http://www.theitbaby.com/wordpress/2016/01/25/they-wanted-to...
> A supposed child psychologist set them alone in a city by themselves with noone to talk to, no one who cares.
> The point is even if you believe the study to be true, it was unethical. Kids were unsupervised and let loose.
I lived in Moscow, Russia from birth to right before I turned ten. Towards the end, when school let out, I'd get on a bus or subway, and I'd go home to our apartment. Unsupervised, alone, "loose". Sometimes end up playing with friends living in my apartment complex, sometimes I'd just spend time by myself in the apartment. And I was not an outlier in this; this was common among my friends. There wasn't a school bus that would shuttle us to our front door, nor did most people's parents pick them up in 4th grade.
I was nine. The supposed kids being experimented on in this article were teenagers, between 12 and 18.
The idea that allowing teenagers to be unsupervised in a city is dangerous or unethical is ludicrous.
Or did they or society degenerate from medieval times that much?
My high school-aged daughter went without it for a few weeks on a trip and didn't die, amazingly. She wants to go back and do it again.
I copy paste the url from damian2000's comment here for you convenience:
> According to the rules of the experiment, the children had to explain the next day how they had coped with being alone under such conditions.
Title is misleading; the children didn't have access to any modern technology.
tl;dr no modern technology (no TV radio) and no other people.
> the today’s generation of young people are too often entertained by things not of their making, are incapable of finding ways to keep themselves busy, and are completely unfamiliar with the idea of the world of their imagination.
The experiment doesn't imply that.
Even yesterday's generation was also entertained by things not of their making (books, radio, TV).
Talking to an imaginary friend can't replace real human interaction, especially for 8 hours.
Plus with modern technology they are able to keep themselves busy.
When I was a kid (in my 30s now) I remember people saying it about me reading/watching tv/playing videogames.
Now it is smartphones/computers/internet.
When my mum was a kid apparently it was listening to records.
I am sure if you go back 1000 years you will find some record of an "old" person complaining about how the young ones have no respect for their elders and can't keep themselves entertained.
When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.
- Hesiod, 8 B.C.
Try 1000 years and some chage earlier:
“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.” - Socrates
What matters is channeling entertainment more into active forms. That has always been done with varying success.
"It was forbidden to communicate with others according to the rules of the experiment" So no imaginary friends either ;)
In all seriousness, I wouldn't be surprised if the outcomes had little to do with removal of technology, but were rather due to the removal of the ability to communicate with _anyone_.
edit: parent comment has been editing and ammending post multiple times.
Am I less alone now for having this exchange of posts on HN with you than I would be had I spent this time reading from a book, which is of course also a communication, if only in one direction?
My instinct tells me that neither of these states involve meaningful (which I'm defining here as personal) human interaction, but I'll freely admit that's more a gut feeling than a scientific truth.
I very rarely have that during the 9 hours I'm around people every day at work.
Just because we're not engaging in that way right now has nothing to do with the medium, but the participants and the forum/context in which they are engaging.
My 2$ is that the digital medium doesn't by design take anything away from how meaningful an interaction is. Emotion can be conveyed in a multitude of ways, most of which carry just fine over the internet.
This and the article mentioned elsewhere (http://www.tnp.sg/news/singapore-news/what-happens-when-5-st...) are far more accurate representations of what happens - kids may moan a bit but then they adapt. Your kids are not going to have suicidal thoughts because you turned off the internet for a bit (or if they are it's not the switch off that's the problem). The original article is just scaremongering, HN shouldn't be pandering to this kind of clickbait.
After picking my spot and building my shelter, I walked, sat, breathed, and wrote in my journal. As the first day waned, I made a roaring bonfire against the outer wall of the fortress, feeding it the end of a massive driftwood log. I sketched the sun setting over Boston's skyline as the stars came out, listened to the fire and the waves on the beach, and had time, and space, entirely to myself.
That weekend gave me a chance to contemplate the myriad huge changes then imminent in my life: things like picking a college, moving out of the home I'd lived in since I was two years old, and moving to a different state in another part of the country.
At the time, I thoroughly enjoyed the solo experience. It flew by, and I was grateful to have had the chance to decompress and spend time outside. It was transformative in a few ways, and in writing this I'm realizing it again, and remembering just how valuable -- and rare -- that kind of solitude is. Human connection is so important. But so is the chance to _completely_ unplug and disconnect. I can't recommend it highly enough. My gratitude for that solo experience is profound.
I think you could have done this experiment 20 years ago and get the same results.
What will be different nowadays is that your friends are always an your pocket. A situation where you are confronted with something emotional and unable to talk to a friend right away might be more unusual and frightening than it was 20 years ago.
Maybe kids 20 years ago could handle boredom better, but I think this study has too many flaws to judge about that.
The equivelent would have been to take away all social contact, plus television and video games and some freedom of movement to see folks for 8 hours. It wasn't like I generally had 8 hours to myself back then - between school and homework and chores and church (parents insisted) and the few friends and outings I did have, I simply didn't have that. And then, suddenly, some person doing an experiment wants to isolate me for 8 hours? I'd have been horribly bored as well.
That is not how you do science.
I wonder if when books were invented people would complain "this youth, they do nothing but read, they can't even <insert outdated form of entertainment> anymore".
I then give them Internet back - so far it's a good positive feedback loop for them. I guess it won't work with all kids - mine like doing other things but are just too distracted when there's Internet.
One boy liked to take apart and analyse computer hardware and other things mechanical. One girl liked to play with the piano and synthesiser. The other boys liked PE more and another girl liked to play football with them. One girl liked much more complex books than expected and talking about them.
Sample size of 10. Age and 9-12. Generally 2-3 at a time. Kids were very used to social media and passive entertainment as well as computer games. Also movies on demand.
They are allowed to make and talk to friends but not borrow cellphones, computers or watch TV. They were not separated from parents.
(also parents are sadly often busy with their lives and earning money. I bet kids like the personal touch and attention)
Is what this article would be titled in 1740.
But the experiment forces some element of social isolation that may have distorted the result.
I grew up without the Internet, and sometimes without a phone or TV. But I still had friends to play with.
I remember the first computer my family bought that had a modem. The internet was a novelty and because it tied up your phone line you had to be careful when you used it (lest you miss out on a call). No mobile phones also meant that solo activities were limited to what these scientists listed: reading, writing, drawing, etc... BUT, I had access to my friends. I could go out and play basketball, run around on the play-gym playing tag, and just walking around town.
It's no wonder that these kids had anxiety! Forced solitude is brutal.
A lot of online activities, no matter how brainless, are social. It doesn't seem fair to say "kids can't live without their mobile phones" when it's really about them not being able to communicate. I'm pretty certain the results would be less drastic if they could have just hung out and played boardgames.
It would be more interesting to redo the same experiment but allow the kids to meet and talk with each other. I think there would probably be a lot less anxiety.
Plus I'm pretty sure you could find some variant of "damn kids, rap music" engraved on the wall of a cave in mesopotamia. It's somehow ingrained in our genetic structure to think our children are idiots (which I suppose is a little beneficial).
I consider internet/games are mental drugs for kids, maybe too harsh, but they can play at will when they grow up and leave my house.
Also, as someone else mentioned, the "study" appears to be nonexistent.
The social isolation part is probably the most important aspect of the study. I'll bet you that if it only limited modern technology, but allowed the participants to interact with people, we would get totally different results.
I think it's quite easy to forego technology for longer periods - you often do that on vacations, to give an example.
The kids should have been allowed to talk with their friends face to face in a monitored way.
What was the protocol to prevent interference by researchers? Was the questionnaire vetted against leading question and bias?
