Technology: The Good and the Bad by Niki2

You were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.

Good grief, there are days when I really hate science journalism. It's so sloppy. I mean, "research has found," with no cite on what research exactly?* And paraphrasing one word (or even part of one word) wrong can change the meaning of something so much. For example, the Time article says:

Quote:
And daily use of media and technology — what teen doesn't use tech each day? — makes kids more prone to anxiety and depression.

- while the original press release ( http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-08/apa-sng072711.php) says:

Quote:
Daily overuse of media and technology has a negative effect on the health of all children, preteens and teenagers by making them more prone to anxiety, depression, and other psychological disorders, as well as by making them more susceptible to future health problems.

Now, they don't define what qualifies as overuse, but that's different than just logging in every day, which the first quote implies.

I'd still like to see the actual studies all this info comes from, because I don't see why they concluded the causation goes from technology use to psych disorders, rather than from psych disorders to technology use (because it seems just as likely that kids who already have problems are using tech to self-medicate, find social support, etc.).

P.S. Hello! Long time no see.

---

*And as someone who spent a year working for a health magazine, I'm just as guilty of this as anyone. They didn't really pay me enough to care about citing my sources, but that's no excuse.

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Monday, August 8, 2011 8:41 AM

BYTEMITE

I'm with yin yang, that article is ugly.

And also, it's the same kind of sensationalized "the youngsters are out of control!" you see with EVERY generation. Like when it was music, "these kids are all lazy and on drugs and won't do well in school."

Replace facebook with "computer games," same story.

Quote:
Daily overuse of media and technology has a negative effect on the health of all children, preteens and teenagers by making them more prone to anxiety, depression, and other psychological disorders, as well as by making them more susceptible to future health problems.

Oh gosh, and that has nothing to do with being in the information age when everything bad in the world is blasted from our screens at all times. And good point about self-medicating.

To the writer of this article: please.

EDIT: Um. Oops. Maybe I should finish reading a post before I go off.

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Monday, August 8, 2011 11:18 AM

You were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
EDIT: Um. Oops. Maybe I should finish reading a post before I go off.

Lol. I didn't see this before you edited it, but I assume it had something to do with my footnote, yeah? Whatever you said, I probably deserved it.

On the other hand, it's not like science writers are entirely to blame. If editorial policies regarding citations were better, then less crap articles like this would end up being published.

... And I'll stop myself there before I go on a rant about all the problems with journalism.

Agreed about the sensationalism and the information age in general. It's a downward spiral: the news puts out stuff on blood and doom that they think people want to see (and will make them money), people watch it because they think they need to know, then the news puts out more sensationalist pieces, which people watch despite and/or because of how disturbing it is, then the news ends up scouring the streets to find (or manufacture) even more shocking stuff, etc. And it's one of the reasons - aside from the endless bickering - why I haven't been lurking around here for a while; keeping up on the news is depressing.

When it comes to health articles specifically, most of them can be boiled down to "everyone is doing something wrong and it will kill you" and here's the specific, impossible-to-follow routine/diet/whatever you NEED to fix it. And so many of these articles contradict each other, even from the same sources - I've seen Yahoo homepage articles almost right next to each other that are giving out mixed messages. If it was so hard to stay alive that we need all these drugs and guides and products, the human race would not have survived. But the media doesn't profit from relaxed, well-adjusted people, so they create anxiety and sell the cure.

Oops. Ended up with a bit of a rant anyway. I'm sure you already know all this stuff, too. It's just so aggravating.

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Monday, August 8, 2011 11:38 AM

BYTEMITE

Nah, it wasn't an attack on you, actually I had complained that most of these youngster technology scare articles don't look at the positive impact the technology has on kids, then I noticed the article happened to have a few lines about it.

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Monday, August 8, 2011 11:57 AM

You were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Nah, it wasn't an attack on you, actually I had complained that most of these youngster technology scare articles don't look at the positive impact the technology has on kids, then I noticed the article happened to have a few lines about it.

Oh, okay.

It's interesting how they bury that info, though, and only focus on the bad in the headline and lede. The writer or their editor could argue that the bad is more newsworthy, but I'd point out that people are generally prejudiced against Facebook and other places, so wouldn't "Facebook increases empathy in kids" be the more attention-grabbing title? I certainly didn't expect it, and I don't hate Facebook like most people seem to.

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Monday, August 8, 2011 1:03 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Nah, it wasn't an attack on you, actually I had complained that most of these youngster technology scare articles don't look at the positive impact the technology has on kids, then I noticed the article happened to have a few lines about it.

But that's kind of the problem - the way this stuff is spun. It wasn't long ago that letting your kids play Grand Theft Auto was certain to lead them straight to death row - until some enterprising doctors found out that playing video games actually INCREASES manual dexterity, a fairly important thing for a surgeon to have...

It seems like you get articles like this all the time: 99 lines about how evil and bad this or that latest thing is for kids, and then a little half-assed semi-rebuttal printed in the journalistic equivalent of an under-your-breath mumble, along the lines of "Oh. And it also cures 100% of all cancers in clinical studies."

Point being, it doesn't matter what the *good* effects are, the media sells more copy when it reports the bad news in a rush-to-judgment, stop-the-presses, out-of-breath rush of excitement.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Monday, August 8, 2011 2:00 PM

Beir bua agus beannacht

Like most things, I feel that moderation is the key. I see nothing wrong with videogames, facebook, computer time, pretends, sugary foods, sports, art, eating out, having something to drink, all of this can be good and nice, it just needs to be done in moderation. I think that moderation solves a lot of the world's problems really.
So yeah, articles like this don't mean much to me.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Monday, August 8, 2011 2:03 PM

KWICKO

Bingo, Riona. My kryptonite is cheese enchiladas. I know this. I know they're unhealthy. As a result of this knowledge, I don't let myself eat them very often at all, and I make damned sure I *earn* them when I get them! A 30-mile bike ride *might* buy me a couple cheese enchiladas, but I feel like I need to make that right about a half-dozen times before I've really EARNED 'em. :)

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Monday, August 8, 2011 2:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by RionaEire:
Like most things, I feel that moderation is the key. I see nothing wrong with videogames, facebook, computer time, pretends, sugary foods, sports, art, eating out, having something to drink, all of this can be good and nice, it just needs to be done in moderation. I think that moderation solves a lot of the world's problems really.
So yeah, articles like this don't mean much to me.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

I agree with also. Unfortunately we don't seem to be a species that practices moderation all that well. Hence junk food, sugary food, soft drinks (what do you call em again - fizzy stuff like cola) are all consumed in massive amounts and large chunks of the population of the western world have asses that you could trampoline on, should you be so perverse. Same goes for alcohol and drug use, including prescription drugs. We're like five year olds in a lolly/candy/sweet shop with a twenty dollar note burning a hole in our shorts.

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Monday, August 8, 2011 6:23 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Yay, you've left me with little to add, beyond just how pathetic a load of bullshit the endless demonisation of youth is - I just compiled traffic accident studies today regarding data from the nearest three zip codes, and the primary cause of driver-error accidents isn't teenieboppers, nope, it's the very SELF SAME age and income group that's been demonising them!
Annnnnd I will be handing it around to some folk at UofM tomorrow, then getting my ass out of dodge before the sparks start flying!

FOR SCIENCE!

Nice to see you again, Y-Y, would you like to join me and Bytes informal mad science club ?
We have cookies....

-Frem
good golly i'm evil...

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Monday, August 8, 2011 7:07 PM

Beir bua agus beannacht

Sometimes the ability to be moderate takes a while to learn, which is why parents are supposed to help kids to develop this ability so when they're grown they can start practicing it on their own without having someone look over their shoulder. I'm down to one pitcher of cherry kool-aid a month, yeah I know its bad for me but I've loved the stuff since I was nine months old and stopped breastfeeding because of how yummy it was to me. But in the last several years I've been cutting back and now I think I'm doing well as far as that goes. Now to work on eating less candy.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Tuesday, August 9, 2011 11:56 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Oh my, Yin...I didn't catch that they'd REphrased it like that! I just look around for stuff to put up that might get a discussion going; thank you for clarifying on that one! I was tired and just took the stuff I found for granted (my bad). And that's a wonderful point about kids self-medicating who already have disorders, as someone with a disorder, boy, does that make sense to ME!

Okay, all in all, article = trash, mea culpa, my "fail" (Raptor should love that one!), 'nuff said.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Tuesday, August 9, 2011 8:54 PM

You were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.

No worries, Niki. It's such a small detail, I can understand how you (and probably the article writer, editor, etc.) missed it. And I don't think this was a total fail - it got me to de-lurk, after all.

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
[...] large chunks of the population of the western world have asses that you could trampoline on [...]

This seems like an unnecessary, inflammatory thing to say. I normally don't point that out in RWED, given that so many posters seem to thrive on being as inflammatory as possible, but I was surprised to see from you, Magons. I think the "obesity crisis" is total BS, but even if it weren't, I don't think portraying fat people as grotesque (even in jokes or hyperbole) is acceptable.

With regards to moderation in general: it seems to me like "moderation" is mostly used as an empty buzzword, just another subtle way to try to police or shame people for their health (with the added bonus of being vague almost to the point of meaninglessness). I don't think that's how people are using it in this thread, and if it works for you, great - to each their own - but I find discussions around health to be so fraught and toxic these days that I'm not sure any general advice other than "do what you like" is helpful.

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Nice to see you again, Y-Y, would you like to join me and Bytes informal mad science club ?
We have cookies....

Well, I'm not much of a scientist, but I am quite mad. So, yes.

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Tuesday, August 9, 2011 9:51 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by yinyang:

This seems like an unnecessary, inflammatory thing to say. I normally don't point that out in RWED, given that so many posters seem to thrive on being as inflammatory as possible, but I was surprised to see from you, Magons. I think the "obesity crisis" is total BS, but even if it weren't, I don't think portraying fat people as grotesque (even in jokes or hyperbole) is acceptable.

You seem on the attack against me today.

I find obesity of western nations offensive, given that most of the world is calorie deprived. We are gluttons, and I include myself in that definition. Go to Asia or Africa and you soon realise how hideous we are lumbering around in shorts and teeshirts with our fat waving in the wind. It is offensive. It's offensive how much we eat and consume and throw away. The world is both our lolly shop our garbage tip and we don't care one whit. So if you want to be offended by my statement, go ahead. I choose to be offended by your preciousness and your defence of the indefendable.

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Tuesday, August 9, 2011 11:21 PM

You were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.

Two posts, one of which I don't really think was hostile at all, hardly counts as me going on the attack against you. But given how oppositional your views are to mine with regards to obesity, I think I'll just agree to disagree and move on.

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Wednesday, August 10, 2011 6:41 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Magons, I'm with you, tho' I see it slightly differently. While I don't consider us gluttons. I consider advertising and waaaay too much choices as contributing to natural human weakness. IF the other countries you mentioned had the choices, resources and were constantly barraged with advertising telling them to "eat, buy, EAT, BUY!", I think they'd be in the same boat as we are. There's also the fact that fast-food is worse and more fattenting, and so many families where the parents both work depend on them, as do an awfully large number of the poor (because McDonald's is cheaper than trying to cook dinner unless you REALLY work at it, if you don't have the money).

But I think the boat we ARE in is a dangerous one and a rather depressing one. Our weight isn't good for us (I speak as the general "our", I don't look like some I see all around me!), it's made up of the wrong things, and our lack of exercise contributes to it. It's our "society", to me, not any one individual's gluttony.

On the flight home from New Orleans (for which I thank you guys yet again!), the guy next to me was enormous...he barely fit into his seat and as a reult, I was forced to sit pushed into him. I kept squirming to try and get as far over as I could, but only by serious effort was I able to put ANY space between us, and then only for a few minutes. I know I offended him, and it wasn't that he was fat, it was that I just couldn't stand being "snuggled" so forcibly against a total stranger. Maybe it means I have some prejudice against overweight people, I dunno, but that's how it FELT, and that was the most exhausting leg of the trip.

I know when I see women, especially young women, walking with their mother and both are HUGE, it upsets me...not a lot, I just notice it and feel sad. All I can think of is how their lives will be determined so much by their weight, and I admit I get a little disgusted at their mother for letting it be that way. If that's prejudice, then I am.

Waiting for my car to be repaired one day, they had the TV on in the waiting room and I was stuck watching this show where that guy (I think from England?) was helping a family, all of whom were morbidly obese. He showed them all kinds of things they could do for the good of the kids, and discovered their little boy was already diabetic. The parents were in tears and swore to change how they fed their kids. They came back six months later and the family had reverted to their old patterns, and the kid was on medication for diabetes. It sickened me; I understand the reasons, but it made me angry at the parents nonetheless.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Wednesday, August 10, 2011 8:51 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
It is offensive. It's offensive how much we eat and consume and throw away. The world is both our lolly shop our garbage tip and we don't care one whit.

I disagree - I *do* care, enough so to invest significant time, effort and resources into trying to change that, and change the seriously broken mentality which leads to it.

So coulda ya manage to paint around me with that big brush there, thanks ?

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Wednesday, August 10, 2011 11:29 AM

BYTEMITE

Oh man, enchiladas. Do you know you can make some awesome enchiladas just using the store bought El Paso sauce but adding cinnamon to it? Stuff's delicious. I ate four regular sized tortillas stuffed with vegetables Monday. For extra awesome add cheese or an imitation thereof.

Watch out for Frem's cookies, they have untested psychotropics in them derived from unicorn blood.

Unicorns don't exist normally... Inter dimensional portal technology was involved.

As a side note, unicorn blood tastes suspiciously like El Paso Enchilada Sauce with cinnamon in it. I'll have to conduct further research.

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Wednesday, August 10, 2011 12:02 PM

Beir bua agus beannacht

Yin, I don't know you yet because we haven't talked, but I suspect we will disagree a lot, just puttin that out there now so we can both be prepared for it. I too can't help but notice that you sort of have it in for Magon's today. Not to say that Magon's and I agree on everything, but we seem to have come to an amicable understanding of late and I like her. As far as weight goes I do think it can be a problem when one's health is compromised because of it. Other than that it doesn't really matter to me. But I only saw Magon's comment as just a fly-by-night thing, I didn't read into it at all and its true that we in Western countries do take food for granted and sometimes have too much of it.
Mostly what I find interesting is that Magon's and I seem to be agreeing on things more and more lately and that you don't agree with either of us on stuff, even though she and I have totally different views on the world.
Oh well, time will tell. Hey that rhymes, :)

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Wednesday, August 10, 2011 12:44 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Cinnamon is actually a quite good backstop to peppers and is used in that fashion in some cajun cooking, it also has some useful antiseptic properties - an old quick bandage method for minor cuts involved a fistful of gossamer (aka spiderweb) and a dash of cinnamon, presumably to prevent infection.

Actually it's not the cookies, or despite suspicious glares, the brownies, but the cake - I have a niiiice recipe for Absinthe-Ginger Cake, but I wouldn't reccommend you drive after having some, and lets not even talk about the Rum-n-Brandy fruitcake, heh.

I did quite by unintentional chance, wind up putting away a couple "special" brownies down in Oklahoma once, washed down with half a bottle of Boones Farm - and nobody TOLD me those brownies (which were in fact damn good brownies in their own right, mind you) were "special" cause everyone assumed I knew.
Apparently though, THC seems to have no discernable effect in regards to personality or behavior, I really was quite, quite stoned out of my wits, but I think what happens with most folk is that the repressed parts of their personality start to surface, and someone who doesn't really repress much if any of it won't react the same.
The looking-through-a-bowl vision effect did kinda throw me though.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Thursday, August 11, 2011 8:59 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Interesting the different ways people perceive things. I didn't see anything "attacking" in Yin's posts, but I did see

Quote:
I choose to be offended by your preciousness and your defence of the indefendable.

as pretty attacking and inflammatory. The use of "preciousness" and "indefensible" seems pretty assumptive, judgmental and a statement many might agree with (that it's indefensible, I mean). Since we don't know Yin that well in such a short time, maybe we should wait a bit before judging him/her. JMHO.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Thursday, August 11, 2011 7:28 PM

You were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.

Thanks, Niki. (BTW, I'm a her.)

Call me weak, cowardly, melodramatic, whatever, but I think I've already had enough of RWED for this year. Maybe I'll see y'all next year.

::snags a cookie on the way out::

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Thursday, August 11, 2011 10:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
Interesting the different ways people perceive things. I didn't see anything "attacking" in Yin's posts, but I did see
Quote:
I choose to be offended by your preciousness and your defence of the indefendable.
as pretty attacking and inflammatory. The use of "preciousness" and "indefensible" seems pretty assumptive, judgmental and a statement many might agree with (that it's indefensible, I mean). Since we don't know Yin that well in such a short time, maybe we should wait a bit before judging him/her. JMHO.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

meh, Yin had a go at me in a couple of threads and I bit back. I don't know her modus operandus and I thought she went in hard on me for someone who doesn't come here or contribute much. My comments were throw away, and really my statement was meant to be about the excesses of the west, rather than attacking fat people.

I have observed in conversations on the Internet, that Americans like to put things a bit more delicately than what is usual or common for Australians, and that I can sometimes come across as a rude bastard. I do try not to go on the attack if I can help it, but I will bite back from time to time.

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Thursday, August 11, 2011 10:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
Magons, I'm with you, tho' I see it slightly differently. While I don't consider us gluttons. I consider advertising and waaaay too much choices as contributing to natural human weakness. IF the other countries you mentioned had the choices, resources and were constantly barraged with advertising telling them to "eat, buy, EAT, BUY!", I think they'd be in the same boat as we are. There's also the fact that fast-food is worse and more fattenting, and so many families where the parents both work depend on them, as do an awfully large number of the poor (because McDonald's is cheaper than trying to cook dinner unless you REALLY work at it, if you don't have the money).

You see I believe we ARE gluttons. Not just with food, but everything. We are primed to live a life of excessive consumption. That is our culture, and I guess advertising is part of that, but advertising happens in other countries as well. It's just that westerners tend to consume to excess, food, alcohol, sex, technology. It always really seems to apparent when I have visited Asia, where even in the wealthy parts you are less likely to see fat people. And the food is everywhere, plentiful and yummy and people eat all day long. They just don't eat too much.

years ago I visited america after living in Europe and I visited Disneyland. I saw obese families, lots of them, something I had never really come across in my youth in Australia or in my time in Europe. I mean you saw fat people, but not families, not that often. Also what was different was the serving sizes, 2-3 times that what was served in Europe easily. Now all that is here as well. I can't believe how big portions have become over the past 10 years as we follow the American model in how we eat. I understand that things have changed in the UK as well.

So to my mind it is obscene that we are so fat, that we spend so much on diets and medication and medical treatment and a huge proprotion of the world's population are simply unable to get enough calories to survive.

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Friday, August 12, 2011 8:57 PM