times, we don't choose our own internal narratives, the outside circumstances and our mental processes do.
This is not unusual in any way. "Snobby rich kids" and "poor kids getting what they don't deserve" rarely do.
I do think you're generally correct though. The only caveat being that educated, professional parents tend to have more free time and motivation to take a genuine interest in their kid's education, instead of being burnt out and having no energy to do more than collapse on the sofa after a 13 hour shift.
That may be true, but working-class Asian parents are also working extremely long hours — the ones running or working grueling shifts at restaurants, laundromats, donut shops, nail salons—and their children are able to go toe-to-toe academically with middle-class white children. Their children often grow up with the narrative of, "my parents worked extremely hard and sacrificed so much to give me opportunities."
While I accept there are systematic factors, I think our culture veers too much into nihilism and throwing our hands up in the air and saying it's all the system's fault. I believe that too much of that narrative disempowers us and robs us of our sense of agency, and then we lose sight of the tremendous power that attitude and human willpower hold.
I've been observing a lot of that talk among young Gen Z folks who doomscroll a lot of narratives on Tiktok telling them that they're all screwed no matter because of unstoppable climate change, Trump, systematic racism, the billionaires, private equity, Zuckerberg, big tech, China, or this or that. There isn't a sufficiently healthy counterweight of "you can overcome it" narratives.
I feel like this is trending a bit into East Asian immigrant stereotypes. I know they get trotted out frequently in "model minority" examples, as well as in affirmative action criticisms, but I personally know zero Asian families that were like this with their kids growing up.
Meanwhile, my white immigrant grandparents generally worked themselves to the bone to send their kids to college, and had some Old Country ideas about hard work that would get you the belt if you slacked off (especially if you were a daughter). I think it's more the unflinching parental rules and expectations that leads to exceptionalism for some immigrant children, rather than any specific outsider "cultural" values.
Professional parents also tend to know people who can get their kids placed in a job or internship that goes along with their goals. Not to mention those kids learn the social niceties of that set and will do better in interviews as a result.
I agree with you completely and want to add that on top of the painting of this as a moral failing, the undertone to these types of 'kids these days' discussions is that they are somehow permanently broken. It's disrespectful and infuriating, unwarranted superiority complexes dressed up as pity.
No, the kids aren't broken and weaker than you were as a kid. Give them a chance to stabilize and live without constant stress and falling living standards, and these markers will rebound.
This sounds awful, but I just don't believe the graphs. This is incredibly anecdotal, but it doesn't track at all with my everyday life. I live in a town that has a pretty even breakdown from age 15-85, so we skew old, but it gives me a pretty good distribution of interacting with everyone from 10 year olds to 90 year olds. I play volleyball with folks ~18-40, I swim with the 25-65 crowd, and I engage in municipal politics with the 60-90+ crowd.
While I do think younger folks can be a little less empathetic (enter Homers dad's gif here), the real problem in our town in the entitled, offensive, narcissistic older folks. Honestly, GenX doesn't do much better than their predecessors. This sticks of the usual kicking down that the media likes to do to the generation in their 20s/30s.
I think Covid knocked the benevolence from many of us, but this feels like self reported data. Has anyone read the actual studies and seen what their methodologies were?
As an older Gen Z, the graphs in the article completely track from what I've seen. There was a dramatic, step-size change in the psychology of kids some years younger than me that could not be explained by them just being younger. In particular, I would say being born before or after 2004 was a huge turning point.
Edit: the data comes from a large and robust survey conducted by USC.
As an elder millenial, I've noticed this split for both Gen Z and Millennials. Us elder millenials have more in common with X by a huge jump the same way you see with Z. I have some ancedata within ny own family that also confirms this with many conversations with siblings. There is an 8 year gap between me and my youngest sibling. My young X cohorts have noticed it too. The Millenial dividing line is somewhere around 1990.
I posit it is caused by the availability and nature of technology available at home around prepubescence, 8-12. The extremity is roughly tied to wealth as well, as wealthier kids have more access earlier. So it's not a hard line, but a fuzzy one centering around critical mass. Some arbitrary markers to highlight. 4 years is a nice gap it seems.
1988 (the last of X turns 8): The NES is the highest tech hitting homes. Sony Walkman portanle cassette player is everywhere, the hottest portable music around.
1992 (I turn 8): Computers just start entering homes. DOS is most popular OS.
1996 (sibling): Internet at home, Windows 95. Cellphone use getting close to ubiquitous. Discman/walkman is on the scene, MP3 players on the horizon.
2000: Broadband becoming more available/affordable. Windows 98. Most of the Internet Oligarchs are nestling into place. Napster has come and gone, ipods are everywhere.
2004: Windows XP. PC computing is relatively painless and ubiquitous. Firefox tearing holes in IE marketshare.
2008: Windows 7. The introduction of smartphones. Google Chrome.
2012: Smartphones everywhere. Tablets rising.
2016: Windows 10. Tablets everywhere.
Sorry, running out of time so those last few were hacky and incomplete. But the point is that the tech is accellerating, getting easier, being targetted to children more, and is much more exploititive.
Looking back at those turning points we noticed, the 1990 crowd turned 8 when computers started to mostly work. The 2004 crowd turned 8 when smartphones were everywhere and tablet use exploding.
And while there have been many arguements about how this actually influences tech savviness, there are a few undeniable facts:
While I think @stu2b50 has a good point about enabling introversion, I think it ignores the intentional manipulation that is encourages the isolation and addiction over socialization. You ever try to forcibly intervene between an addict and their vice? Generally not pretty. Addiction does nasty things to people.
My final piece of ancedata comes in the form of my eldest child and their peers: People constantly tell me how well-behaved, intelligent, kind, and creative my kids are. Best I can tell, there is only one major difference: I don't give my kids free range of a phone, tablet, TV, or game console the way most of my parent peers do. Thus my children are exceptionally good at being bored, and that gives them the superpowers of being patient and thinking about stuff without a dopamine generator.
Right now, as I edit and spellcheck this post while I poop, my two children at 8 and 4, are playing in the yard without a fence, next to a fairly high-traffic road. They have access to all manner of sharp tools. The highest tech thing in their vicinity is a garden hose. I have no idea what they are doing, and I am not worried. This is more a comment on trying to kill helicopter parenting, but I feel they are somewhat related.
Tagging sibling commentors: @gary @ButteredToast.
My kids always had access to tech, but it wasn't unlimited and not without robust guardrails. But we also prioritized family outings and IRL activities over anything technology related.
But it's not all on parents, though a big portion of it is. Society has deemed it unacceptable to let kids take risks (or to let parents let kids take risks). While I don't think this opinion essay picks the ideal case to argue, it gets to the point.
They Let Their Children Cross the Street, and Now They’re Felons
But since we are all pulling out the anecdata cards, personally I've noticed that those who have pulled back from society to any significant degree, such as hiding in niche digital spaces, etc, have all regressed socially regardless of age. I know Gen X and boomers and young people all become less able to interact, more rude and uncaring, largely to whatever extent they retreated. And COVID made a lot of people retreat (as well as politics)
Social skills are a mental skill, as much like a muscle as any other mental skill. And letting it atrophy, for whatever reason, whether it is avoidance of people you disagree with to simple discomfort, just makes it worse and more difficult and uncomfortable to engage socially.
That's my observation anyway.
Hoo boy, I say this all the time. Social skills are just that, skills and need to be honed.
I used to think of myself as socially awkward (I mean, I still think I am), but I started dating and later married an extrovert who loves to be around people and loved to go to big parties constantly. The longer I spent with them and the further I got into my career, I realized socializing was easier, I didn't have to think about it so much and it didn't bother me like it used to. That's when it all clicked into place for me that it wasn't that I was a just a certain way and that was that, it was that I hadn't sharpened my skills outside of my immediate friend group.
We definitely see this in some of the Zoomers in our family. Good kids, but they retreat rapidly into themselves and avoid social situations; it's easy to see a lot of the same behaviors in them as I saw in myself. That said they're only in their early-mid 20s and I was well into my 30s before I realized the change, so we'll see.
Age of tech exposure probably does have some bearing on it all. I fall a bit before that 1990 line, but my childhood has facets in common with that of someone raised in the 80s.
Lived in a somewhat rural area. Didn’t have a computer of any kind around until 96, I didn’t have a computer I could call my own until 2000 (which was the 96 machine as a hand me down), and I never had a game console. Didn’t have cable until about 2000. The family computer was usually occupied by my mom and so there was a lot of times where the most entertaining things around were a tiny handful of OTA TV channels and a bunch of VHS tapes that’d been watched many times already. Boredom was no stranger.
The most common antidotes were getting lost in imaginary worlds with siblings, sitting quietly doodling, goofing around in the yard, or maybe reading a book. Sometimes I’d just lie on my bed and ponder some random thing that’d been on my mind.
And yeah, even after getting a computer it wasn’t exactly a full time mindless entertainment box. Just using a computer was a skill set and browsing the internet was an activity that took considerable time and effort, with how poor search engines were. Early on the things I spent the most time on when using the computer was going down desktop customization rabbit holes, including making themes, desktop pictures, etc myself and just generally figuring out what the upper bounds for possibilities were for this magical new machine.
I have similar experiences with my kids, roughly the same age. I've banned YouTube for them, with the exception of about 15 minutes worth of shorts in evening, but only with myself or Mom, so we can monitor what's being watched.
No tablets or smart phones, both my kids need to use a full PC to play games or watch TV and they in usually get about 2 hours worth of games or TV before dinner and after that, it's playtime. Otherwise, they have run off the neighborhood, which isn't too much, given they just go to the next street over to play with other kids in the hood.
I can see how easy it is to fall into just giving them a phone or tablet and I've seen it happen with other kids in my family, but I'm just so vehemently opposed to it, I'll tolerate the meltdowns and frustrations, even if it's maddening. We rarely go out to eat, but when we do, it's up to them to be calm and entertain themselves and we realize that we have maybe a maximum of 1 hour before the kids can't take anymore and need to leave. Sure we could give them a screen so we could sit there a little longer, but being a parent is about making sacrifices so your kids can learn and I guess that's just part of it for us.
But my oldest has started to ask about a phone, as kids in his school have them (they're only just starting 2nd grade, which is nuts), I told him he could have one when he's 13, but even that might be too early, I feel. But I guess it'll be up to me to educate him about things he encounters and put some boundaries on that phone use.
Keep up the fight! I know it can't be easy, but when they're grown up I strongly suspect your children will appreciate your firm guidance on technology usage and appreciation for meatspace. I wish my parents had been so thoughtful!
I certainly hope so. My niece and nephew are now teens and have devices at this point, but they're very good kids and would generally rather interact with the rest of the family than look at their own devices.
I try to maintain healthy boundaries, but again, we'll see. It's especially tough given I've been a Gamer for most of my 41 years, so they see me on screens a decent amount, but usually I'm playing a game rather than consuming mindlessly.
But we'll see, they certainly stress me out, but I'm hoping I'm raising good adults.
Honestly, intentional computer usage that requires deep thought like a decent video game is... very far from modern smartphone and tablet consumption. When I was a kid, I used to spend hours practicing and improving my skills and understanding of the small number of video games I had physical copies of.
Mindlessly consuming short-form video for hours could not be more different! I think if you can encourage thoughtful computer use while discouraging the 'empty calories' of mindless scrolling, you've won well over half the battle. Fortunately, these platforms are becoming less and less p2p social over time, so the social pressure is actually lessening to use them, unlike the pressure in the heyday of Instagram and Facebook. You can avoid TikTok entirely and only miss out on dumb trends and memes, whereas avoiding Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat in 2015 essentially made you a hermit in my age bracket because that's where everyone hung out and planned events.
I'm not sure that pressure is totally gone yet.. My niece and nephew are definitely on Tiktok, it just seems they have a healthier relationship with it. I'm hoping as mine get older, they'll continue to play videogames with each other and I'll join in from time to time as well.
I am hoping they learn some computer skills too.. They've at least got launching Steam down and my almost 8 year old is just beginning to understand Alt-tab to go back to steam and force shut down games if he's having a problem. I figure touch interfaces are pretty natural, so they can learn that later and hopefully develop skills with PC interfaces now.
I’ve seen suggestions that a parent restricting touch screen access in the early years is somehow damaging or might stunt their adeptness with touch UIs relative to unrestricted peers, but I disagree and align with your thoughts here. As a 30-something who didn’t even have a cell phone period until college I don’t think I’m appreciably worse with touch UIs than a 14 year old raised on an iPad is.
More ancedata for the pile: My 4 year old can use a mouse like it's their god-damn job. And figuring out what the keys do without knowing how to read. All because they get to play some PBS games on the PC while sibling codes.
This is the most insane thing I've ever heard. Humans want to touch the flashing light. You know how many times I had to clean my monitor because nobody could do a hover-finger in 2001?
Well that's bizarre. I'm 41, I don't recall the first time I used a touchscreen, but first smartphone was probably like 2010 and I've adapted just fine. Seems to me that touch is probably the easiest interface anyone could possibly use and the only people who really have trouble with it, already had issues with interfaces anyway (my Boomer parents.)
I agree that most kids will probably be fine if they don’t learn about touchscreens until later, like we did.
But I don’t agree that touchscreen interfaces are simple. There are a lot of ways to do things accidentally. For example, my mother has trouble taking photos with a phone because she will accidentally long-press instead, taking a short video. Or she hits some other button by mistake, and has no idea what she just did and how to recover. The guestures phones recognize also make mistakes easier.
Touchscreen input is pretty inaccurate. There are a lot of UI tricks to help users avoid mistakes. Also, with experience we learn how to correct our mistakes, often so quickly that we hardly notice.
It is uncanny how "good" one can get at touch screens. As someone that has had to use my nose occasionally in the winter - if your fingers are too cold even the touch screen gloves don't work well - I can hit the right spot with what I consider a strange amount accuracy. Idk if it's the haptic feedback or the experience or what, but I find it somewhat fascinating. My partner is older than me, less of a tech user naturally - but needs to be more of one now due to his disability - and he struggles with figuring out how to do new things on his own. Where I'll just poke around and find a setting
Oh yea I see that happening. Also a ton have those phone-a-parent smartwatches that have way too much functionality for me to be comfortable handing a 2nd grader.
We threw a microbit at our kid and said they can have a smartwatch if they make it themself. They're doing surprisingly well for just entering the 3rd grade.
Minor nitpick: the iPod wasn't released until the end of 2001, so they certainly weren't everywhere by then or probably even a year or so after that.
That was a bit me using "googling" for web searching. MP3 players were ubiquitous. And my memory was hazy and I was overconfident enough to bother checking.
You don’t count 8-bit computers (Apple II, Commodore 64) as computers? That was in the 80s.
Without any networking besides dialing into bulletin boards, though, they were pretty harmless, used mostly for games and word processing.
I am kinda referencing the widespread explosion of them. While those were both present, they didn't see nearly the same level of adoption in homes. Computer sales were increasing in the homes on the order of 33% per year starting around 1993ish.
For what it's worth, my Gen Z sister said to me the same thing as you a few weeks ago. The clear divide in Gen Z itself. 2004 would put that cohort at a very vulnerable age when COVID hit and when ultra-short form content really took off.
The gaps within generations are seemingly widening over time. There’s even a somewhat visible split between early and late millenials.
The most telling thing to me in the graphs is the demoralization crosses all age groups. Among the long recession post-2008, prolonged terror of the COVID lockdowns, the diminished opportunities for younger people, the rise of global conflict, unaffordable housing, stagnant wages... Is anyone else suspicious of a narrative which blames technology for reduced conscientiousness?
Yes, distractions have become more affordable and ubiquitous. But if you really want people to stop caring, then lock them into a cutthroat job market for bullshit or Torment Nexus work, feed them a diet of terror propaganda, eliminate the political possibilities for positive change, and keep them chained in debt.
I think technology can be at least partially blamed, because technology can be at least partially blamed for the current state of the world - or at least social media can. I agree with the rest though, it shouldn't be at all surprising that kids growing up in a largely hopeless society that seems to be actively deteriorating have become demoralized. It was bad enough growing up with at least a glimmer of optimism for the future and having it be completely destroyed over the last decade. I can't imagine how nihilistic and hopeless I'd be if the current state of things is basically all I'd ever known.
This isn't the first time there's been a moral panic over the impact of a new or emerging entertainment technology.
Yes, we're immersed in easily accessible distractions. Yes, we're increasingly socially atomized. Yes, these things aren't good for anyone, let alone children. But the context is that we have so many conditions which beg for ease and escape. We have fewer outlets that don't require money and social/environmental resources.
If you're looking for causal attribution of a distinct negative trend in "personality" indices, you could just as easily blame PFOAs, microplastics, particulate pollution, and long COVID among other environmental stressors that have been increasing concurrently with the period of smartphone and social media use. Much like the co-occurance of peak tetraethyllead use and television viewing.
Putting on my statistical hat, I'm going to largely call bullshit. (I don't do social science, so take my biases into consideration.)
The referenced study specifically measures changes in personality trait scores immediately during and following the pandemic, so, 2020-2022. This is a time when a lot of people were experiencing great turmoil, so primarily what I read here is that what's novel is a global pandemic was associated with a measurable change in personality as measured via testing, something deemed highly unlikely previously. Specifically, neuroticism declined in 2020, whereas the other four traits declined "significantly" in 2021-2022.
However. The authors note that the magnitude of change (effect size) was a tenth of a standard deviation. That's really, really small. And while that might be new compared to previous research, I'm not convinced that such a change is actually meaningful. One trick they don't teach you in stats class is that there are two components to inferences - statistical significance, and biological relevance. With frequentist testing, you can game the system and get a "significant" result just by having a lot of samples. Literally. Test 100k people and it doesn't matter what the difference between groups is - your p-value will be vanishingly small! Amazing! However, "meaning" is at least equally important, and if the difference between groups is a tenth of a standard deviation, I would call that not meaningful. (Typically, you decide a priori what a meaningful effect size actual is, but unfortunately, a lot of scientists don't care - gotta get that significant p value above all.)
Please carry on.
Are you referring the the PLOS study? The article refers to that to say that, back in 2022, there were warning signs. The conclusions of the article and the graphs refer to a longitudinal survey from USC.
Yes, because I can't access any main study details from USC, and without published numbers, just graphs (with no error bars...), I don't think you can take what is essentially a blog post and some contextless graphs as evidence.
The "landmark" longitudinal PLoS study that is cited in the post says in its abstract that the effect may be temporary and "suggests...events can slightly bend the trajectory of personality." That is academic speak for "this could be bullshit.". This is not something to take at face value. If there is a new publication, I would evaluate it, but at this point I am very skeptical.
In the body of the PLOS study, they note that "that personality changes, on average, about one-tenth of a standard deviation per decade of adulthood". If it's observed that an entire population experienced a personality change equivalent to a decade of individual personality development, that's arguably pretty significant. To determine whether a statistically significant result is conceptually significant requires some familiarity with the subject itself, which differs between biology and population-level social psychology.
And that's not what I think it's saying. It appears to say, mathematically, that the effect size per decade - the amount of change measured via tests - was a tenth of a standard deviation, meaning a tenth of normal observed variation within a population of adults. Per decade. It's not that it's a decade worth of change, is that's the level of change is only a tenth of what is normally expected between individuals. In other words, the variation between individuals is greater than what's within them, making it very hard to say that any definitive change has occurred at all.
To me, this is not a difference in understanding across disciplines, it's interpreting statistics-speak.
Archive link.
Imgur link to see the graphs.