For my parents, it was the radio.
For their parents, reading out loud for everyone to enjoy ("Mr. Dickens has published another episode of The Pickwick Papers!"), or playing instruments.
Collapsing in front of the TV with the family was still quality time enjoying something together.
Observe young people using their phones, and you can see the social use is often just occasionally switching from TikTok to a chat app, dashing off a one-line message, and then going right back to TikTok. Big difference from having actual long phone conversations with friends after school.
As a society we do get to answer these questions.
There's a 500B industry selling the phones, 2.5 trillion selling telecom services, trillions more selling social media, and most of the economy involves selling their products over the internet. Those are some HUGE incentives to maintain the status quo, or get people even more addicted yet.
I don't think our society is capable of answering that question and starting a Dune-style "Butlerian Jihad" and destroying all machines-that-think.
Sure if “at least one match” means activity.
Back in the day, you couldn’t find parking for several blocks radius around every public sports field.
My early dinner, empty restaurant habit is the adult persistence of my teenage preferences, and I don't expect my personal tolerance to be their norm.
This school is also a magnet school with only high-performing kids who did not suffer from distraction problems and who actively made use of phones during class for classwork.
everdrive•2h ago
causal•2h ago
chronciger•57m ago
If society were ignorant, then it’s forgivable. But society is not ignorant.
We know tech companies deliver things bad for us (lies and manipulation).
And we knowingly choose it, over the good (truth).
9rx•24m ago
thinkingtoilet•2h ago
amelius•31m ago
rootusrootus•1m ago