My Numberinos!! @ruby-dext - Tumblr Blog

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drowsy-corpsegirl

viralfrog

dragon-in-a-fez

so much of the "research" on "phones bad" is just statisticians congratulating themselves in a circle

dragon-in-a-fez

example: I am right now reading an article on "phubbing", which is apparently the term for ignoring people you're with in order to pay attention to your phone. we'll slide right past the claim that this is a normal word people use.

the authors have developed a "phubbing scale" and demonstrated that it has strong correlation with the existing "maladaptive technology use" scale. from this, they conclude the "phubbing scale" is a valid and useful metric.

the "maladaptive technology use" scale, if you go and read that paper, has shown strong correlation with the "problematic smartphone application use" construct.

have you caught the problem yet? nowhere has it been proven that scoring high on any of this is actually bad for you.

imagine someone told you "if the ground is wet it probably rained recently". then you talked to someone about rain and they said "if it rained recently there were probably clouds". yeah okay sounds reasonable. then all three of these people told you their research proves clouds, rain, and wet ground are all signs of demonic possession in giraffes. you'd be like hold up, I think you lost me somewhere

ollievion

I don’t need a study to know using my phone makes me feel like shit

dragon-in-a-fez

do different things on your phone then. I'm guessing you haven't written off paper as a technology just because tax forms make you want to cry

weeknightbrutal-deactivated2026

It's fair to be skeptical of research into problematic mobile phone usage on the basis that while some studies have shown it to be correlated with anxiety, insomnia, and depression, correlation is not causation and it is difficult to establish a causal relationship when studying this kind of problem. It's also fair to be skeptical of psych research in general due to the problems that are pervasive in the field.

But being not just skeptical but confident that you've debunked all the extant research on the basis that...the dumb statisticians never even bothered to check if this was actually bad for you LMFAO IDIOTS is just plain anti-intellectual though.

dragon-in-a-fez

> spend 5 years getting a PhD in youth and digital media

> express annoyance with a common failing of academic writing in your field

> get called anti-intellectual

dragon-in-a-fez

now reading a paper where the researcher:

asked students to volunteer to take a "screen-free challenge" where they didn't use electronic devices in class for a semester

recorded students' views on the challenge at the end of the course, and found that most of the students who participated had positive views while most of the students who didn't participate had negative views

completely ignored that this might just mean "people who thought something was a bad idea didn't do it", and instead concluded "the screen-free challenge leads to more positive views on the learning experience"

I'm getting whiplash from all the looking into the camera I am doing here

allore

Just to clarify, they only recorded the students’ views at the end of the study?? They didn’t ask the students what they expected at the beginning or ask why they participated??

That seems like such a basic step to mitigate your #3!

dragon-in-a-fez

the thing you have to understand is that "screens bad" research gets published so easily you can basically make every research mistake ever invented and be fine

chameshida

Out dogged

7thgenbotulist

Kabru trying his usual approach to undermining people against Laios is so funny. It’s like he’s a grandmaster at chess, poker, and everything else that requires mind-games coming up to a guy, fully expecting to beat him at any game under any circumstances, only to realize he didn’t prepare for the one thing he’d actually be faced with, which is a hotdog eating contest against a guy whose friends call him “the vacuum cleaner”.

malama-art

lesbian note

desinteresse

Men who talk shit about gold diggers underestimate the grit it takes to put up with an insufferable man, even when money is involved. We should be thanking them for their service like they are veterans.

little-trash-ghost

Can't leave this in the tags..

oneheadtoanother

get-thee-to-a-shrubbery

sticking his finger fully into his hot coffee just to feel something

chongoblog

Trad man got the Tie Seatbelt and the Cue Ball Gear Shift That Doesn't Move

notajerusalemcricket-deactivate

gay-lotus

31 hours deep into the insomniac’s gambit and i tried to microwave a popsicle

gay-lotus

31 hours deep into the insomniac’s gambit and i posted on the wrong blog again

gay-lotus

homunculus-argument

Goths aren't "true to seed" in the sense that the biological offspring of two goths do not necessarily grow up to be goth, though inheriting the inclination for it from both parents increases the odds significantly. That is not how goths naturally reproduce.

The process is actually quite sophisticated, and requires the presence of a full-grown goth to trigger it. A pupal-stage proto-goth, at this point completely indistinguishable from any other small human child, only needs to encounter a mature specimen once - and while the initial imprinting that ensues will only take seconds, the incubation period often takes more than a decade, even several.

The first visible step of the transformation is triggered when the dormant goth suddenly gains awareness that they have free will and can do whatever they want with their appearance. While the progress may be gradual, or seem like the transformation happened all at once overnight, the initial seed was planted years ago. And now, in full bloom, a fully-fledged mature adult goth may finally be happy.

And that's why it's important to sometimes look goth as fuck in the grocery store. You might be seen by small child who had previously hoped to die before adulthood because everything they've heard about becoming a grownup is just pure misery, who will then consequently think to themselves "actually nevermind, that's what I want to be when I grow up."

marlynnofmany

One of the many benefits of being weird in public is possibly saving -- and definitely improving -- a stranger's life without ever knowing.

cipheramnesia

This is also one of the ways people become transgender.

doubletrea

girl wearing red lipstick and girl wearing blue lipstick enter a room together and both exit with purple lipstick

doubletrea

girl wearing red lipstick and girl wearing blue lipstick enter a room together and neither exit the room when you open the door they are not within. the room possesses no doors, windows, vents, or any other method of escape.

doubletrea

the entirety of the room is visible from your current position at the sole entry and exit point. the door opens outwards, and there are no objects within the room to hide behind or inside.

doubletrea

unsure what my followers are failing to understand in this post. It's quite simple in concept, is it not?

yamada-ryo

"Explaining binary search to a cop" should've caught on as a saying tbh.

kalichnikov

I forgot about the context to this. God this is so funny

Image description: screenshot of two paragraphs that read, "Afterward I found a chat room thread among Cambridge computer scientists, one of whom had also been told that unless he could pin down the moment of the theft no one would look at the footage. He said he tried to explain sorting algorithms to police - he was a computer scientist, after all.

"You don't search the whole thing, he said. You use a binary search. You fast forward to halfway, see if the bike is there and, if it is, zoom to three quarters of the way through. But if it isn't there at the halfway mark, you rewind to a quarter of the way through. It's very quick. In fact, he had pointed out, if the CCTV footage stretched back to the dawn of humanity it would still probably have only taken an hour to find the moment of the theft. This argument didn't go down well."