Nature is healing. Glad to see this. I was in high school when smart phones really became widespread, and was personally still on a flip phone most of the way through. I think there's something healthy to the boredom the kids describe, which ultimately leads to socialization and introspection. 24/7 social media seems like a very destructive portal to isolation, and having a reprieve from that, if only a few hours a day, seems like a great thing.

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moduspol 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Not just socialization and introspection, and not just among kids!

I guess I'm probably preaching to the choir here on HN, but the amount of social woes we are currently experiencing that are indirectly the result of a dramatic increase in social media consumption is a lot higher than I think most people expect.

There are just so many aspects of life that one only really gets nudged into doing at least partially out of boredom, despite ultimately fulfilling so much more. When you can stave off boredom instantly and indefinitely, there are all kinds of experiences that will be substituted.

	▲	HPsquared 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Hundreds of millions of people are totally oblivious and uncaring of their situation and surroundings, so long as they have access to enough digital distraction. It's the new opiate of the masses.

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rTX5CMRXIfFG 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I would not have learned to play the guitar if I had a smartphone then, or if the internet was any faster than a dial-up. Now I have an outlet to make something beautiful out of my loneliness whenever it strikes.

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flir 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Internet ruined me for anything long-form. I'm old enough to remember the Before Times, but a lot of people aren't.

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rickydroll 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I suspect this counts as phone addiction, but I'm reading many books on Kindle with the All You Can Eat Kindle subscription. One thing I've become addicted to is the never-ending series of science fiction stories, for example, such as Backyard Starship, No Stress, Space Express, The Worst Ship in the Fleet, Homeworld Lost, and Frontlines (Martin Kloos, worth paying for). Then there are the numerous series by Alma T. C. Boykin. She's able to spin a story out of everyday life, drawing on history and mythology, while adding enough fantasy to hold my interest.

Some of them are good, while others are cheesy. There are also series I will not admit to having started and given up on when I realized how bad they were. You can thank me later when you realize how much of your life I've just wasted.

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ghaff 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I used to read books voraciously and, while I do still read books, it's a pretty small number compared to what I used to do. I've been trying to pare my bookshelves of books I'm never realistically going to reread or read.

	▲	bbreier 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Funny enough, I've had the opposite experience. Easy access to books and reviews has me reading conservatively 10x as much as I did a decade ago

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mike50 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The rapid decline in writing quality caused by CNN and the death of print journalism and the quality book writers that used to come from that space has destroyed long form writing.

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balfirevic 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

On the other hand, I would not have learned to play the guitar without the high-speed internet.

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lanfeust6 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Well. I had the internet, video games, tv, extracurriculars, etc and still learned the guitar. Kids have a lot of free time if you don't overschedule them.

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naasking 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I think there's something healthy to the boredom the kids describe, which ultimately leads to socialization and introspection.

This. People these days talk about boredom like it's the worst thing ever.

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JohnFen 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I think there's something healthy to the boredom the kids describe

I recently heard the comedian Jimmy Carr make an excellent comment about how we as a society think of boredom as a negative, when it's actually a positive: "Boredom is just unacknowledged serenity."

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cortesoft 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I really don't think I understand what it must be like to have smart phones in high school. I went to school in the "no beepers allowed because only drug dealers have them" era