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Comment by patorjk | Hacker News Reader

The problem seems to be the parents, not the technology. It reminds me of a VSauce episode that brought up the following interesting antidotes:

> In 1871, the Sunday Magazine published a line that may as well have been written today about texting. "Now we fire off a multitude of rapid and short notes, instead of sitting down to have a good talk over a real sheet of paper." And the Journal of Education in 1907 lamented that at a modern family gathering, silent around the fire, each individual has his head buried in his favorite magazine. [1,2]

If the parents weren't lost in their phones, they'd be lost in something else.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc

[2] https://sites.google.com/site/vsaucetranscripts/scripts/juve...

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"It's okay, because it happened in the past, too." is such a weak argument in my opinion. We should strive to present our best regardless of the past.

History repeats itself, so take note and compensate accordingly.

I am not making the argument that the behavior is ok. I'm showing that people in the past have complained about similar behaviors and stating that blaming the technology is probably not the right idea.

You are done with a magazine at some point. The same can't be said about the internet.

There will always be new articles or replies somewhere, the time you can spend reading them is endless as opposed to a printed magazine where you will have read all articles that interest you eventually.

Depending on the magazine there was another issue to bury your head in arriving in a week to a month. Also there was more than one magazine around. Finish one and pick up the next.

It's a mix I'd say but technology certainly plays its part.

I used to think that I'm the problem but it has been brought up in online studies and people I know more and more.

Social networks make me miserable. I didn't have Facebook or Instagram for almost 8 years and I started using Instagram recently. It's a strange mix of feelings but I loathe and look forward to opening the app every time.

Most people seem to experience something similar, no matter how hard they try they can't stop comparing themselves to others, hunting likes and other fake internet points.

That's true, but one interesting takeaway from this article I noticed is that it's the younger generation criticizing the older one - usually it's the other way around.

The fact that this has happened before doesn't mean it's not a lot worse this time.

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