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BlackJack

United States10339 Posts

4 hours ago

#99281

It wasn't all rainbows and sunshine for children back when they were dying of polio, hiding under their desk for nuclear holocaust drills, having their fathers drafted into global conflicts, working in factories because we had weak laws against child labor, etc. Microplastics, genocide, climate change, war.. these are not things the average American teenager experiences firsthand to any degree of severity. Without the doom scrolling it would have zero impact on their lives. In years past a teenager would have to pick up the New York Times if they wanted to learn about global conflicts and if they are reading the NYTimes they probably have some emotional maturity. Now the news of the day is screamed at them by some other know-nothing teen with a degree in TikTok influencing telling them that the world is on fire.

Liquid`Drone

Norway28599 Posts

4 hours ago

#99282

My experience (teaching high school in Norway) is that what this teacher describes applies to like.. less than 30%? of students. So there's more than a kernel of truth to it, but she exaggerates. I teach some very different groups of students this year - one high-performing group of artistic outsiders - this one is happily willing to read books as part of English class, when I gave a creative writing assignment a couple of them took the opportunity to start writing the first chapter(s) of a novel they had wanted to write for a while.

This group hardly struggles with phone addiction. Perhaps like two out of 30 do.

But they're also way different from the norm.

There's another group where I created a strawpoll and asked the students to check how much phone time they had in the past week. like 4-5 of 30 selected the 56+ hours option, and I believe the average for this class was above 40 hours. This is also an all-male class (carpenters to be), and most of them don't really care about school because this is their final year and they're not going to university so their grades are kinda irrelevant as long as they pass, and the bar for that is very low. And among this group, there's a fair amount of 'spends a lot of time watching tik tok'- but still, I do manage to get some engagement from them. I've had 45 minute lectures (generally adviced against with groups like this one) where most have paid attention to what I've been saying, but I also identify as an entertaining teacher.

In Norway high school is divided between vocational and 'university-preparing', and there's a pretty stark divide in how motivated the students are - and also how academically gifted - and also how much they pay attention in school between these two groups. (Although some of the vocational subjects, for example computer science related, have pretty high requirements and feels more like a university-preparing class.) When I teach the regular, university preparing classes, my experience is that generally, most students pay attention, and they care. In those classes, many students have mapped out how many points they need to be accepted to the university/major of their choice, and they're like 'well I'm not gifted enough to get a 6 (we grade on a 1-6 scale) from math, so I need one from history, what can I do'. There's very little doom scrolling happening from those, during class.

Here's the kicker, though - and what I find depressing. When I observe the students outside of class, during lunch breaks etc, I'll commonly see groups of 10 students - classmates - that are all sitting together around the same table, and there's 0 interaction. They're all scrolling on their individual phones. There's not even any like, haha look at this -> shows phone to friend happening, they're just.. scrolling.
Additionally, it used to be that students - especially the ones that were least interested in school - were delighted if you'd show a movie. Now, those same students (not the academically gifted ones) don't have the attention span for a movie, and grow fidgety and bored.

Basically there's a huge divide between different groups of students, and I feel like the smart phone has, in a sense, worked to exacerbate pre-existing differences in 'cultural capital'. The ones that come from homes that 20-30 years ago would've binged jerry springer are now total smart phone zombies. But the ones that come from intellectual homes aren't nearly as damaged, if at all. I've also read that there are quite some indicators that one of the best ways to shield yourself from the most damaging aspects of the smart phone, is to spend time in nature. I'm guessing this is a more popular past time activity in Norway (even for kids living in cities) than it is among american city-dwellers, and I could picture that if you're an american teacher who teaches an urban school in a not very affluent and educated neighborhood, you get the experience that nearly every student is brain damaged by social media - because I have also seen those same kids that this teacher references. But my experience is that it describes maybe 20% of my students, and if you disregard the artsy class, my students aren't particularly privileged (from a cultural capital pov).

Mohdoo

United States15472 Posts

4 hours ago

#99283

On May 14 2025 06:00 BlackJack wrote:
It wasn't all rainbows and sunshine for children back when they were dying of polio, hiding under their desk for nuclear holocaust drills, having their fathers drafted into global conflicts, working in factories because we had weak laws against child labor, etc. Microplastics, genocide, climate change, war.. these are not things the average American teenager experiences firsthand to any degree of severity. Without the doom scrolling it would have zero impact on their lives. In years past a teenager would have to pick up the New York Times if they wanted to learn about global conflicts and if they are reading the NYTimes they probably have some emotional maturity. Now the news of the day is screamed at them by some other know-nothing teen with a degree in TikTok influencing telling them that the world is on fire.

I agree. I think its particularly bad for emotionally vulnerable teens who are struggling in various ways. Its the same reason Andrew Tate has been infecting high schools globally. If you tell teenagers you know why they feel confused and anxious, and help them blame it on something external, you've got a follower for life.

KwarK

United States42258 Posts

2 hours ago

#99284

The world is on fire though. We’ve built the infrastructure upon which billions are fed on carbon emissions that also threaten the food of billions. That’s going to end poorly for people who like having food.

Teenagers being angry and sad about the poisoned world they’ve been born into is basically a rational response. In many ways it might have been a mistake to poison it.

WombaT

Northern Ireland24417 Posts

2 hours ago

#99285

It seems rich to complain about youngsters being disaffected by things that don’t personally affect them while you yourself continually complain about incredibly niche stories of ‘woke’ excess that have no impact on your life.