so much of the "research" on "phones bad" is just statisticians congratulating themselves in a circle
example: I am right now reading an article on "phubbing", which is apparently the term for ignoring people you're with in order to pay attention to your phone. we'll slide right past the claim that this is a normal word people use.
the authors have developed a "phubbing scale" and demonstrated that it has strong correlation with the existing "maladaptive technology use" scale. from this, they conclude the "phubbing scale" is a valid and useful metric.
the "maladaptive technology use" scale, if you go and read that paper, has shown strong correlation with the "problematic smartphone application use" construct.
have you caught the problem yet? nowhere has it been proven that scoring high on any of this is actually bad for you.
imagine someone told you "if the ground is wet it probably rained recently". then you talked to someone about rain and they said "if it rained recently there were probably clouds". yeah okay sounds reasonable. then all three of these people told you their research proves clouds, rain, and wet ground are all signs of demonic possession in giraffes. you'd be like hold up, I think you lost me somewhere
I donβt need a study to know using my phone makes me feel like shit
do different things on your phone then. I'm guessing you haven't written off paper as a technology just because tax forms make you want to cry
It's fair to be skeptical of research into problematic mobile phone usage on the basis that while some studies have shown it to be correlated with anxiety, insomnia, and depression, correlation is not causation and it is difficult to establish a causal relationship when studying this kind of problem. It's also fair to be skeptical of psych research in general due to the problems that are pervasive in the field.
But being not just skeptical but confident that you've debunked all the extant research on the basis that...the dumb statisticians never even bothered to check if this was actually bad for you LMFAO IDIOTS is just plain anti-intellectual though.
> spend 5 years getting a PhD in youth and digital media
> express annoyance with a common failing of academic writing in your field
> get called anti-intellectual
now reading a paper where the researcher:
asked students to volunteer to take a "screen-free challenge" where they didn't use electronic devices in class for a semester
recorded students' views on the challenge at the end of the course, and found that most of the students who participated had positive views while most of the students who didn't participate had negative views
completely ignored that this might just mean "people who thought something was a bad idea didn't do it", and instead concluded "the screen-free challenge leads to more positive views on the learning experience"
I'm getting whiplash from all the looking into the camera I am doing here
Just to clarify, they only recorded the studentsβ views at the end of the study?? They didnβt ask the students what they expected at the beginning or ask why they participated??
That seems like such a basic step to mitigate your #3!
the thing you have to understand is that "screens bad" research gets published so easily you can basically make every research mistake ever invented and be fine
