Are smartphones making our children mentally ill?

Telegraph UK ^ | 7:00AM GMT 21 Mar 2015 | By Peter Stanford

[papertyger]

No, smartphones are tools. It is the parents who are messing up the kids by using smartphones as babysitters and entertainment 24/7.

Exactly. Since when do FReepers "blame the gun?"

[davius]

OTOH u lern 2 spel funee + ignor polysyllabic wrds.

On the bright side, the NSA servers are exponentially filling with meaningless drivel.

I was struck by a recent school shooter episode in which the students were evacuated to a parking lot. After the shooter was killed, a police spokesman came out to report on what had happened. As he spoke, a pan view of the crowd showed about 70% of the students were focused on their phones and were oblivious to the experience playing out in front of them.

[MHGinTN]

Google Barrie Trower. What he has to tell us should curl the hairs on the nap of your neck. He is an expert in microwaves/radio waves and their effects on the human body. John B Wells did an excellent interview with Trower recently, on Caravan To Midnight.

[papertyger]

As he spoke, a pan view of the crowd showed about 70% of the students were focused on their phones and were oblivious to the experience playing out in front of them.

I think "oblivious" is a bit presumptuous on your part. Most likely they were "discussing" the proceedings with their friends.

[samtheman]

But I did graduate before I turned 60. :)

[windcliff]

ping

[yldstrk]

They were probably answering g frantic texts from their parents

[davius]

In a situation such as that, is there more to be learned from the first hand reactions of people around you or the remote impression of Sally that she nearly peed herself when she heard gunfire? No screen can supersede the impressions made by life experience.

It baffles me that an organism could launch into full alert mode and turn to surfing as a 'survival' strategy.

[davius]

You’re right. I hadn’t considered that.

[Larry Lucido]

No. They are already retards.

[rickomatic]

There is way too much reliance on modern technology today. That’s why I’m posting using my IBM Selectric....

[Larry Lucido]

500 BC: Is the abacus making our children mentally ill?

1622 AD: Is the slide rule making our children mentally ill?

1973: Is the hand calculator making our children mentally ill?

[Stosh]

“No, smartphones are tools. It is the parents who are messing up the kids by using smartphones as babysitters and entertainment 24/7.”

“Exactly. Since when do FReepers “blame the gun?” “

There’s an age at which you let your kids handle guns without special supervision. And there’s an age at which you don’t. (and that age probably varies from kid to kid, and family to family).

I think that’s all the author of the original article is saying here - until a kid hits an appropriate age - you can decide what that is - you don’t turn them loose 24 hours a day with their own smartphone. Her experience suggests 14 or 15 is too young for unbridled smartphone access - I suspect for most kids she’s probably right.

[MHGinTN]

Have microwave transmissions near your head made you a dullard?

[Yollopoliuhqui]

Technophobia...it’s what’s for dinner...

[Fresh Wind]

Have kids ever spent hours and hours, day after day, month after month, working an abacus, slide rule, or hand calculator?

[Desron13]

This happens every once in a while. Undoubtedly some people that were illiterate worried about their literate children and that satanic device, the printing press. Then, many many years later, the crazy music and audio plays they heard nightly on the seemingly inexplicable radio waves. After that, two letters, TV!... OMG (nuff said). Satan had finally arrived and the end was near. But it was not to be... Finally, the Internet... Doomed, Doooomd I tell you! THE END... (or is it...)

[Kaled]

Leading child psychotherapist Julie Lynn Evans

How come all these people I never heard of are supposedly "leading" experts in something?

[Kaled]

last week I was in a restaurant and sisters at the adjacent table were texting each other although face to face across their table

Good for them. I wish more people would do that instead of subjecting everybody around to their yammering.