I hope I'm just a miserable old codger when it comes to how much I worry about kids growing up on hyperspeed social media and what it does to their brains.
God I wanna be wrong about this, please god let me be worrying about nothing here
as somebody in Gen Z: people have been doing stupid shit for as long as people have existed and we have quotes from the older generation complaining about the younger generation and how they are doomed since literally the time of the Romans.
the real enemy is the invention of the camera to capture all this stupid shit
that being said, the internet is definitely a unique phenomenon which does have genuinely negative effects on young people that can't be dismissed, and regulation of some kind or another is absolutely required; the exact way to do that is still kinda up in the air and we should be careful that such regulation isn't just used to further isolate/shame "weird" people who do "weird" things, however that is defined in any particular country.
also, any changes to the internet definitely shouldn't be based on any profit motive but unfortunately they likely will, so incomprehensible horrors await for the next few years and decades
I'm not really worried about individual people doing stuff and filming it to post online. The older I get, the more I realize that a lot of (maybe even most) people's hobbies, interests and fantasies can be just plain weird, but as long as they aren't hurting other people, the environment or themselves I think it's a beautiful thing and worth being shared.
I'm worried about the kids sitting in front of the endless stimulation machine.
tbh, and this may be the old codger talking here, even if we lived in some far flung future where the AI pink sludge machine could churn out endless media with the visual quality of Disney Renaissance films and with the content of the most refined edutainment material out there, I'd still say hey, the kids should be spending most of their time playing with other kids or doing arts and crafts or reading at their own pace.
But we live in a would where there's only the hyper algorithm shitstream and a lot of kids are not spending most of their time playing with other kids or doing arts and crafts or reading at their own pace, because we are in hell.
I was diagnosed with adhd because I like, lose my car in parking lots and dropped out of high-school. Yesterday, a gen Z kid told me his adhd was so bad that sometimes when he checks for oncoming cars he forgets if there was a car or not.
Our brains are not working the same way. I don't think Gen Z understands how slow the internet used to be. Like, back in the bulletin board days, every website was like chapo.chat on a very slow day. There were no upvotes and posts would stay at the top for days or years on end.
YouTube was basically other people's home videos in the early days.
I cannot stress how weird, fast moving, and endless tiktok is and what that's doing to people's brains. Like, most people used to be able to sit down and read books. Now they're a minority.
I wasn't alive 30+ years ago to experience it myself, but it does really feel like you're right. I think I might know more people my age who are barely functional due to mental health issues than not... and from working in a high school a bit recently I don't think gen Z is much better off. Maybe it's self-selecting but I don't know a lot of people who struggle that much to cope from older generations.
I am yeah, and evidently I was wrong, but mostly as an underestimation of how many people read even now, since everything I can find with a quick search indicates most Americans actually still read
I hope I'm just a miserable old codger when it comes to how much I worry about kids growing up on hyperspeed social media and what it does to their brains.
God I wanna be wrong about this, please god let me be worrying about nothing here
as somebody in Gen Z: people have been doing stupid shit for as long as people have existed and we have quotes from the older generation complaining about the younger generation and how they are doomed since literally the time of the Romans.
the real enemy is the invention of the camera to capture all this stupid shit
that being said, the internet is definitely a unique phenomenon which does have genuinely negative effects on young people that can't be dismissed, and regulation of some kind or another is absolutely required; the exact way to do that is still kinda up in the air and we should be careful that such regulation isn't just used to further isolate/shame "weird" people who do "weird" things, however that is defined in any particular country.
also, any changes to the internet definitely shouldn't be based on any profit motive but unfortunately they likely will, so incomprehensible horrors await for the next few years and decades
I'm not really worried about individual people doing stuff and filming it to post online. The older I get, the more I realize that a lot of (maybe even most) people's hobbies, interests and fantasies can be just plain weird, but as long as they aren't hurting other people, the environment or themselves I think it's a beautiful thing and worth being shared.
I'm worried about the kids sitting in front of the endless stimulation machine.
tbh, and this may be the old codger talking here, even if we lived in some far flung future where the AI pink sludge machine could churn out endless media with the visual quality of Disney Renaissance films and with the content of the most refined edutainment material out there, I'd still say hey, the kids should be spending most of their time playing with other kids or doing arts and crafts or reading at their own pace.
But we live in a would where there's only the hyper algorithm shitstream and a lot of kids are not spending most of their time playing with other kids or doing arts and crafts or reading at their own pace, because we are in hell.
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Okay I'm gonna get real old for a second.
I was diagnosed with adhd because I like, lose my car in parking lots and dropped out of high-school. Yesterday, a gen Z kid told me his adhd was so bad that sometimes when he checks for oncoming cars he forgets if there was a car or not.
Our brains are not working the same way. I don't think Gen Z understands how slow the internet used to be. Like, back in the bulletin board days, every website was like chapo.chat on a very slow day. There were no upvotes and posts would stay at the top for days or years on end.
YouTube was basically other people's home videos in the early days.
I cannot stress how weird, fast moving, and endless tiktok is and what that's doing to people's brains. Like, most people used to be able to sit down and read books. Now they're a minority.
It's not just the camera.
I wasn't alive 30+ years ago to experience it myself, but it does really feel like you're right. I think I might know more people my age who are barely functional due to mental health issues than not... and from working in a high school a bit recently I don't think gen Z is much better off. Maybe it's self-selecting but I don't know a lot of people who struggle that much to cope from older generations.
I'd like to see the numbers on this, because I don't get the impression that most people really read books even then
omg you really are young if you don't realize how popular books used to be.
I am yeah, and evidently I was wrong, but mostly as an underestimation of how many people read even now, since everything I can find with a quick search indicates most Americans actually still read
I want to be wrong about so many things at this point. The Cassandra curse is real.
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