While I do think that getting out of the house and getting away from the screen is important, I think it's also important that we put this data into perspective a bit. Prior to smart phones,...
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While I do think that getting out of the house and getting away from the screen is important, I think it's also important that we put this data into perspective a bit.
Prior to smart phones, people were still spending many hours doing a lot of the same stuff they're doing on their phones now. They may have actually spent far more time if you consider the hurdles one had to jump for things that we consider quick and easy tasks.
People bought supplies, wrote and read physical letters, and took the time to actually go mail them. We just send a quick text.
People still spent hours reading newspapers and books, but they also had the added time and energy required to get the physical copies into their homes.
People watched performances and plays, listened to the radio, and watched movies. Again, this often involved time and energy spent going to the actual event.
I have to imagine that if you one were to break down phone time into categories, they would see that we are probably spending a similar number of hours doing similar activities. We may even be spending less time doing them depending on how you look at it. As I said, the real issue with with phones is the lack of face-to-face interaction and time spent out of the house.
I generally agree, although there is the caveat that social media is designed to be addictive and maximize time spent on platform. But to determine that would be a very different study than just...
I generally agree, although there is the caveat that social media is designed to be addictive and maximize time spent on platform. But to determine that would be a very different study than just time on phone.
Games, TV, News, etc... Seems like they are all using every form of addiction they can to get people to stay on their apps. It reminds me of all the food at the store which uses sugar, fat and...
Games, TV, News, etc... Seems like they are all using every form of addiction they can to get people to stay on their apps. It reminds me of all the food at the store which uses sugar, fat and salt to get us to overeat/drink and then everyone wonders why heart disease and diabetes are such an issue.
To me they're just as bad as drug dealers. Imagine a spa putting a little fentanyl in the water to get people to visit. Purposely causing customer addiction is messed up in any form.
It would actually be quite sad if we actually spend less time on leisurely activities than we did in the past. All of the 'wasted time' doing things are the same kinds of things that make Vanilla...
It would actually be quite sad if we actually spend less time on leisurely activities than we did in the past.
All of the 'wasted time' doing things are the same kinds of things that make Vanilla Wow a better game than Modern WoW.....the downtime fostered socialization.
We spent a lot more effort, care, and thought writing letters than sending texts.
And kind of the saddest thing: people were already spending 25-30 hours a week watching TV, one of the most socially isolating activities. Now we carry the TVs in our pockets and look at them every couple of minutes on average.
Watching TV doesn't have to be socially isolating. You can watch with other people and comment while you watch. Even if you don't do that, it gives you conversation material for later, especially...
Watching TV doesn't have to be socially isolating. You can watch with other people and comment while you watch. Even if you don't do that, it gives you conversation material for later, especially if you have watched the same program. And this used to be more common in the past: I missed the episode yesterday, please tell me what happened!
It was the sort of thing that you could only do as a bored teenager, but I used to love tuning into tv with my friends while on the phone. You'd have aimless conversations about school, you'd both...
It was the sort of thing that you could only do as a bored teenager, but I used to love tuning into tv with my friends while on the phone. You'd have aimless conversations about school, you'd both pause to comment on what's on, channel surf and if the vibe was good, just hang out on the phone together for hours.
Your parents would tell you to get a job so that you could pay for your own phone line. Little did they know that 56k would be even worse.
You're making me nostalgic for my fraternity days. Instead of being on the phone, we were in the living room of the frat house working on homework (or browsing porn), making fun of whatever was on...
You're making me nostalgic for my fraternity days. Instead of being on the phone, we were in the living room of the frat house working on homework (or browsing porn), making fun of whatever was on TV, be it Doctor Who, porn, someone playing video games, Storage Wars, or the Food Network.
When we were all still students with more free time, my friends and I would do this on Discord. This was before Discord had good video calls with screen-sharing, so we'd join a voice call and...
When we were all still students with more free time, my friends and I would do this on Discord. This was before Discord had good video calls with screen-sharing, so we'd join a voice call and download the same movie from the same place and then sync when we started it or paused for snacks.
I still do this with a few friends who live abroad. With my sister I do it slightly differently, we text when to press play and then continue texting with comments throughout the episode, I love it.
I still do this with a few friends who live abroad. With my sister I do it slightly differently, we text when to press play and then continue texting with comments throughout the episode, I love it.
I installed an app that tells me the time I spent on my phone. It was 4h yesterday. I was shocked, because I only have Instagram and don't really use much. But 1h of this was on my fitness tracker...
I installed an app that tells me the time I spent on my phone. It was 4h yesterday. I was shocked, because I only have Instagram and don't really use much.
But 1h of this was on my fitness tracker which I keep open while I lift weights.
Another hour is on WhatsApp because I talk with my wife, parents and friends every day. Instagram is just 30 minutes of my day.
All of these stats rub me the wrong way because they basically ignore quality in favor of quantity. Granted, because quality of time is dramatically harder to measure. If you assume 2.5 months per...
All of these stats rub me the wrong way because they basically ignore quality in favor of quantity. Granted, because quality of time is dramatically harder to measure. If you assume 2.5 months per year is spent blearily swiping through Facebook/TikTok/etc., yeah that's not great, but most people aren't doing that.
Like Wolf_359 says people are still people, and instead of going to the corner pub or holding a ball they're socializing remotely while doing other things or with a different social group. I'd bet there's a difference between checking a message notification within 10 minutes and most other notifications, but that's probably not as dramatic a graph.
People check their phone within 10 minutes of waking up? It's my alarm clock, and then during the morning routine it's music/news/personal updates. That I'm not waiting to sit down with a Victrola/newspaper/checkbook/journal but doing it while I'm showering and making breakfast frankly seems an inane distinction. The version from a few decades ago might be that the new generation is crazy because they just tune the radio to something in the background instead of siting down to appreciate music.
That the younger generation is more anxious about losing the device that controls access a significant portion of their lives also isn't surprising. If my phone is missing I can't do 2FA for work, which is a huge hassle. It's all the problems of losing your wallet and your journal and your remote secure identification and the fastest way to communicate to fix those problems. If you're retired some of that isn't an issue, and you probably use the device for far less.
Comment box Scope: comment response, opinion Tone: skeptical, questioning Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none What makes you say that? How do you know that "most people" are not spending an...
Comment box
Scope: comment response, opinion
Tone: skeptical, questioning
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
If you assume 2.5 months per year is spent blearily swiping through Facebook/TikTok/etc., yeah that's not great, but most people aren't doing that.
What makes you say that? How do you know that "most people" are not spending an inordinate amount of time "blearily swiping" through socials and otherwise wasting time?
If we are being productive/healthy with our devices, like getting a 2FA code or answering a useful text or booking a flight, then surely, since we are doing an optimized task, we will stop doing that task fairly quickly. Obviously folks with ADHD may spend a little longer getting such a task done, but it does not take 5 hours of physically staring at a screen to get a 2FA code, even if it might take an ADHD person some time throughout the day to get around to following up with the code.
So if the 2.5 months per year holds true, the rest of the time is being filled with something.
I would venture a guess that the overwhelming majority of phone time, for the overwhelming majority of people, is a combination of social media/news and some video games. I would venture another guess that social media/news is the greater portion. You can argue that news is useful, but mostly, beyond a couple important things, I think it is sensational and harmful.
socializing remotely while doing other things or with a different social group
Remote socialization is definitely not a healthy replacement for real-world socialization, especially over text. It is not automatically unhealthy to talk on the phone with someone. But it is just not the same as going to an in-person gathering. Human brains are not optimized for textual communication. A lack of in-person interaction is obviously a cause of depression for many people, and this occurs to an extent never before seen.
When I talk to young people they seem to consistently acknowledge addiction to cell phones and specifically social media. "brain rot" is a joke term but there is some awareness that being tuned in all the time is causing them problems.
I also read some articles about private schools that banned cell phones. The kids were happier. When surveyed, they were clear that they didn't actually like social media that much - they were just on it because there was a social pressure to be on it (and because it was addicting). But if no one was on it, they weren't missing much. They had more real social interaction - and that made them more satisfied with their lives.
All those things are true. I just distrust blanket statements from raw number stats. I spent at least 24 hours of my 4 day Christmas trip to relatives using my phone. 16 hours using GPS to/from...
All those things are true. I just distrust blanket statements from raw number stats.
I spent at least 24 hours of my 4 day Christmas trip to relatives using my phone. 16 hours using GPS to/from their house in another state, ~6 hours of audiobook walking my dog. I think it would be silly to add sleep tracking to that, but that would easily add ~30 hours of 'use'. None of which includes the time I spent scrolling the internet during the football game or any other bad use of my phone.
If you want to track bad eating habits but do so by tracking "time in restaurants", without distinguishing between visiting with friends at a sushi restaurant or someone spending time alone gorging themselves at an all you can eat buffet, it's a bad stat. Regardless that higher is 'probably' worse.
Many of the school boards in Canada are doing this now and frankly, in think it's the best idea. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner given the obvious absence of social development for students...
Many of the school boards in Canada are doing this now and frankly, in think it's the best idea. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner given the obvious absence of social development for students during the lunch hour.
Agreed, but on the subject of socializing online vs in person being a similar value experience, I'd argue that it's not. It's socializing and it's valuable, but there's a whole lot that you lose...
Agreed, but on the subject of socializing online vs in person being a similar value experience, I'd argue that it's not. It's socializing and it's valuable, but there's a whole lot that you lose when you're not in 3D space with others.
So unfortunately Apple has a limit to your screen-time data being 4 weeks, which I seem to average around 25 hours a week and 3-4 hours a day. (A little disappointed in Apple, but also I am happy...
So unfortunately Apple has a limit to your screen-time data being 4 weeks, which I seem to average around 25 hours a week and 3-4 hours a day. (A little disappointed in Apple, but also I am happy they're deleting unnecessary data). This seems like a lot to me especially when most of that time is in firefox, which I use as my social media platform, journalistic reading.... etc. It's all in one in my Iphone. But man is it hard to set boundaries with these things! Especially someone with ADHD, I feel like I always find a way around whatever screen limitation I put in place for myself when I'm even a little motivated. I think this is because it's a lot easier for me to doom-scroll rather than do a chore or go for a walk or whatever other enhancing thing.
A quote from south park comes to mind, although they are talking about weed, it is very relevant to replace it with social media and/or whatever distraction is on your phone:
" Well, Stan, the truth is marijuana [social media] probably isn't gonna make you kill people, and it most likely isn't gonna fund terrorism, but, well son, pot makes you feel fine with being bored, and it's when you're bored that you should be learning some new skill or discovering some new science or being creative. If you smoke pot [doom scroll] you may grow up to find out that you aren't good at anything.”
I have a similar problem where I can choose to surf the web when it would benefit me if I prioritized other things. I am reading theory about how habits work and experimenting with habit switching...
I have a similar problem where I can choose to surf the web when it would benefit me if I prioritized other things.
I am reading theory about how habits work and experimenting with habit switching at times when I typically read the internet.
I previously read and learned from Atomic Habits. Currently I'm taking ideas from The Power of Habit by Duhigg. The theory is that addictions have trigger stimuli that are coded into your brain....
I previously read and learned from Atomic Habits.
Currently I'm taking ideas from The Power of Habit by Duhigg. The theory is that addictions have trigger stimuli that are coded into your brain. If you substitute a healthier habit for the same stimulus, you can break a habit.
Maybe I'm way out of touch, but I have a hard time believing the phone usage is at 5 hours, on average. That's a huge amount of time. Maybe this is being skewed by people, with nothing else to do,...
Maybe I'm way out of touch, but I have a hard time believing the phone usage is at 5 hours, on average. That's a huge amount of time. Maybe this is being skewed by people, with nothing else to do, that use their phone for 16 hours a day.
Comment box Scope: comment response, opinion Tone: neutral, a little concerned Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none I checked my Screen Time on my iPhone and it gave me an average of 2-4 hours per day...
Comment box
Scope: comment response, opinion
Tone: neutral, a little concerned
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
I checked my Screen Time on my iPhone and it gave me an average of 2-4 hours per day over the past month. Some days were as high as 6h. The lowest was about 45m.
And I'm someone who actively tries not to use my phone all the time. I have almost all notifications off, and often I leave my phone in a place I can't see it. And somehow it still occupies this much of my time.
If you include teenagers, I think it's absolutely reasonable to see an average of 5+ hours. Perhaps the data is being skewed by people "that use their phone for 16 hours a day"... and perhaps that number of people is way larger than you or I thought. Either way, I doubt that much screen time is good for anyone.
While I do think that getting out of the house and getting away from the screen is important, I think it's also important that we put this data into perspective a bit.
Prior to smart phones, people were still spending many hours doing a lot of the same stuff they're doing on their phones now. They may have actually spent far more time if you consider the hurdles one had to jump for things that we consider quick and easy tasks.
People bought supplies, wrote and read physical letters, and took the time to actually go mail them. We just send a quick text.
People still spent hours reading newspapers and books, but they also had the added time and energy required to get the physical copies into their homes.
People watched performances and plays, listened to the radio, and watched movies. Again, this often involved time and energy spent going to the actual event.
I have to imagine that if you one were to break down phone time into categories, they would see that we are probably spending a similar number of hours doing similar activities. We may even be spending less time doing them depending on how you look at it. As I said, the real issue with with phones is the lack of face-to-face interaction and time spent out of the house.
I generally agree, although there is the caveat that social media is designed to be addictive and maximize time spent on platform. But to determine that would be a very different study than just time on phone.
Games, TV, News, etc... Seems like they are all using every form of addiction they can to get people to stay on their apps. It reminds me of all the food at the store which uses sugar, fat and salt to get us to overeat/drink and then everyone wonders why heart disease and diabetes are such an issue.
To me they're just as bad as drug dealers. Imagine a spa putting a little fentanyl in the water to get people to visit. Purposely causing customer addiction is messed up in any form.
It would actually be quite sad if we actually spend less time on leisurely activities than we did in the past.
All of the 'wasted time' doing things are the same kinds of things that make Vanilla Wow a better game than Modern WoW.....the downtime fostered socialization.
We spent a lot more effort, care, and thought writing letters than sending texts.
And kind of the saddest thing: people were already spending 25-30 hours a week watching TV, one of the most socially isolating activities. Now we carry the TVs in our pockets and look at them every couple of minutes on average.
Watching TV doesn't have to be socially isolating. You can watch with other people and comment while you watch. Even if you don't do that, it gives you conversation material for later, especially if you have watched the same program. And this used to be more common in the past: I missed the episode yesterday, please tell me what happened!
It was the sort of thing that you could only do as a bored teenager, but I used to love tuning into tv with my friends while on the phone. You'd have aimless conversations about school, you'd both pause to comment on what's on, channel surf and if the vibe was good, just hang out on the phone together for hours.
Your parents would tell you to get a job so that you could pay for your own phone line. Little did they know that 56k would be even worse.
You're making me nostalgic for my fraternity days. Instead of being on the phone, we were in the living room of the frat house working on homework (or browsing porn), making fun of whatever was on TV, be it Doctor Who, porn, someone playing video games, Storage Wars, or the Food Network.
When we were all still students with more free time, my friends and I would do this on Discord. This was before Discord had good video calls with screen-sharing, so we'd join a voice call and download the same movie from the same place and then sync when we started it or paused for snacks.
I still do this with a few friends who live abroad. With my sister I do it slightly differently, we text when to press play and then continue texting with comments throughout the episode, I love it.
Doesn't have to be, but on average is/was.
I installed an app that tells me the time I spent on my phone. It was 4h yesterday. I was shocked, because I only have Instagram and don't really use much.
But 1h of this was on my fitness tracker which I keep open while I lift weights.
Another hour is on WhatsApp because I talk with my wife, parents and friends every day. Instagram is just 30 minutes of my day.
All of these stats rub me the wrong way because they basically ignore quality in favor of quantity. Granted, because quality of time is dramatically harder to measure. If you assume 2.5 months per year is spent blearily swiping through Facebook/TikTok/etc., yeah that's not great, but most people aren't doing that.
Like Wolf_359 says people are still people, and instead of going to the corner pub or holding a ball they're socializing remotely while doing other things or with a different social group. I'd bet there's a difference between checking a message notification within 10 minutes and most other notifications, but that's probably not as dramatic a graph.
People check their phone within 10 minutes of waking up? It's my alarm clock, and then during the morning routine it's music/news/personal updates. That I'm not waiting to sit down with a Victrola/newspaper/checkbook/journal but doing it while I'm showering and making breakfast frankly seems an inane distinction. The version from a few decades ago might be that the new generation is crazy because they just tune the radio to something in the background instead of siting down to appreciate music.
That the younger generation is more anxious about losing the device that controls access a significant portion of their lives also isn't surprising. If my phone is missing I can't do 2FA for work, which is a huge hassle. It's all the problems of losing your wallet and your journal and your remote secure identification and the fastest way to communicate to fix those problems. If you're retired some of that isn't an issue, and you probably use the device for far less.
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What makes you say that? How do you know that "most people" are not spending an inordinate amount of time "blearily swiping" through socials and otherwise wasting time?
If we are being productive/healthy with our devices, like getting a 2FA code or answering a useful text or booking a flight, then surely, since we are doing an optimized task, we will stop doing that task fairly quickly. Obviously folks with ADHD may spend a little longer getting such a task done, but it does not take 5 hours of physically staring at a screen to get a 2FA code, even if it might take an ADHD person some time throughout the day to get around to following up with the code.
So if the 2.5 months per year holds true, the rest of the time is being filled with something.
I would venture a guess that the overwhelming majority of phone time, for the overwhelming majority of people, is a combination of social media/news and some video games. I would venture another guess that social media/news is the greater portion. You can argue that news is useful, but mostly, beyond a couple important things, I think it is sensational and harmful.
Remote socialization is definitely not a healthy replacement for real-world socialization, especially over text. It is not automatically unhealthy to talk on the phone with someone. But it is just not the same as going to an in-person gathering. Human brains are not optimized for textual communication. A lack of in-person interaction is obviously a cause of depression for many people, and this occurs to an extent never before seen.
When I talk to young people they seem to consistently acknowledge addiction to cell phones and specifically social media. "brain rot" is a joke term but there is some awareness that being tuned in all the time is causing them problems.
I also read some articles about private schools that banned cell phones. The kids were happier. When surveyed, they were clear that they didn't actually like social media that much - they were just on it because there was a social pressure to be on it (and because it was addicting). But if no one was on it, they weren't missing much. They had more real social interaction - and that made them more satisfied with their lives.
All those things are true. I just distrust blanket statements from raw number stats.
I spent at least 24 hours of my 4 day Christmas trip to relatives using my phone. 16 hours using GPS to/from their house in another state, ~6 hours of audiobook walking my dog. I think it would be silly to add sleep tracking to that, but that would easily add ~30 hours of 'use'. None of which includes the time I spent scrolling the internet during the football game or any other bad use of my phone.
If you want to track bad eating habits but do so by tracking "time in restaurants", without distinguishing between visiting with friends at a sushi restaurant or someone spending time alone gorging themselves at an all you can eat buffet, it's a bad stat. Regardless that higher is 'probably' worse.
Many of the school boards in Canada are doing this now and frankly, in think it's the best idea. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner given the obvious absence of social development for students during the lunch hour.
Agreed, but on the subject of socializing online vs in person being a similar value experience, I'd argue that it's not. It's socializing and it's valuable, but there's a whole lot that you lose when you're not in 3D space with others.
So unfortunately Apple has a limit to your screen-time data being 4 weeks, which I seem to average around 25 hours a week and 3-4 hours a day. (A little disappointed in Apple, but also I am happy they're deleting unnecessary data). This seems like a lot to me especially when most of that time is in firefox, which I use as my social media platform, journalistic reading.... etc. It's all in one in my Iphone. But man is it hard to set boundaries with these things! Especially someone with ADHD, I feel like I always find a way around whatever screen limitation I put in place for myself when I'm even a little motivated. I think this is because it's a lot easier for me to doom-scroll rather than do a chore or go for a walk or whatever other enhancing thing.
A quote from south park comes to mind, although they are talking about weed, it is very relevant to replace it with social media and/or whatever distraction is on your phone:
I have a similar problem where I can choose to surf the web when it would benefit me if I prioritized other things.
I am reading theory about how habits work and experimenting with habit switching at times when I typically read the internet.
Is it a book you're reading? It sounds like a good habit... to switch habits, lol.
I previously read and learned from Atomic Habits.
Currently I'm taking ideas from The Power of Habit by Duhigg. The theory is that addictions have trigger stimuli that are coded into your brain. If you substitute a healthier habit for the same stimulus, you can break a habit.
Maybe I'm way out of touch, but I have a hard time believing the phone usage is at 5 hours, on average. That's a huge amount of time. Maybe this is being skewed by people, with nothing else to do, that use their phone for 16 hours a day.
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I checked my Screen Time on my iPhone and it gave me an average of 2-4 hours per day over the past month. Some days were as high as 6h. The lowest was about 45m.
And I'm someone who actively tries not to use my phone all the time. I have almost all notifications off, and often I leave my phone in a place I can't see it. And somehow it still occupies this much of my time.
If you include teenagers, I think it's absolutely reasonable to see an average of 5+ hours. Perhaps the data is being skewed by people "that use their phone for 16 hours a day"... and perhaps that number of people is way larger than you or I thought. Either way, I doubt that much screen time is good for anyone.
Or people who surf the web at work.