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America’s incarceration rate is in decline

(www.theatlantic.com)
234 points paulpauper | 3 comments | 25 Jun 25 17:14 UTC | HN request time: 1.694s | source
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holmesworcester ◴[25 Jun 25 18:10 UTC] No.44380228[source]▶
How much of this is due to smartphones? The years seem to line up.

2014 seemed like the big year where smartphone ubiquity changed US teen culture. Less boredom, dumb adventure, drinking, etc. (For better or worse but in this case better.)

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1. y-curious ◴[25 Jun 25 18:29 UTC] No.44380437[source]▶
Devils advocate: smartphones have made antisocial tiktok trends, "fast money" hacks and paint an unrealistic portrait of success. Before, only rappers could be young and rich and flashy. Now, seemingly regular teens are millionaires and this is constantly fed into young people's feeds.
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2. janalsncm ◴[25 Jun 25 23:17 UTC] No.44382694[source]▶
That might be true but it’s another topic.

If your point is that the benefits of crime reduction due to smartphones are outweighed by harms to mental health, then I think most people would disagree.

But this is also probably painting far too rosy a picture of what Meta is doing.

3. makeitdouble ◴[25 Jun 25 23:52 UTC] No.44382906[source]▶
I hear your point as: up until then scams, gambling and Ponzi schemes were for adults with strong purchasing power (could sink all the family's money in one single decision), when with smartphones everyone gets to enjoy screwing themselves directly.

My hot take is that previous generations weren't better prepared for the adult world than today's kids. They were more "mature" (sex, violence, abuse resistance) in some respects, but not specially ready for caring about society.