←back to thread

1401 points alankay | 6 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom

This request originated via recent discussions on HN, and the forming of HARC! at YC Research. I'll be around for most of the day today (though the early evening).
Show context
guelo ◴[] No.11939990[source]
When you were envisioning today's computers in the 70s you seemed to have been focused mostly on the educational benefits but it turns out that these devices are even better for entertainment to the point were they are dangerously addictive and steal time away from education. Do you have any thoughts on interfaces that guide the brain away from its worst impulses and towards more productive uses?
replies(1): >>11940143 #
alankay ◴[] No.11940143[source]
We were mostly thinking of "human advancement" or as Engelbart's group termed it "Human Augmentation" -- this includes education along with lots of other things. I remember noting that if Moore's Law were to go a decade beyond 1995 (Moore's original extrapolation) that things like television and other "legal drugs" would be possible. We already had a very good sense of this before TV things were possible from noting how attractive early video games -- like SpaceWar -- were. This is a part of an industrial civilization being able to produce surpluses (the "industrial" part) with the "civilization" part being how well children can be helped to learn not to give into the cravings of genetics in a world of over-plenty. This is a huge problem in a culture like the US in which making money is rather separated from worrying about how the money is made.
replies(3): >>11940414 #>>11941087 #>>11952275 #
gkya ◴[] No.11941087[source]
I guess in the use of technology one faces a process rather similar to natural selection, in which the better the user's ability to restrict his use to what he has to do, the more likely the survival, i.e. the user will not procrastinate and get distracted. The use of computers for entertainment is unstoppable, it's nearly impossible to not allow the kids find and play those games, chat with friends on WhatsApp, and be exploited otherwise by companies that make money from that sort of exploitation, even though that's at the cost of their psychological health and future success. People spend every single second of the day connected and distracted, and this seems irreversible. I wonder if you have any practical thought on how this can be remedied.
replies(1): >>11941542 #
alankay ◴[] No.11941542[source]
My friend Neil Postman (our best media critic for many years) advocated teaching children to be "Guerilla Warriors" in the war of thousands of entities trying to seize their brains for food. Most children -- and most parents, most people -- do not even realize the extent to which this is not just aggressive, but regressive ...
replies(1): >>11943802 #
a_c ◴[] No.11943802[source]
Can you elaborate more on that?
replies(2): >>11944999 #>>11945002 #
alankay ◴[] No.11944999[source]
Neil's idea was that all of us should become aware of the environments we live in and how our brain/minds are genetically disposed to accommodate to them without our being very aware of the process, and, most importantly, winding up almost completely unaware of what we've accommodated to by winding up at a "new normal".

The start of a better way is similar to the entry point of science "The world is not as it seems". Here, it's "As a human being I'm a collection of traits and behaviors, many of which are atavistic and even detrimental to my progress". Getting aware of how useful cravings for salt, fat, sugar, caffeine, etc., turn into a problem when these are abundant and consumer companies can load foods with them....

And, Neil points out -- in books like "Amusing Ourselves To Death" and "The End Of Childhood" -- we have cravings for "news" and "novelty" and "surprise" and even "blinking", etc. which consumer companies have loaded communications channels with ...

Many of these ideas trace back to McLuhan, Innis, Ong, etc.

Bottom line: children need to learn how to use the 21st century, or there's a good chance they will lose the 21st century.

replies(1): >>11945332 #
_pfxa ◴[] No.11945332[source]
> Bottom line: children need to learn how to use the 21st century, or there's a good chance they will lose the 21st century.

Most children meet entertainment technology as early as before the first birthday, though. Many pre-teens that I see around possess smartphones and/or tablets. Most of the early teenagers possess multiple devices. None of these will be able to judge what's is beneficial to their future and well-being, and opt for it rather than what is immediately fun and pleasing. Just like most of them will live on chocolate bars and crisps if let to do so. The burden falls on the parents, a burden they don't take.

I myself can't think of a future other than one full of device addicts, and a small bunch that managed to liberate themselves from perennial procrastination and pseudo-socialisation only in their twenties. And while my country can prohibit certain products (food, etc.) from import and production within its own borders (e.g. genetically modified, chemically engineered to be consumed greedily), this can't be done with websites, because (a) it's technically impossible and (b) it 'contradicts freedom of speech'. I'll ask the reader to philosophise over (b), because neither the founding fathers of the US nor the pioneers of the french revolution, nor most of the libertarian, freedom-bringing revolutionists had a Facebook to tag their friends' faces.

(edit: I don't want to get into a debate over freedom of speech, and don't support any form of cencuring of it, tho I don't want freedom of speech at the cost of exploitation of generations and generations by some companies that use it as a shelter for themselves.)

replies(1): >>11945348 #
alankay ◴[] No.11945348[source]
I once said that "Television is the last technology we should be allowed to invent without a Surgeon General's warning on it"
replies(1): >>11946995 #
internaut ◴[] No.11946995[source]
> Kay: children need to learn how to use the 21st century, or there's a good chance they will lose the 21st century.

> Gkya: I myself can't think of a future other than one full of device addicts, and a small bunch that managed to liberate themselves from perennial procrastination and pseudo-socialisation only in their twenties.

As a infovore this worries me. If we cannot control ourselves and come up with better solutions for self control then the authoritarian minded are likely to do it for us.

The Net is addictive and all those people pretending it ain't so are kidding themselves.

It's easy to imagine anti-Net campaigners in the same way as we see anti-globalization activists today.

I myself have seen the effects of good diet, exercise and meditation on a group of people, and it is quite remarkable how changed for the better people are. So there is hope!

I believe that social change, example: phubbing being widely regarded as taboo, isn't fast enough to keep with the Net's evolution. By the time a moral stance against phubbing is established mobile phones probably won't exist. For this I think we need a technological solution which is as adaptive as an immune system, but also one which people can opt in to. Otherwise eventually people will demand governments do things like turn off the Net at certain times during the day or ban email after 6pm and so on.

replies(1): >>11948642 #
gkya ◴[] No.11948642[source]
The introduction to technology, well, essentially I'm talking about internet, is so early on a kids life that we can't just say "we should control ourselves". You can't put your kid in a room full of crisps, sweets, alcohol, drugs, pornography, and expect it to come out ten, fifteen years later as a healthy individual that is not an addict to none of them. This is what we essentially do with the internet.

> I myself have seen the effects of good diet, exercise and meditation on a group of people, and it is quite remarkable how changed for the better people are. So there is hope!

You're an adult, I am too. We can realize: this is stealing my life. But a kid can't. And stolen days don't return. This is why I'm commenting: we'd rather raise better individuals than letting them do wtf they want and hoping they'll fix themselves later.

replies(2): >>11949016 #>>11952046 #
tremon ◴[] No.11952046[source]
You can't put your kid in a room full of crisps, sweets, alcohol, drugs, pornography, and expect it to come out ten, fifteen years later as a healthy individual that is not an addict to none of them

I know this is bandied about a lot, but is this actually proven? With the exception of drugs, all of those you mention have been within easy reach for me (actually, as a Dutchman, even softdrugs were just one step away if I'd wanted to). Yet I don't consider myself addicted to any of those.

replies(2): >>11952736 #>>11957497 #
1. gkya ◴[] No.11952736{7}[source]
I'm not a native speaker of English, so I wonder: does kid not mean person not yet adolescent? I'm referring to 0-14 yrs olds when I say kid. If we agree on that, and you still say, it's not proven, we can try, well then I can't do much than hoping you either don't have children or no child's responsibility is on you otherwise.
replies(1): >>11953903 #
2. nkassis ◴[] No.11953903[source]
Reading his post I believe he meant the above mentioned things were within reach of him as a child (I don't believe he meant now as an adult).

" I can't do much than hoping you either don't have children or no child's responsibility is on you otherwise."

That's a strong statement to make. Implying he's unable to raise children because he'd like to see evidence that the internet actually has a negative influence on children.

replies(1): >>11954150 #
3. gkya ◴[] No.11954150[source]
I interpreted his message as he did not only want evidence for the internet, but also the other stuff I mentioned, and their effects on kids. I'm sorry if that wasn't the case.
replies(1): >>11959824 #
4. tremon ◴[] No.11959824{3}[source]
No, I did not mean I wanted evidence of their effect on kids. I want evidence that "putting your kid in a room full of $bad_stuff" always leads to addiction, since that strikes me as nothing more than scare stories.

Good parents can raise their children correctly even with $bad_stuff present around them, that was the point I was trying to make.

replies(1): >>11960544 #
5. gkya ◴[] No.11960544{4}[source]
> Good parents can raise their children correctly even with $bad_stuff present around them, that was the point I was trying to make.

I concur. But the internet exposure of kids is mostly not governed by parents. They either are alone with the connected device in their rooms, away from them, or with a mobile device out of their home. The best the parents can do is to educate the kids, but the public lacks the knowledge to effectively do so. They should be given the formation to be able to educate their children, and furthermore schools should educate minors on the use of tech.

"putting your kid in a room full of $bad_stuff" will mostly lead to addiction if the parent is not there to teach the kid: this is harmful to you; not you think?

replies(1): >>11961981 #
6. tremon ◴[] No.11961981{5}[source]
Mostly agreed, yes. But I would rephrase it as "introducing kids to $bad_stuff without guidance is a bad idea": I don't think that permanent supervision should be required. Once the novelty wears off, and the parent is confident that the kid can behave themselves even in the presence of $bad_stuff, even "putting your kid in a room full of $bad_stuff" can be fine.

And I don't mean that in the sense of "the kids are fine with their heroin syringes", but in the sense "I can leave the cookie jar on the counter and it will still be there when I leave the room".