Great article! I hope that the attention and enthusiasm from The Anxious Generation will lead to an overhaul of the just as harmful edtech being used in schools, I think it is about time to smash those 1:1 devices! As an educator in a middle school, I often talk to students about tech use and edtech. About 95% of my students wished they had more paper and books in school rather than a 1:1 device. To quote one 7th grader “It is just easier for me to learn on paper”.
“The potentially deep moral wisdom contained in our gut intuitions was steamrolled with ruthless efficiency.” This is happening now with the bombardment of AI in education too. The amount of emails I receive pushing AI in school is relentless yet it is packaged as the next best thing. Most educators know that it is not but feel powerless. Districts rely on data from these edtech programs to measure how students learn. My question is, since these programs seem to make learning more difficult and seem to create a barrier to learning, then what is the purpose of the data it gives us? Thanks again for bringing attention to such an important topic!
First, thank you for being a middle school teacher! Crazy to me that our kids know what's up but it's the adults who are forcing technology into their lives. Of course, it's easier for them to learn on paper! Thousands of years of learning in the physical world means they have a brain that craves physical things. But we stopped making decisions in education based on educational science and proven outcomes a long time ago.
The kids are the best part of middle school! Sadly, profits are behind the push for edtech, I wrote about it for Public: https://www.public.news/p/big-tech-hubris-and-greed-behind. I also created a timeline showing the progression of education technology and the decline in test scores. I hope that this trend can be reversed soon, not sure how long education can go on like this.
I've been asking academic audiences: "Raise your hand if you agree with me that the NORMAL HEALTHY MIND is defective?" I'm lucky if I can get 2%.
What do I mean detective?
Sugar, Salt, Fat... add booze and porn as appropriate... the brain is a "thought producing machine"... as the "celluloid movie frames of our lives flip by"... it's whacko to believe our mind is " getting a Bullseye every time a frame flips by."... We miss what just happened... think of our errors as missing the Bullseye by being TOO EARLY or TOO LATE... analogous to EXAGGERATING THREATS or EXAGGERATING POWER(e.g., we need more sugar, Salt, fat...etc)
EXAGGERATING POWER: Up to 60% of anxious people are cured by placebo (aka "We give Bullshit Power").
Our teachers are too Narcissistic or Insecure to be able to see or teach this?
What drives me mad about the "plucky critics" is what they're willing to sacrifice at the altar of "wait for the undisputed science." They seem to be fine with a few kids dead by suicide because of the sextortion schemes that happened through Instagram. They seem to be fine with 3,390 grooming cases through Snapchat, as reported by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. They seem to be fine with another third grader finding porn on their school-issued Chromebook. And even if none of those horrible things happen, they seem to be fine with a slightly diminished version of children who are drawn into these digital spaces.
It's been stated before here on After Babel, but we have it backward. Instead of waiting for "beyond a reasonable doubt" evidence social media and technology are harming our children, we should be waiting for "beyond a reasonable doubt" evidence it's helpful.
Sunset and reimagine CDA 230. Create a design code. Mandate K-12 digital discernment curriculum. Create oppressive personal liability for tech executives who violate said design code. Treat technology like an "attractive nuisance." Technology might be a "wicked problem," but I think we can solve this one. We must solve it.
Smash it, then fill the vacuum with actions that are directed toward real people, tangible things, and natural surroundings. The Anxious Generation is not lost; quite to the contrary, they seem to be recognizing the destructive impact of smart phones and social media. Thanks for a balanced, insightful essay that presents a hopeful message for the current generation to reclaim technology as a tool.
I can't shake the feeling that there's more at work here than communications technology, though I see that problem. When I was small fry, most of us lived in small towns and on farms. Church was a dominant force in restraining our worst impulses, and our parents hovered tirelessly, ready to come forth and admonish us or our persecutors as needed. We had lots of time and space for play, which tended to be very physical, especially for boys. Schools were strictly operated with primary goals being to instill civility and cultivate knowledge. It may be that if I'd had access to computer games in my teens, I'd never have made it through college, but who knows? The adults around me would likely have borne down and made me ashamed of such foolishness. We certainly didn't pursue celebrity or worship it. It's true that, as a performing artist, I could be the best in my community rather than having to compete with every other baritone in the world, and that was a mercy. I think we underestimate our species' need for firm guidance and clear limits. Most of my parents' generation were survivors of the second great war to end all wars, and while they understood and accepted the need for conformity, they must have unconsciously resented it and therefore were not as resolute as they might have been while we pushed back. This led, I think, to a vast undermining of the strictures described above, back in the sixties and forward to the present day, when self-expression becomes a primary value, being different is honorable, religion is seen as old-fashioned if not downright primitive, and schools spend more time teaching liberal values than reading, writing, and arithmetic. Classic liberalism was by no means as permissive as the modern variety, and I think we may have overlooked how much young humans really need firm guidance. When both parents have full-time jobs, it's pretty hard to find the time and energy that youngsters really need. Just my thoughts on the matter FWIW.
17 years ago I heard Andrew Pudewah (runs the Institute for Excellence in Writing, a major homeschool curriculum company) speak at a small convention. What he said altered my sense of education forever and set us on the path of home educating our kids. He said: "Education consists of character, knowledge, and skills. In that order. The vast majority of schools and parents get them backwards."
Skills in the hands of someone without knowledge are pointless. Knowledge and skills in the hands of someone without virtue are dangerous. About 60 years ago, our schools decided to reverse these, specifically, they decided to stop trying to teach virtue. We are reaping the consequences.
Unfortunately, Nietzsche was right; we killed God. Since him and Mill we've enthroned our own will in the place of His: maximal individual autonomy instead of Aristotelian (or Augustinian) virtue; jungle law in place of natural (and divine) law. Divine law can create moral limits. Natural law can enforce moral limits. Jungle law can do neither since it has no morality beyond power.
We won't fix this because we're unwilling to give up our (in a Lockean/Millian sense) freedom. Aristotle has the answer, as does Confucus, Budda, Jesus, Abu Marzen... even Kant would do. But all of these require sacrificing absolute freedom for some form of virtue, which is precisely what we will not do.
I do not have the statistical data to back it up, but my experience teaching middle schoolers does not align with the claim that young people dislike or are anxious about their smartphones. My students usually express confusion and disbelief at the idea that their phones are harming their learning and their mental health. Despite a school policy banning cell phone use during the day, most of my students carry their cell phones with them at all times. As a teacher at a diverse public middle school I see a much more general student population than Nicholas Smyth does, and I worry this more general population does not see the dangers of the device they have with them at all times.
Excellent. Everybody feels like they want to smash something. Is it the "Patriarchy"? Is it the "Deep State"? Is it the "Straight White Male" or the "Woke Mob"? "Liberal or Conservative Media"?
Yes...it's a simple public humiliation formula. If your posts are ignored, you look lonely (the biggest sin in "friendland"). Hence more cries of "privilege!" and more radical smashing posts. The algorithm is happy, and you look more popular.
I have always found it very interesting that Apple chose an apple with a bite out of it as their logo.
Whenever I see the logo, I can’t help but recall the cautionary biblical tale of Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden from Sunday School.
It hasn’t stopped me using Apple products. I’m a digital artist and when teaching our own kids about technology, we have tried to teach them the importance of being aware of how much they are consuming vs how much they are creating when using technology.
But with the introduction of AI. Now even the positive aspects of what we can do with these tools using our own minds, are being overshadowed by AI generated everything.
The jury is still out on AI for me.
But I still get that overwhelming pang of guilt and fear, every time I see the Apple logo. I just can’t see it any other way now.
Consumerism is rife. Apple has created millions of throw away products, containing Earth’s precious resources. And we just keep consuming them, byte-by-byte, by bite.
The tale of Eve biting the apple and causing our fall from grace, is a cautionary tale about temptation and greed.
The signs that we are headed for another fall from grace, have never been more in our face. Literally.
For the record, I left organised religion back in the Sunday School classroom. Us human’s don’t need any help in organising our own demise from the Gods. We’re doing a pretty bang up job of it on our own.
It’s time to look up and look around us. Or in the very least, to become more aware of how much we are taking in (consuming) versus how much we are putting back out into the world (creating). Now, also keeping in mind, the humanity behind what we create (AI).
A little food for thought from my neurodivergent mind.
Do I sense a bit of cheeky undertones of Pink Floyd’s self-trial and intrinsic cry to “tear down the wall” for us GenXers? (dry humor font). Your passage is well written-and noted. I am wrapping up my study and corresponding doctoral dissertation (Personality Factors of Adolescent Females Most Susceptible to Anxiety and Addiction to Social Media-). Postman and McClure are well noted, but there is a striking absence in the literature of the philosophers, Baudrillard and DeBord. DeBord argues social relations and experiences are increasingly mediated by mass media, advertising, and consumer culture (i.e., “the spectacle”). Life recedes into representation-images, such as posts of “the superlative” on one’s Instagram account. What is shown online becomes more important than what is real and so much more that is applicable. As you mentioned the Matrix, Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation is an easter egg in the film. With him, representations or people (e.g., social media influencers ) distort reality, leading to a state where the distinction between the real and the representation is blurred. “Is this social media influencer real or not?” Even Morpheus in the film asks, "What is real? and a direct notation from the book, "welcome to the desert of the real" meaning a world dominated by computers and computer-generated images. At an age where identity is sought, vulnerability and disappointment can easily be found. Ongoing trends appear to align with and affirm Haidt’s commendable work as mental health declines have risen since smartphones and more time on social media are being marketed to teens – especially teen girls.
Great article! This book mentions some of the problems with social media playing a role in why children are struggling with life: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/190837550 . It places most of the blame on teachers who practice pseudo-therapy. But, it relates to children being more and more anxious despite society actually being more and more secure.
Yes—and notice how that is Luddite, and I mean that in the best way. It’s time to revisit the Luddite movement, understand it accurately and in its historical context, and updated for the present situation.
"It’s time to revisit the Luddite movement, understand it accurately and in its historical context, and updated for the present situation."
This article and comments indeed speak of Luddism. There is a cycle of rebirth of Luddites. Fortunately, little or nothing comes of it, and technology and science advance, making life better for humanity.
Fair enough. Also, I forgot how just many people were killed by the Covid hysteria (killing more people than the virus itself) that spread, well, virally due to both social media and legacy media.
in the summer of 2014 (June 21st to exact), I had a life changing event happen to me where there was a clear before and after experience. the next morning I woke up to a change both internally and externally. it was if the world had changed overnight.
in retrospect, I believe that this was roughly the time that smart phones and SM had merged long enough to have a profound and tangible effect on the public consciousness.
historians and other writers have pointed out that the 20th century didn’t truly start until the summer of 1914 with the troubles brewing in Europe resulted in the outbreak of World War 1.
it’s interesting that exactly 100 year later, in the summer of 2014, that the 21st century seems to have begun in earnest. I realize this sounds a bit ‘woo-woo’ but I keep hearing more and more people using 2014 as some sort of turning point.
What a refreshing article that posits what I have always believed. Technology like the smartphone and the Internet of things is there to service us, not the other way around.
For years I refused to get even a brick phone, even though I worked in IT !
Having succumbed due to pressure from my boss I reluctantly got a basic one and had it for maybe 3 to 4 years but only turned it on when I needed to use it.
Eventually I had to trade up to a smartphone but again just got the most basic model, which provides phone, email and Browser and again most of the time it is off.
Our relationship is that of Master (Me) and servant.
I've always seen social media as anti-social media and very toxic almost demanding conflict.
Great article! I hope that the attention and enthusiasm from The Anxious Generation will lead to an overhaul of the just as harmful edtech being used in schools, I think it is about time to smash those 1:1 devices! As an educator in a middle school, I often talk to students about tech use and edtech. About 95% of my students wished they had more paper and books in school rather than a 1:1 device. To quote one 7th grader “It is just easier for me to learn on paper”.
“The potentially deep moral wisdom contained in our gut intuitions was steamrolled with ruthless efficiency.” This is happening now with the bombardment of AI in education too. The amount of emails I receive pushing AI in school is relentless yet it is packaged as the next best thing. Most educators know that it is not but feel powerless. Districts rely on data from these edtech programs to measure how students learn. My question is, since these programs seem to make learning more difficult and seem to create a barrier to learning, then what is the purpose of the data it gives us? Thanks again for bringing attention to such an important topic!
First, thank you for being a middle school teacher! Crazy to me that our kids know what's up but it's the adults who are forcing technology into their lives. Of course, it's easier for them to learn on paper! Thousands of years of learning in the physical world means they have a brain that craves physical things. But we stopped making decisions in education based on educational science and proven outcomes a long time ago.
The kids are the best part of middle school! Sadly, profits are behind the push for edtech, I wrote about it for Public: https://www.public.news/p/big-tech-hubris-and-greed-behind. I also created a timeline showing the progression of education technology and the decline in test scores. I hope that this trend can be reversed soon, not sure how long education can go on like this.
Let's collaborate?
Has anyone ever heard of teaching Dark Humor Appreciation? Note: "The Darker my Humor... the more of Life's Inevitable Tragedies are laughable"
e.g., Vonnegut's: "Live by the Lies that make you kind and brave and healthy and happy"... as an intro to huge placebo effect
(I don't know at what age it would be "age appropriate")
I've been asking academic audiences: "Raise your hand if you agree with me that the NORMAL HEALTHY MIND is defective?" I'm lucky if I can get 2%.
What do I mean detective?
Sugar, Salt, Fat... add booze and porn as appropriate... the brain is a "thought producing machine"... as the "celluloid movie frames of our lives flip by"... it's whacko to believe our mind is " getting a Bullseye every time a frame flips by."... We miss what just happened... think of our errors as missing the Bullseye by being TOO EARLY or TOO LATE... analogous to EXAGGERATING THREATS or EXAGGERATING POWER(e.g., we need more sugar, Salt, fat...etc)
EXAGGERATING POWER: Up to 60% of anxious people are cured by placebo (aka "We give Bullshit Power").
Our teachers are too Narcissistic or Insecure to be able to see or teach this?
Click the💓 below to join our Focus Group
What drives me mad about the "plucky critics" is what they're willing to sacrifice at the altar of "wait for the undisputed science." They seem to be fine with a few kids dead by suicide because of the sextortion schemes that happened through Instagram. They seem to be fine with 3,390 grooming cases through Snapchat, as reported by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. They seem to be fine with another third grader finding porn on their school-issued Chromebook. And even if none of those horrible things happen, they seem to be fine with a slightly diminished version of children who are drawn into these digital spaces.
It's been stated before here on After Babel, but we have it backward. Instead of waiting for "beyond a reasonable doubt" evidence social media and technology are harming our children, we should be waiting for "beyond a reasonable doubt" evidence it's helpful.
Sunset and reimagine CDA 230. Create a design code. Mandate K-12 digital discernment curriculum. Create oppressive personal liability for tech executives who violate said design code. Treat technology like an "attractive nuisance." Technology might be a "wicked problem," but I think we can solve this one. We must solve it.
So well said!
Let's collaborate?
Smash it, then fill the vacuum with actions that are directed toward real people, tangible things, and natural surroundings. The Anxious Generation is not lost; quite to the contrary, they seem to be recognizing the destructive impact of smart phones and social media. Thanks for a balanced, insightful essay that presents a hopeful message for the current generation to reclaim technology as a tool.
I can't shake the feeling that there's more at work here than communications technology, though I see that problem. When I was small fry, most of us lived in small towns and on farms. Church was a dominant force in restraining our worst impulses, and our parents hovered tirelessly, ready to come forth and admonish us or our persecutors as needed. We had lots of time and space for play, which tended to be very physical, especially for boys. Schools were strictly operated with primary goals being to instill civility and cultivate knowledge. It may be that if I'd had access to computer games in my teens, I'd never have made it through college, but who knows? The adults around me would likely have borne down and made me ashamed of such foolishness. We certainly didn't pursue celebrity or worship it. It's true that, as a performing artist, I could be the best in my community rather than having to compete with every other baritone in the world, and that was a mercy. I think we underestimate our species' need for firm guidance and clear limits. Most of my parents' generation were survivors of the second great war to end all wars, and while they understood and accepted the need for conformity, they must have unconsciously resented it and therefore were not as resolute as they might have been while we pushed back. This led, I think, to a vast undermining of the strictures described above, back in the sixties and forward to the present day, when self-expression becomes a primary value, being different is honorable, religion is seen as old-fashioned if not downright primitive, and schools spend more time teaching liberal values than reading, writing, and arithmetic. Classic liberalism was by no means as permissive as the modern variety, and I think we may have overlooked how much young humans really need firm guidance. When both parents have full-time jobs, it's pretty hard to find the time and energy that youngsters really need. Just my thoughts on the matter FWIW.
17 years ago I heard Andrew Pudewah (runs the Institute for Excellence in Writing, a major homeschool curriculum company) speak at a small convention. What he said altered my sense of education forever and set us on the path of home educating our kids. He said: "Education consists of character, knowledge, and skills. In that order. The vast majority of schools and parents get them backwards."
Skills in the hands of someone without knowledge are pointless. Knowledge and skills in the hands of someone without virtue are dangerous. About 60 years ago, our schools decided to reverse these, specifically, they decided to stop trying to teach virtue. We are reaping the consequences.
If it were only that simple.
Unfortunately, Nietzsche was right; we killed God. Since him and Mill we've enthroned our own will in the place of His: maximal individual autonomy instead of Aristotelian (or Augustinian) virtue; jungle law in place of natural (and divine) law. Divine law can create moral limits. Natural law can enforce moral limits. Jungle law can do neither since it has no morality beyond power.
We won't fix this because we're unwilling to give up our (in a Lockean/Millian sense) freedom. Aristotle has the answer, as does Confucus, Budda, Jesus, Abu Marzen... even Kant would do. But all of these require sacrificing absolute freedom for some form of virtue, which is precisely what we will not do.
I do not have the statistical data to back it up, but my experience teaching middle schoolers does not align with the claim that young people dislike or are anxious about their smartphones. My students usually express confusion and disbelief at the idea that their phones are harming their learning and their mental health. Despite a school policy banning cell phone use during the day, most of my students carry their cell phones with them at all times. As a teacher at a diverse public middle school I see a much more general student population than Nicholas Smyth does, and I worry this more general population does not see the dangers of the device they have with them at all times.
Excellent. Everybody feels like they want to smash something. Is it the "Patriarchy"? Is it the "Deep State"? Is it the "Straight White Male" or the "Woke Mob"? "Liberal or Conservative Media"?
No....it's your phone,
Smash that shit.
How telling is it that the reason people want to smash all those other things is so often because of algorithm driven radicalization?
Yes...it's a simple public humiliation formula. If your posts are ignored, you look lonely (the biggest sin in "friendland"). Hence more cries of "privilege!" and more radical smashing posts. The algorithm is happy, and you look more popular.
I have always found it very interesting that Apple chose an apple with a bite out of it as their logo.
Whenever I see the logo, I can’t help but recall the cautionary biblical tale of Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden from Sunday School.
It hasn’t stopped me using Apple products. I’m a digital artist and when teaching our own kids about technology, we have tried to teach them the importance of being aware of how much they are consuming vs how much they are creating when using technology.
But with the introduction of AI. Now even the positive aspects of what we can do with these tools using our own minds, are being overshadowed by AI generated everything.
The jury is still out on AI for me.
But I still get that overwhelming pang of guilt and fear, every time I see the Apple logo. I just can’t see it any other way now.
Consumerism is rife. Apple has created millions of throw away products, containing Earth’s precious resources. And we just keep consuming them, byte-by-byte, by bite.
The tale of Eve biting the apple and causing our fall from grace, is a cautionary tale about temptation and greed.
The signs that we are headed for another fall from grace, have never been more in our face. Literally.
For the record, I left organised religion back in the Sunday School classroom. Us human’s don’t need any help in organising our own demise from the Gods. We’re doing a pretty bang up job of it on our own.
It’s time to look up and look around us. Or in the very least, to become more aware of how much we are taking in (consuming) versus how much we are putting back out into the world (creating). Now, also keeping in mind, the humanity behind what we create (AI).
A little food for thought from my neurodivergent mind.
Do I sense a bit of cheeky undertones of Pink Floyd’s self-trial and intrinsic cry to “tear down the wall” for us GenXers? (dry humor font). Your passage is well written-and noted. I am wrapping up my study and corresponding doctoral dissertation (Personality Factors of Adolescent Females Most Susceptible to Anxiety and Addiction to Social Media-). Postman and McClure are well noted, but there is a striking absence in the literature of the philosophers, Baudrillard and DeBord. DeBord argues social relations and experiences are increasingly mediated by mass media, advertising, and consumer culture (i.e., “the spectacle”). Life recedes into representation-images, such as posts of “the superlative” on one’s Instagram account. What is shown online becomes more important than what is real and so much more that is applicable. As you mentioned the Matrix, Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation is an easter egg in the film. With him, representations or people (e.g., social media influencers ) distort reality, leading to a state where the distinction between the real and the representation is blurred. “Is this social media influencer real or not?” Even Morpheus in the film asks, "What is real? and a direct notation from the book, "welcome to the desert of the real" meaning a world dominated by computers and computer-generated images. At an age where identity is sought, vulnerability and disappointment can easily be found. Ongoing trends appear to align with and affirm Haidt’s commendable work as mental health declines have risen since smartphones and more time on social media are being marketed to teens – especially teen girls.
Great article! This book mentions some of the problems with social media playing a role in why children are struggling with life: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/190837550 . It places most of the blame on teachers who practice pseudo-therapy. But, it relates to children being more and more anxious despite society actually being more and more secure.
If you’re wondering what to read next after Neil Postman, I recommend Jacques Ellul.
“Smash the Technopoly”
Yes—and notice how that is Luddite, and I mean that in the best way. It’s time to revisit the Luddite movement, understand it accurately and in its historical context, and updated for the present situation.
Here’s to Ned Ludd: the man for our times.
“Smash the machinery, hurt no person “
"It’s time to revisit the Luddite movement, understand it accurately and in its historical context, and updated for the present situation."
This article and comments indeed speak of Luddism. There is a cycle of rebirth of Luddites. Fortunately, little or nothing comes of it, and technology and science advance, making life better for humanity.
Fortunately, indeed!!
Which of the following technologies has the greatest amount of blood on its hands?
A) Smartphones
B) Social Media
C) Nuclear weapons
D) Printing press
The answer may shock you:
https://thenoosphere.substack.com/p/how-the-printing-press-ignited-europes
The printing press has 400+ years on the others, so I'd say the jury is still out.
Fair enough. Also, I forgot how just many people were killed by the Covid hysteria (killing more people than the virus itself) that spread, well, virally due to both social media and legacy media.
whoa.
in the summer of 2014 (June 21st to exact), I had a life changing event happen to me where there was a clear before and after experience. the next morning I woke up to a change both internally and externally. it was if the world had changed overnight.
in retrospect, I believe that this was roughly the time that smart phones and SM had merged long enough to have a profound and tangible effect on the public consciousness.
historians and other writers have pointed out that the 20th century didn’t truly start until the summer of 1914 with the troubles brewing in Europe resulted in the outbreak of World War 1.
it’s interesting that exactly 100 year later, in the summer of 2014, that the 21st century seems to have begun in earnest. I realize this sounds a bit ‘woo-woo’ but I keep hearing more and more people using 2014 as some sort of turning point.
Nicholas,
What a refreshing article that posits what I have always believed. Technology like the smartphone and the Internet of things is there to service us, not the other way around.
For years I refused to get even a brick phone, even though I worked in IT !
Having succumbed due to pressure from my boss I reluctantly got a basic one and had it for maybe 3 to 4 years but only turned it on when I needed to use it.
Eventually I had to trade up to a smartphone but again just got the most basic model, which provides phone, email and Browser and again most of the time it is off.
Our relationship is that of Master (Me) and servant.
I've always seen social media as anti-social media and very toxic almost demanding conflict.
It's good to hear from like minded folk.
Thank you.
Yes, a terrific piece.