#screen use

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

my phone is specifically designated as my "stupid screen time" and my laptop is my "serious screen time" however i consider tumblr to be serious so i have to go on my laptop to post about gay vampires and the fuckability of various instruments

[melisssg99]

Me and my partner really want to reduce our use of screens/screen time.

I read how many experts believe that certain kinds of screen time can trigger such a large dopamine release in our brains reward pathway that is just as addictive as the dopamine high you can get from meth or heroin.

When I read this aloud to my partner we looked at each other and we knew we had to change the amount of screen time we have.

So he started looking for some new books to read. I started thinking of more options of small activities to do instead of mindless scrolling etc.

Some ideas I came up with so far:

•Reading! (Of course)

•Playing card or board games

•Playing our vinyls (we finally have our turntable installed)

•Gardening (of course, the weather seems to finally get better!)

•Puzzles/puzzlebooks

•Cloud or Star gazing (Can't wait for warmer days and nights to do this)

There must be more!

I feel a bit silly how doing so much on my phone is so normal that I can't even think of more right now 🤭

Any Ideas? ☺️

[kaapstadmk]

Just listened to a whole discussion about phone use in kids and I just need to sit, process, and vent for a second.

The speaker started with saying phones are a problem, because folks are more disconnected and looking at their phones at any given time throughout the day. I have a bone to pick with that, because, prior to smartphones, people were doing that, whether listening to their walkman, reading a book, drawing, imagining in their heads, playing with a toy they brought along, talking to someone, or playing with something they just found in their environment. People were just as distracted then, it was just less monolithically apparent, because of the wider diversity of distractions used - after all, you can listen to music, read, have a conversation, and play a game all on one singular tool now.

Then, they segued to the impact of phones on mental health. The problem is, however, the data and arguments used were data pertaining to screen time as a whole, which has been present since at least the 90s, talking about television use, later evolving to computer use; and about the mental health impacts of social media and unsupervised access to the Internet, which, again, is data and research that preceded smartphones.

Lastly, the speaker spent a significant amount of time discussing strategies of control over what their kids see, and I'm of mixed opinions about that. Yes, kids need safeguards, but if your viewpoint is coming from the avenue of control, you're already losing the battle. Instead, it should be about facilitation and supporting your kids to make wise decisions, first with safeguards, then without. Functionally these approaches often look similar, but because the motivation is different, the outcome is also often significantly different.

So, I'm not saying that you shouldn't monitor your child's smartphone use or that you shouldn't wait until they are of a developmental maturity to be able to use a phone responsibly, but what I am saying is that phrasing this conversation around restricting access to the tool (smartphones) and controlling your kids' exposures misses the actual risks and harms and creates an authoritarian relationship with your child. Instead, focus on creating alternative distractions to smartphones, incorporating phone screens into overall screen time limitations, and set up safeguards regarding what content your kids are accessing.

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

I’ve been on the internet for who knows how long and only NOW do I learn about the 20-20-20 rule.

After 20 minutes on the computer, look at an object at least 20 feet away for 20 seconds to prevent eye strain.

[timrousbeastie]

The algorithm gods showed me this and it struck a chord. It’s by someone called Genny Harrison on Facebook, who knew nothing about and have never previously heard of.

When Matt Damon said he’d been told to repeat a movie’s plot three or four times in dialogue because viewers are on their phones, it landed like a joke you laugh at and then keep thinking about. A studio note becomes an era. Stories once designed for a dark room and a captive mind are now rebuilt for a living room where attention is optional.

If that sounds like an entertainment industry problem, it is not. It is the same structural issue that shows up whenever someone publishes a careful argument online and then watches the replies roll in, aimed at claims the writer never made. I have mentioned this before in my own work. People respond to a point that exists only if you stop reading halfway. They argue with the tone of a paragraph instead of its conclusion. They miss the qualifier, the pivot, the sentence where the entire argument turns. At first, this feels personal, even frustrating. Over time, it becomes clear that it is structural. The audience did not suddenly become incapable. The environment changed.

The most revealing part of Damon’s anecdote is not the repetition itself. It is the assumption behind it. The assumption is that attention cannot be relied upon. So scripts must now do the work that viewers once did. Holding the thread. Remembering what matters. Carrying meaning from scene to scene. That is not a stylistic choice. It is a cognitive accommodation.

Researchers have a name for the behavior Damon is describing. Second screen viewing. Media multitasking. The habit of pairing one screen with another. Controlled studies show that people who multitask with multiple screens recall fewer details and comprehend less than those who focus on a single task. The brain’s working memory has limits, and constant task switching increases cognitive load, leaving less capacity for integration and understanding. Attention does not simply divide. It degrades.

Narrative depends on continuity. So does argument. To follow a story, the mind must hold multiple pieces of information at once, compare them, update them, and remember earlier moments when later ones arrive. The same is true for reading a long essay. You cannot accurately disagree with a claim you did not finish reading. When attention fragments, people often absorb keywords and tone while missing structure, logic, and conclusion. The result is not shallow disagreement but confident misinterpretation.

This pattern now appears across education. Film professors report that students struggle to sit through assigned movies. Playback is sped up. Scenes are watched out of order. Sometimes the film is abandoned altogether. The irony is sharp. Even students training in visual storytelling are consuming stories in fragments, then struggling to articulate themes or recall basic plot. The environment has trained them not to stay.

Reading shows similar effects. Studies comparing screen reading to paper reading consistently find reduced comprehension for longer, linear texts on screens. Skimming becomes the default mode. The cognitive scientist Maryanne Wolf has warned that digital reading habits encourage speed and efficiency at the expense of deep reading, the slower process associated with inference, empathy, and critical thought. When deep reading weakens, so does the ability to follow a complex argument from beginning to end.

For children and adolescents, the stakes are higher. Neuroimaging and developmental studies increasingly associate heavy early screen exposure with differences in brain pathways related to language and literacy. Other research shows that increased screen time displaces the conversational exchanges that build vocabulary, comprehension, and attention regulation. Scientists are careful to avoid alarmism, but the pattern is consistent. Brains shaped by constant interruption struggle with continuity.

What Damon’s comment reveals is that major institutions are no longer resisting this shift. They are designing for it. Streaming platforms benefit when content plays even when attention drifts. Repetition becomes a feature. It ensures comprehension without demanding presence. The viewer is not asked to meet the story halfway. The story bends all the way.

The same accommodation is now visible in writing, media, and public discourse. Headlines repeat themselves. Arguments are flattened. Writers are encouraged to summarize their conclusions early, just in case the reader does not make it to the end. When a reader misinterprets a piece, the burden subtly shifts from reader responsibility to writer adaptation. Clarify more. Simplify further. Repeat again.

There is a historical parallel here, but it is not comforting. Mid twentieth century critics worried that television would flatten culture and replace reading with passive consumption. Those fears were overstated. Television reshaped attention, but it still asked for presence. Phones demand division. They fracture time into intervals too small to sustain narrative or argument.

The quiet anger comes from recognizing what is lost. Complex thought requires patience. So does disagreement. When readers cannot hold an argument long enough to engage with what was actually said, discourse decays. We begin responding to impressions rather than ideas. To half sentences rather than claims. To tone rather than substance.

This is not a call to reject technology or retreat into nostalgia. It is a call to name what is happening. Attention is not infinite. It is trained. When culture stops asking for it, the skill erodes. Damon’s repeated plot point is not a harmless screenwriting tweak. It is a warning signal.

Culture always adapts to its tools. The question is whether it adapts upward or downward. We are not doomed to simpler stories or shallower thought. But we may be training ourselves to expect them. And once expectation shifts, it becomes remarkably difficult to restore the patience required to follow a story, or an argument, all the way through.

Source: Genny Harrison on Facebook

[patheticpomegranite]

pt.2

this is a smaller observation but, i also feel like there is a class difference in what kids might get the brunt of "brainrot".

when we think of what kind of content kids watch, if they have been kept from Tiktok, they watch cartoon TV shows and Youtube videos. Youtube is well known for "pregnant Elsa and Spiderman" videos because you can make some profit of off the most nonsensical videos if they are directed to children. Youtube shorts also doesn't have as many genuine creators who try at "good content" and has a lot of faceless ai creators also trying to make content for children because it is younger than Tiktok and was created right before the boom of ai.

when i was little in the u.s. my mom didn't have her greencard and needed to clean houses under the table. i spent like 3-5 hours after school just sitting on the couch of richer white ladies' houses, not allowed to touch anything and without a phone. i feel like lower class cannot afford daycare so they end up spending a lot time with their kids, not just to bond, but because they cannot afford to not do so. in seattle a lot of the mom's drop off their kids early and then pick them up super early. like they drop them off, go to pilates, got to work for an hour or two, and then pick them because they miss their kids and want to spend time with them. lower class moms are stuck with a lot more time when they need to work on something but the kids still need to be entertained.

if you are lower class and trying to avoid rotting your kids' brains you don't expose them to Tiktok and try to avoid Youtube. but kids will most likely want to watch something anyway because they are exposed to screens at daycare or school (my sister's kindergarten literally gave them ipads in case of a snow day). so you want to let them watch cartoons, that are all on streaming services, and all of them are spread around each streaming service. you'll need to either have multiple subscription to different streaming services or the kids will keep rewatching the same shows over and over and over and will quote them all the time. streaming services are becoming more and more expensive and lower class people are pushed out of them right into youtube, where the brainrot lives. the more accessible the video platform the more accessible it is to ai "content creators" or people willing to surrender any quality in kids content. upper class people can afford to spend time with their kids when they want to and have the energy. they can also afford access to "higher quality" kids content. i feel like tech is just making life worse for people who already have it hard.

[patheticpomegranite]

pt. 1

hot take i guess, but arguing that something is common sense is one of the least effective ways to argue for something. common sense is almost entirely based of off what way of thinking is common now, and it it prone to change, kind of like the "it was a different time" argument. like just because something was justified doesn't mean it wasn't wrong, and doesn't mean that people at the time thought it was wrong. underage brides, slavery, ableism, has always been wrong, and people have been speaking out against it for as long as it's been around. public opinion is bound to change, but it is important that our morals and values stay the same. we shouldn't base an argument on public opinion.

i hear the common sense argument kind of a lot when talking about screen use with young kids. it's common sense that having your kids always at a screen is probably not great for them, so far, but it's still becoming more and more normal, the "common sense" is changing. it's important to note that not only is it just generally not great, but to say why it's not great. screen use in kids is bad because the internet is built in a way to get the most profit out of the most vulnerable kids. it is full of scammers, predators, and an algorithm built to keep people addicted and distant from the real world. it's like building a daycare in the middle vegas.

i feel like as we're losing human rights we are also losing children's rights. children are set up to be unimaginative, socially anxious, addicts, who are not protected from abuse from adults, and then we blame them for their rotting brain. yes, children are annoying, but it's important to understand why they're annoying, and try to listen and help them anyway, they don't have anyone else.

anyway this is basically just a rehash of cj the x's video about besos and bo burnham in my own words.