The myth of brain rot from glowing rectangles.
“Too much screen Time Damages the Brain,” says Psychology Today. “A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley,” announces The New York Times. “Finally, we’re all wising up about the dangers of screen time for kids,” adds the Los Angeles Times. Then there’s the New York Post, which in 2016 ran a Nicholas Kardaras column headlined “It’s ‘digital heroin’: How screens turn kids into psychotic junkies.”
As is often the case, the headlines are overblown. The papers cited in Psychology Today aren’t simply about “too much screen time”; they’re about people who were dysfunctional enough to be diagnosed with internet addiction. (Not that it’s even clear what internet addiction means— researchers haven’t come up with a standardized definition of the disorder yet, and not every scientist in the field thinks it’s a useful label.) That New York Times article doesn’t deal with scientific research at all; it’s about employees at Silicon Valley companies who try to limit their kids’ exposure to the tools they work on. The Los Angeles Times op-ed spends much more time describing a shift in public opinion than defending it.
This story is from the June 2019 edition of Reason magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the June 2019 edition of Reason magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
THE LIBERTARIAN MIND OF DAVID BOAZ
Threats to freedom, Trump vs. Biden, and the wins libertarians can’t seem to acknowledge
DARE TO Fail
THERE’S NO SUCH thing as a universal millennial experience, but DARE comes close.
CULTURE WARRIOR IN CHIEF
THE MODERN PRESIDENCY IS A DIVIDER, NOT A UNITER. IT HAS BECOME FAR TOO POWERFUL TO BE ANYTHING ELSE.
Progress, Rediscovered
A NEW MOVEMENT PROMOTING SCIENTIFIC, TECHNOLOGICAL, AND ECONOMIC SOLUTIONS TO HUMANITY’S PROBLEMS EMERGES.
'Smoking Opium Is Not Our Vice'
AMERICA’S FIRST DRUG WAR WAS DRIVEN BY XENOPHOBIA AGAINST CHINESE MIGRANTS.
HOW CAPITALISM BEAT COMMUNISM IN VIETNAM
IT ONLY TOOK A GENERATION TO GO FROM RATION CARDS TO EXPORTING ELECTRONICS.
50 Years of D&D: You Can't Copyright Fun
THIS YEAR MARKS the 50th anniversary of the original edition of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), the granddaddy of tabletop role-playing games and one of the urtexts of nerd culture.
The Pupil Panopticon
BIG BROTHER—and Parent, and Teacher— are watching.
Congress Could Swipe Your Credit Reward Points
A PLOT TO kill credit card reward points has bipartisan buy-in, with lawmakers framing the effort as an attempt to curb stillstubborn inflation.
Regulators Killed a Lifeline for Roombas
IN JANUARY 2024, Amazon terminated its agreement to acquire iRobot, the company that manufactures the Roomba robot vacuum.