I saw two interesting and contrasting pieces today which prompted me to ask what people think is the biggest risk: is over-reliance on technology worse than teenagers taking risks in other ways (drugs, drink etc)?
The first was this (gift link), to give a flavor:
“I think we’re developing a new species of asocial, asexual males who are up against an almost insurmountable enemy: godlike technology telling young men they can have a reasonable facsimile of life by getting little dopamine hits from a phone.”
The second was this on X/Twitter:
Here’s a thought experiment for parents: imagine I told you there’s a magical box that you can give your kids and the likelihood they’ll use drugs, drink alcohol, get in a car accident or have sex in their teens declines greatly. In fact, they will have much less interest in alcohol than you did, so much less that they’ll avoid parties with increasingly dangerous fentanyl-laced drugs.
Would you want this box for your kids?…I really want that box for my kids, mainly because I’d rather have a weird kid or a stunted kid or a quiet kid or a loner kid than a dead or drug-addicted kid.
Neither actually. This is a different society we live in with the technology around us. I do agree kid’s need to be able to make desision or their parent’s should let them make decisions. My kids are 26/28. They had screens. My son took to it more than my daughter. She still doesn’t love technology and what AI is doing to the planet but another discussion…..
Where my son used his phone, iPad and computer somehow at the same time lol…
But we gave them the freedom to fail. Make mistakes and grow and learn from it. Trust me, parenting is hard. The rules in the parenting handbook page 130, didn’t always work. Lol… we failed also attempting to be parents.
But I agree a bit. Kids need to get outside, be active and healthy. I don’t want a box predicting the future since then the future will be all the same for those kid’s. Yes, sometimes you need to take risks. Sometimes you need to trust your parenting and your relationship with your child. It’s not easy.
I’ll note that successful people tend to recommend what they did (risk taking małe Scott Galloway becomes successful entrepreneur, nerdy female Katherine Boyle becomes successful tech investor). So the former tells kids to get off their phones and take risks (because it worked out for him), the latter says that being absorbed in phones/computers as a teen is better than being one of the “popular” kids in high school (who engaged in risk-taking/fun but ultimately had less successful careers than her).
But I wonder about the gender differences in outlook too? A girl who’s absorbed in technology and goes into a male-dominated field won’t lack for male company and potential relationship opportunities (the odds are good even if the goods are odd) whereas that isn’t so true for guys who are in those fields. And as Galloway notes “Women are way more resilient than men and, without a partner, will happily channel energies into family or career. Young men go to pieces without a relationship.”
My friends and I were absorbed in the technology of the time (granted, that involved Fortran, COBOL, and punch cards). We went to a male dominated college followed by male dominated fields. A number of us married our classmates or our coworkers. Most of us have been married 40 years or more. I think we would all take exception to the assumption that the goods are odd!
The more males and females study and work together, the greater the odds that a relationship might form. That relationship will likely be founded on shared experiences and interests, which is a great way to make and keep a marriage.
Editing to remove my comments regarding risk, because I have chosen not to read the article and therefore am unable to properly engage on the subject.
That’s true. And success has so many random elements, especially for tech entrepreneurs who very often were just in the right place at the right time.
(yes, I have worked with numerous people who thought they were geniuses with the secret to success, simply because they had a successful IPO with their first company…)
Not as big of a dating pool for women looking to date women, though!
This reminds me of all the people who think they are the best parent in the world because their first kid is easy, so they are doling out condescending advice to everyone who is struggling with something. Then the second kid comes, and won’t eat, won’t sleep, bites kids and throws mega tantrums or whatever, and they get the opportunity for some humble pie. Of course some don’t get that second kid, but I’ve seen a few that do and have to admit I reveled a bit in the schadenfreude.
Just FYI, Katherine Boyle is a partner with tech billionaire Marc Andreesen at Andreesen Horowitz, and is a proponent of “the network state.”
She claims there is a “war on suffering” and blames Roe v Wade, a decline Christian religion, and the lack of mandatory military service for robbing people of resilience. She spearheaded investment in a Catholic prayer app that’s backed by Peter Thiel and promoted by Pete Hegseth, that also is involved in promoting Opus Dei. She’s deeply involved in “the Gundo” which is a group of self described “ultra-Christian” tech people that are funded by DOGE advisors & “the network state” investors. She’s also involved in New Founding, which itself funds companies such as Armored Republic, which calls itself a “Christian body armor company,” which advertises: “We create Tools of Liberty to Honor Christ by equipping Free Men to defend their God-given rights.”
She talks about how feminism leads to the decline of society and feminism along with a “spiritual crisis” is to blame for the “birth rate crisis.” She advocates for federal workers to promote their religious views in office and is a proponent of “The Sovereign Individual” and aims to splinter the nation state.
….and this is just some of what she is involved in.
That is to say, I would be careful in using her as a source of information as she has a very distinct agenda that she is working to bring people towards.
Excellent information that puts the question in perspective. Thank you.
I didn’t read the article, because I refuse to read anything on X. I responded to a statement, then I responded to the question is over-reliance on technology worse than teenagers taking risks in other ways (drugs, drink etc)? I didn’t answer that question, but rather stated my own experience with risk taking. I realize that I didn’t answer the question, mostly because I didn’t read the article so couldn’t properly respond to that. With the additional information provided by @blueberriesforsal, I realize that I would not care to be part of this particular conversation.
In what way is asking whether people agree or disagree with an opinion that someone expresses “using [them] as a source of information”? How is her background and politics remotely relevant to the question of whether technology (specifically mobile phones and social media/gaming etc) is dangerous or not? And for the record, I think Galloway’s argument is much better than Boyle’s.
Enquiring into people’s backgrounds and then refusing to engage (either positively or negatively) with the opinion being expressed on that basis is simple cancel culture.
I’m perfectly aware that CC is a female dominated space but it’s still highly amusing to see all the behaviors highlighted in the “Great Feminization” article that I cited a few weeks ago (and that everyone hated) so clearly on display:
“…it wasn’t just that women had cancelled the president of Harvard; it was that they’d cancelled him in a very feminine way. They made emotional appeals rather than logical arguments…This cancellation was feminine, the essay argued, because all cancellations are feminine. Cancel culture is simply what women do whenever there are enough of them in a given organization or field.”
“Bari Weiss, in her letter of resignation from TheNew York Times, described how colleagues referred to her in internal Slack messages as a racist, a Nazi, and a bigot and—this is the most feminine part—“colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by coworkers.” Weiss once asked a colleague at the Times opinion desk to get coffee with her. This journalist, a biracial woman who wrote frequently about race, refused to meet. This was a failure to meet the standards of basic professionalism, obviously. It was also very feminine.”
It’s hardly cancel culture. It’s understanding that for me the discussion cannot take place without discussing religion/politics, which is not allowed outside of the politics forum. I already know the side being argued, and I choose not to argue for or against it.
In what way is asking whether people agree or disagree with an opinion that someone expresses “using [them] as a source of information”? How is her background and politics remotely relevant to the question of whether technology (specifically mobile phones and social media/gaming etc) is dangerous or not?
Because she’s not a reliable source of information, and she’s using a bog standard appeal to authority by using that graph to “prove” a claim that’s not supported by the graph at all; contextually, her claim is rooted in her belief system, and it’s understandably a claim that she would like other people to believe so they’ll agree with further assertions she makes. Hence using the graph and making a spurious correlation.
Most people won’t catch that she’s doing that, they’ll instead believe the graph proves her claims. Like you did.
We can use graphs to “prove” all sorts of things. Like how the per capita consumption of margarine matches the divorce rate in Maine.
Here’s a thought experiment for couples: imagine I told you there’s a magic ingredient that will impact your marriage: eat only butter or cream cheese on your bread. Use only butter or bacon grease in your baking and cooking. In fact, doing so will mean that the likelihood that you will divorce will drop dramatically. Additionally, switching to butter and shunning margarine will avert wandering eyes, and office flirtations will plummet dramatically. Wouldn’t you want to make these simple shopping choices for marital bliss?
I’m perfectly aware that CC is a female dominated space but it’s still highly amusing to see all the behaviors highlighted in the “Great Feminization” article that I cited a few weeks ago (and that everyone hated) so clearly on display
Yep, Scott Morgan, that well known expert on child education and adolescent psychology.
Seriously? “Female dominated space”? Because the men here mostly treat the women respectfully as one should treat everybody else? I am very much a man, and I do not feel like a minority, nor do I feel that my voice isn’t heard. If CC were dominated by women, the Parent Café would cover mostly issues and topics that are mainly of interest for women. That is not true.
The “Great Feminization” sounds like the complaint of a bunch of Men who are not happy with being called out about their toxic masculinity.
Most of the people who I hear complain that “men are becoming feminized” often also subscribe to the worst parts of toxic masculinity, like “REAL MEN DON’T Cry/hug/wear pink/wash their clothes/wash their hands after going to the bathroom”. No, men aren’t becoming feminized, that’s a myth being pushed by an army of “Masculinity Coaches”, and people trying to sell books on “How To Be a MAN again!!!”.
What is happening is that men are learning that being masculine doesn’t involve hurting other people or yourself.
We have a very good example of one group of people whose men were actually becoming feminized. These people’s skeletons showed a convergence of men and women - women became more masculine, and men became more feminine. No, it wasn’t an imperial upper class, it wasn’t a group of scholars and intellectuals. It was the Vikings.
Moreover, it isn’t “feminization” because the vast majority of behavioral changes are not changes in roles and behaviors that have a long history. Most of these are less than 100 years old. Men have historically cried, showed affection physically to others, including men, wore pink and frilly clothing, have taken care of kids, etc, etc, etc.
While men aren’t becoming feminized, they’re being taught to be VERY SCARED of being feminized. They’re taught to make certain that they don’t do anything “female”, and there are dozen of morons on tiktok or on a podcast that keep on inventing new and increasingly dumber rules for “what is masculine”.
This stands as a classic case of misogyny. “Women are too emotional” whereas men who scream and physically assault people when they’re mad are all calm reasonable beings. I’m sorry, but just because the primary emotion that a person can show is rage and sulking doesn’t mean that they are “not emotional”.
"Cancel culture is simply what women do whenever there are enough of them in a given organization or field.”
Because it was women who decided to cancel two entire ethnic groups in Nazi Germany. Because it was women who decided to cancel members of the Communist party who fell out of favor in the USSR. Because it’s women who demanded that CBS fire Kimmel because of things that he said. Because it’s women who cancelled women’s rights among the Taliban.
Because Gamergate was women.
While much of Social Media Cancel Culture is Mob Rule, it is neither something new, nor is it even mostly women who engage in this online. One just has to count the number of rape and death threats sent by men to understand this. The mass online misogynistic harassment of any woman who become famous is just as much “Cancel Culture”, as anything else that is described as “Cancel Culture”.
