With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

Re:With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, th... by malux85 on Sunday January 28, 2018 @04:42PM (#16253723)

I see this in the students I mentor. Every single one of them cannot focus on a single task for longer than 60 seconds, which is severely hampering their ability to think deeply about abstract programming and data science problems. It's very frustrating, but they just cannot stop checking their phones for updates

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Re:With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, th... by JCharante on Sunday January 28, 2018 @05:43PM (#16254042)

What types students are you mentoring? I've observed that groups of the best-performing students look down on those "addicted" to their phones and some have switched to flip phones.

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Re:With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, th... by malux85 on Sunday January 28, 2018 @05:49PM (#16254075)

Comp-Sci/Electrical Engineers - I've never seen any of them without a smartphone, or even heard them talk about their friends switching.

Sounds like a good idea though :)

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Re:With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, th... by matte_black on Sunday January 28, 2018 @10:37PM (#16255167)

I would try switching to a flip phone but the problem is I want a cool modern flip phone not something that looks vintage.

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Re:With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, th... by wilsonnb on Monday January 29, 2018 @09:48AM (#16257766)

It's not a flip phone, but I quite like the way the new Nokia 3310 looks. Simple but modern.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/nokia-3310-3g-cell-phone-unlock...

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Re:With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, th... by sireat on Monday January 29, 2018 @07:15AM (#16257022)

The best we could get my mom was LG Wine Smart a year ago, she is reasonably happy with it as she requires physical buttons.

There really is not much choice when it comes to flip phones today: https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?nCPUCoresMin=2&nRamMin...

Out of those only Gionee W909 has at least somewhat respectable specs.

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Re:With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, th... by Const-me on Monday January 29, 2018 @06:02AM (#16256780)

I actually prefer vintage design (e.g. Nokia 8210, designed by Kenzo), but unfortunately these old phones aren't compatible enough, 2G networks are phased out and are already switched off in many places.

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Re:With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, th... by dustinls on Monday January 29, 2018 @01:34PM (#16259540)

No it has to look vintage, but has to also be modern and cool.

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Re:With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, th... by pymai on Monday January 29, 2018 @06:24AM (#16256846)

im not sure you can have flip + modern in a phone. ive never seen it anyway

if the idea of having a flip phone is so that you will be less distracted then maybe a flip case might help to do something similar. preferably one that has really loud velcro so that people around you will get pissed if you keeping opening it every 2nd minute to look at facecheck

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Re:With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, th... by tonyedgecombe on Monday January 29, 2018 @06:21AM (#16256838)

That's another problem in itself.

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Re:With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, th... by TheAdamAndChe on Sunday January 28, 2018 @05:40PM (#16254020)

I had this issue. A combination of the pomodoro technique and forced daily reading made a massive difference in my short-term attention span.

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Re:With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, th... by doktrin on Monday January 29, 2018 @05:45AM (#16256711)

> It's very frustrating, but they just cannot stop checking their phones for updates

I feel the same way about myself, sometimes, but instead I just open a browser window and start typing news.... (not always HN, but often)

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