> During the filming, the British director cut two children from the documentary because she believed their experiences online had made them too vulnerable to include in the movie. Another videogame-obsessed participant was kicked out of college soon after she finished filming. A fourth was recommended for psychological support.
So out of the 11 children she happened to follow, 4 ended up with pretty severe negative outcomes. And yet we’ve had nearly 17 years of smartphones and 20 years of Facebook, and I don’t believe I’ve read anywhere that ~40% of kids have such negative reactions to tech. Either she has enormous bad luck in selecting children for her documentary and selected mostly outliers, selected children who were more predisposed to having problems in the first place, or she is actually the one that has such a negative impact on kids lives.
That’s not to say whether or not such things are bad ideas in the first place, but I wish policy was focused more on what the scientific literature says rather than what a filmmaker who followed some kids around is promoting.
So out of the 11 children she happened to follow, 4 ended up with pretty severe negative outcomes. And yet we’ve had nearly 17 years of smartphones and 20 years of Facebook, and I don’t believe I’ve read anywhere that ~40% of kids have such negative reactions to tech. Either she has enormous bad luck in selecting children for her documentary and selected mostly outliers, selected children who were more predisposed to having problems in the first place, or she is actually the one that has such a negative impact on kids lives.
That’s not to say whether or not such things are bad ideas in the first place, but I wish policy was focused more on what the scientific literature says rather than what a filmmaker who followed some kids around is promoting.