There’s no doubting the harmful effects on children due to the loss of independence and unsupervised outdoor play (point #6), as I point out at length in my book “Life Before the Internet”.
But this cannot be separated from smartphones and social media, and here’s why.
Before the arrival of the iPhone in 2007, the internet was just a tool. You had to go and find a computer, sit down in front of it and log on. And when you were done, you left and got on with the rest of your life.
This advent of smartphones completely upended this reality by putting the internet in one’s pocket. We now no longer had to go and find a computer, sit down in front of it and log on. We just had to pull our phone out of our pocket. Suddenly, the internet spilled over into our previous everyday activities and changed our lives forever. The idle time we used to spend playing outside, socializing and reading, soon gave way to social media. And the rest is history.
Outstanding work. Living back and forth between Italy and the USA, I see more young people meaningfully employed in small businesses in Italy than in the USA. Yesterday in a small town in Asiago, walked into two beautiful little shops that had several generations of family working in the shop. I wonder if Corporatism (who heavily fund what we consume on social media) is also not killing purpose and hope for young people? I am not anti-capitalist, or even anti-"corporate" but there is definitely some negative incentives there that we need to address. B Corps are a good start.
As a trog who never got a cell phone it's increasingly apparent to me that they have won the battle. A trip to a big city finds everyone, all classes and ages, holding the phone in their hand as though it had been there since birth. Through it all the most remarkable thing about the way this device has colonized our lives is that it has not seemed remarkable at all. It is generally accepted that the convenience the gizmo offers trumps all the downsides. The only solution I can see is we will run out of the precious metals needed to provide everyone on planet with a phone. At that point having a cell phone will revert to the status object it was in the beginning.
Love your work. Looking at Figure 9, do you have any theories about why the depression rates for 12–25-year-olds keep going up and up? One might expect the social media/smartphone effect to have gotten 'saturated' at some point and the rates flatten out.
I think y’all might find this relevant, some more info on the reality on the ground in my and so many other school districts, how school time has become 100% screen time:
The true cause of these epidemics is a multiannual population-wide dopamine oscillation: dopamine in excess levels causes feelings of 1) depression, 2) loneliness, and 3) self-harm.
An ~80 years long multiannual hormone cycle, aka. the Strauss-Howe generational cycle, is behind all of these epidemics. It's the very same multiannual hormone cycle that drives all of the other cyclical animal populations as well! It's really that simple as the embedded statistics clearly show:
All of the are statistics are mysteries to researchers even after decades of reserach:
A) Low dopamine causes criminal behavior that peaked during early 1990s. No one knows why.
B) Sex hormones modulate fertility that peaked close to 1960 and no one knows why. Sex hormones also modulate the rate of sexual maturation, while a decade later close to 1970 maternal age and breastfeeding (oxytocin levels are inverse to sex hormones) hit nadir. No one knows why.
C) Cortisol is the main cause of type 2 diabetes, and even though obesity is still on the rise, T2D incidence peaked close to 2010 and is still on the decline to this day. No one knows why.
D) Growth hormone modulates height, and while calory intake has increased steadily, generations born after the 1980s are growing shorter. No one knows why.
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PPS. Dopamine also increases the feeling of social dominance, and this is quite obviously the cause for the constantly deepening intra-group polarizations inside (and between) countries, which has been increasingly visible since roughly 2010, and this trend will peak close to 2030. Dopamine in excess also causes fear, hence the xenophobia, and when you combine increasing feelings of xenophobia and social dominance you will especilly get anti-Semitism.
This is the simple reason why the 2010s and 20s have been repetition of what happened 80y ago during the 1930s and 40s regarding pretty much every societal aspect.
Go back 80 years from there and you land at the US Civil War.
Go back 80 years again and you land at the American Revolutionary War.
So, we're essentially living in those times again due to the 80y hormone cycle, where increasing dopamine levels pit in-groups against opposing in-groups: men vs women, left vs right, and the West vs the East in the end.
Hey, do you REALLY want to get to the ROOT of this problem, and throw the proverbial One Ring into the fires of Mordor for good? The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) shows us the way:
There’s no doubting the harmful effects on children due to the loss of independence and unsupervised outdoor play (point #6), as I point out at length in my book “Life Before the Internet”.
But this cannot be separated from smartphones and social media, and here’s why.
Before the arrival of the iPhone in 2007, the internet was just a tool. You had to go and find a computer, sit down in front of it and log on. And when you were done, you left and got on with the rest of your life.
This advent of smartphones completely upended this reality by putting the internet in one’s pocket. We now no longer had to go and find a computer, sit down in front of it and log on. We just had to pull our phone out of our pocket. Suddenly, the internet spilled over into our previous everyday activities and changed our lives forever. The idle time we used to spend playing outside, socializing and reading, soon gave way to social media. And the rest is history.
Brilliant and helpful. Appreciate the “dialogue” between Gray’s work and your own.
Outstanding work. Living back and forth between Italy and the USA, I see more young people meaningfully employed in small businesses in Italy than in the USA. Yesterday in a small town in Asiago, walked into two beautiful little shops that had several generations of family working in the shop. I wonder if Corporatism (who heavily fund what we consume on social media) is also not killing purpose and hope for young people? I am not anti-capitalist, or even anti-"corporate" but there is definitely some negative incentives there that we need to address. B Corps are a good start.
As a trog who never got a cell phone it's increasingly apparent to me that they have won the battle. A trip to a big city finds everyone, all classes and ages, holding the phone in their hand as though it had been there since birth. Through it all the most remarkable thing about the way this device has colonized our lives is that it has not seemed remarkable at all. It is generally accepted that the convenience the gizmo offers trumps all the downsides. The only solution I can see is we will run out of the precious metals needed to provide everyone on planet with a phone. At that point having a cell phone will revert to the status object it was in the beginning.
Love your work. Looking at Figure 9, do you have any theories about why the depression rates for 12–25-year-olds keep going up and up? One might expect the social media/smartphone effect to have gotten 'saturated' at some point and the rates flatten out.
I think y’all might find this relevant, some more info on the reality on the ground in my and so many other school districts, how school time has become 100% screen time:
https://gaty.substack.com/p/school-time-has-become-screen-time
No, it's not the phones nor social media.
The true cause of these epidemics is a multiannual population-wide dopamine oscillation: dopamine in excess levels causes feelings of 1) depression, 2) loneliness, and 3) self-harm.
An ~80 years long multiannual hormone cycle, aka. the Strauss-Howe generational cycle, is behind all of these epidemics. It's the very same multiannual hormone cycle that drives all of the other cyclical animal populations as well! It's really that simple as the embedded statistics clearly show:
https://jannemiettinen.fi/FourthTurning/hormone-cycle-humans-loneliness.png
https://jannemiettinen.fi/FourthTurning/hormone-cycle-humans-depression.png
https://jannemiettinen.fi/FourthTurning/hormone-cycle-humans-self-harm.png
Link to the full hypothesis: https://jannemiettinen.fi/FourthTurning/
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PS. This picture shows the statistical evidence for the other hormone levels in the US, and these statistics too repeat very similarly all over the Western countries: https://jannemiettinen.fi/FourthTurning/generational-hormone-cycle-us-examples5.png
All of the are statistics are mysteries to researchers even after decades of reserach:
A) Low dopamine causes criminal behavior that peaked during early 1990s. No one knows why.
B) Sex hormones modulate fertility that peaked close to 1960 and no one knows why. Sex hormones also modulate the rate of sexual maturation, while a decade later close to 1970 maternal age and breastfeeding (oxytocin levels are inverse to sex hormones) hit nadir. No one knows why.
C) Cortisol is the main cause of type 2 diabetes, and even though obesity is still on the rise, T2D incidence peaked close to 2010 and is still on the decline to this day. No one knows why.
D) Growth hormone modulates height, and while calory intake has increased steadily, generations born after the 1980s are growing shorter. No one knows why.
-
-
PPS. Dopamine also increases the feeling of social dominance, and this is quite obviously the cause for the constantly deepening intra-group polarizations inside (and between) countries, which has been increasingly visible since roughly 2010, and this trend will peak close to 2030. Dopamine in excess also causes fear, hence the xenophobia, and when you combine increasing feelings of xenophobia and social dominance you will especilly get anti-Semitism.
This is the simple reason why the 2010s and 20s have been repetition of what happened 80y ago during the 1930s and 40s regarding pretty much every societal aspect.
Go back 80 years from there and you land at the US Civil War.
Go back 80 years again and you land at the American Revolutionary War.
So, we're essentially living in those times again due to the 80y hormone cycle, where increasing dopamine levels pit in-groups against opposing in-groups: men vs women, left vs right, and the West vs the East in the end.
To really fix the internet, do this first and instead:
https://www.eff.org/wp/privacy-first-better-way-address-online-harms
Hey, do you REALLY want to get to the ROOT of this problem, and throw the proverbial One Ring into the fires of Mordor for good? The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) shows us the way:
https://www.eff.org/wp/privacy-first-better-way-address-online-harms
Big Tech can go EFF off!