The Terrible Costs of a Phone-Based Childhood - eviltoast

By a variety of measures and in a variety of countries, the members of Generation Z (born in and after 1996) are suffering from anxiety, depression, self-harm, and related disorders at levels higher than any other generation for which we have data.

  • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    8 months ago

    TV doesn’t give you feedback. It’s purely passive. TV isn’t always on. It can be turned off or walked away from. TV doesn’t fit in your pocket (well, outside of those shitty portable TVs that used 8 batteries every 2 hours) and go everywhere with you. TV doesn’t have your friends on it (unless you live in LA). TV doesn’t have random people from different countries you’ve never heard of tell you, specifically YOU, that you should kill yourself for some embarrassing thing you did.

    TV does have negative impacts on our lives, and there are costs that I had on my life that my parents had less of (they still had TV, just black and white with only 3 channels). I definitely spent more time indoors growing up and know less about how to do manual work than my dad. I also know more about the world in general and am open to more ideas than my parents.

    • TimeSquirrel@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      know less about how to do manual work than my dad.

      Funny, this is the opposite for me and my Dad, because I very much took advantage of all the free knowledge available on the Internet to improve my skills in that area.

      He’s the kind of guy to put WD40 and spray foam on everything to “fix” it, while I’ll look up proper replacement parts and the right way to fix something.

      • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        I’m comparing TV kids vs 50’s kids, not internet kids vs TV kids. I didn’t have the internet until I was 18.