Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

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The little kid is sitting alone on the sofa and looking in his phone

Moving Life Online is Making Us Depressed

The phone-based childhood robs kids developmentally, says Jonathan Haidt
The data seems to point essentially to one thing: the shift to living our lives online. Read More ›
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Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina and How to Read Long Books

"One chapter at a time" is actually how books like Tolstoy's were intended to be read.

Anna Karenina is considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century, alongside War and Peace, penned by the same author, Leo Tolstoy. The novel, which Tolstoy regarded as his “first,” is the story of an alluring young woman who commits adultery with a military man, and the shroud of relationships surrounding her life and fate. Reading Anna Karenina is like going back in time to 19th-century Russia and yet remaining rooted in the experiences, conflicts, and temptations that define all eras and contexts. As my former teacher said, it is “a rapturous sonata of a novel. One foot in time and place, one in the eternal. The human heart in conflict with itself, like Faulkner said.” (When asked Read More ›

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smartphone coiled metal wire in the hands of a man, gray-green background, censorship of social networks. cancel cultural ban, erase

Yes, TikTok is Bad. But is a Ban the Answer?

This might be the way censorship sneakily invades.

TikTok is addictive, and could be a national security threat, but should the government ban it? Or might doing so set dangerous precedent to ban other social media platforms with less rationale? A TikTok ban could lead to a domino effect of other bans. A new bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives that would effectively ban TikTok, unless the platform is sold, but the terms and conditions of the bills are vague and could be easily leveraged to justify further bans. Maxwell Zeff explains, Outside of banning TikTok, this bill is anything but clear. An app or website must meet two qualifications to be banned. First, the app must be a large platform that allows users to create profiles for sharing Read More ›

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Cute and little robot helper with artificial intelligence raising hand. Generative AI

Google Gemini Presents a Past That Never Happened

You can't trust a bot to give you a history lesson, turns out.
Walter Kirn tweeted recently: "Gemini AI is inventing damaging stories about people and figures I know. It is an automated false-witness weapon." Read More ›
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Young woman using smart phone,Social media concept.

Facebook and Instagram Allegedly Hook Youngsters with Dopamine Triggering Tactics

“Social media use can negatively affect teens, distracting them, disrupting their sleep, and exposing them to bullying, rumor spreading, unrealistic views of other people’s lives and peer pressure,” according to the Mayo Clinic. Teens and younger children accessing social media repeatedly or for long periods face heightened risks of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, social isolation, negative body image, decreased learning ability, even serious thoughts of suicide. Social media that lures kids into excessive use must come from somewhere. Top on the list is the 800-billion-dollar multinational conglomerate, Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta”), owner and operator of the social media platforms Facebook and Instagram.  To hold Meta accountable for social media’s damaging effects, 33 American states’ attorneys general (“Plaintiffs”) are Read More ›

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Communication technology for internet business. Global world network and telecommunication on earth cryptocurrency and blockchain and IoT. Elements of this image furnished by NASA

Is Tech Still Innovating?

Is it just me, or is the world of technology feeling a bit … stale?

After the last thirty years of working in technology, innovation in these last few years seems a tad underwhelming. Is it because governments are starting, for the first time, to seriously consider regulating social media and other IT companies? At least some authors think serious regulation will end the rapid innovation of previous years.   This doesn’t seem like the right answer — information technology, and social media in particular, remains one of the most unregulated markets on Earth. The understanding, based on Section 230, that social media companies are passive platforms when they publish user content, and yet have all the rights of a publisher when filtering content, is still the “law of the land.” Very few information technology Read More ›

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Community.

You Can Be Social and Still Be Very Lonely

Machines can't meet our need to be known and understood.

In recent years, much attention has been paid to the rising rates of loneliness in our culture. We hear about the declining marriage and birthrates, the loss of extended family relations, and the shocking data revealing how today’s average person rarely has more than five actual friends. You may have felt the weight of loneliness yourself in recent years, particularly given the COVID-19 pandemic and the isolation the lockdown mandates created. It became quickly apparent that human contact is not an added luxury but a human necessity. Perhaps even the most intense introverts among us (of which I’m included) can relate. We were designed for community. However, although common sense might indicate that the cure for loneliness is more human Read More ›

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A child using smart phone lying in bed late at night, playing games. Children's screen addiction and parent control concept. Child's room at night. Sensitive content on screen

Andrew McDiarmid on Teens and Smartphones

We can mitigate the mental health crisis, but we have to act now.

Discovery Institute’s podcasting director and Mind Matters contributor Andrew McDiarmid recently appeared on the Michael Medved Show, a podcast on “pop culture and politics.” Medved and McDiarmid discussed the mental health crisis among teens and adolescents due in large part, per the research, to the explosion of social media apps like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. McDiarmid has written on this issue before at length, and strongly believes that if we care about the next generation, we would do well to heed what’s going on with the youths and their smartphones and do something about it. “It all started around 2010,” McDiarmid told Medved, going on to say: Facebook was kicking things into high gear, Twitter was on the scene and Read More ›

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Social media and digital online concept, woman using smart phone. The concept of living on vacation and playing social media. Social Distancing ,Working From Home concept.

The Atlantic Warns of Smartphones in Schools. But Is Anyone Listening?

While word is getting out, there's still a long ways to go.

This week, we ran a post covering a new public policy brief from the Institute for Family Studies and the Ethics and Public Policy Center. The brief conclusively demonstrated the tangible harms involved in exposing kids to the online world before they’re ready. The researchers concluded, in addition, that parents should not give their children digital devices. The stakes are too high, from increased risk of mental health disorders to learning impairments. Such warnings have been increasing over the past few years, thanks in large part to the in-depth research of people like Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge. The Atlantic published an article today on how smartphones are hurting kids’ cognitive and learning capacities. Derek Thompson writes, Researchers such as Read More ›

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Teenage boy in a bedroom listening to music through his smartphone

New Report: Parents, Don’t Give Your Kids Smartphones

This has become a national health crisis.

In the late 1800s, a patented medicine geared towards children called Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup was made accessible to the public. The product claimed to calm children down, help them sleep, and whiten their teeth. There was no prescription necessary for purchase, and furthermore, no disclosures of the ingredients. The stuff worked miracles. It really seemed to work. It turns out, unfortunately, that Mrs. Winslow’s magic potion was brimming with both morphine and alcohol. Nothing like getting a baby drunk to get it to go to sleep, right? Mrs. Winslow must have decided that drugging and intoxicating kids was the best way keep them in check. Consequently, medical companies started being required to disclose what was actually in their products, Read More ›

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Woman reading a few books on the floor

Reading in the Digital Age

Writer Joseph Epstein argues compellingly on behalf of the novel.
Reading isn't instantly gratifying the way these dopamine-inducing technologies are, but the rewards are worth it. Read More ›
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a person takes pictures with her phone, photographs healthy food

Homogeneity via Instagram and the Internet

Spending too much time online shapes our personality and outlook perhaps more than we'd like to admit.
Unplugging from the matrix may bring us back to a sense of individual identity and purpose. Read More ›
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hand holds a disposable film camera

Trying to Solve Social Media’s Problems Through…More Social Media

Alternative social media apps still have to figure out ways to keep you scrolling.

Last month a friend invited me to download a new photography app called “Lapse.” Perhaps you’ve already heard of it and downloaded it yourself. I decided to try it and see what all the fuss was about. The app’s opening screen was dramatic, with captions about the failures of previous social media apps to truly “capture” the present moment. The business model of social media apps, the Lapsers rightly contend, revolves around “likes” and gaining “friends.” What happened to taking pictures of real, human moments without minding the social reward they might reap? Photo-taking was about holding on to moments that mattered. It wasn’t about filters, validation, or identity. Lapse promises to be different. It’s a disposable camera on your Read More ›

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ARMED ROBBERY

The Great Trust Heist

When social media companies are mining data, trust is naturally undermined.
Machines that process the private information you share with people you trust find ways to nudge you towards beliefs and actions the owners of the social media network want. Read More ›
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Hands of a male photographer holding a digital camera taking pictures of a idyllic landscape with a lake and mountains while the picture shows at the display

Two Notable Reads: Children and Tech and the Illusions of Photography

How much should kids be online? And is taking pictures taking us out of real life?
Teenagers' mental health has been on the decline over the last decade, particularly among teen girls. Idealized images can be fodder for the social comparison game. Read More ›
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Amateur observatories, Interior views, vintage engraving.

“Consensus” Doesn’t Always Mean Science

Real scientific discovery happens within a culture of free speech and open dialogue

Robert J. Marks, host of the Mind Matters podcast, recently put out an article at Newsmax discussing “scientific consensus,” and how that term has been used to bully dissenting scientific viewpoints and even establish political and social policy. Marks writes, Consensus was used as a reason to stifle debate during the COVID crisis. Facebook and YouTube saw opposition to the government narrative as disinformation. Posts against consensus were censored and users were banned. Pre-Musk Twitter had a policy concerning tweets about climate change: “Misleading advertisements on #Twitter that contradict the scientific consensus on #climatechange are prohibited, in line with its inappropriate content policy.” The word pairing “scientific consensus” is a destructive science-stifling oxymoron. -Robert J. Marks, Consensus Doesn’t Equal Science | Newsmax.com Read More ›

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Young anxious woman lying in bed staring at smartphone screen at night, reading about depression symptoms in internet, phone addicted female can not stop scrolling news media before bedtime. Anxiety.

Cal Newport: Overstimulation Is Ruining Your Life

Turns out the solution is simple: don't use things that overstimulate you.
"Don't use things that cause overstimulation," Newport says. "The dopamine system is powerful, so don't give it the targets it's going to fire up for." Read More ›
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Portrait close up of one young beautiful attractive blonde young girl holding camera and taking selfie picture at the beach enjoying outdoors free time with sunset in the background.

National Review: Let AI Take Over Social Media Influencing

AI influencers are revealing how vapid social media really is

We’ve recently commented on the AI influencer phenomenon, which seems to be taking social media by storm. With advanced AI imaging, more AI influencers are popping up, and they already look comparable to the likes of Kim Kardashian. The social media influencing world depends on primarily women selling their bodies for revenue. Instagram has tended heavily in this direction, and with the advent of OnlyFans, the temptation to flaunt oneself so provocatively is tangible for many. National Review writer Haley Strack thinks that the AI influencer horde will out-compete real-life influencers and eventually rule out the need for humans at all. She writes, Some criticize AI for giving young men another possibly perverse, sexual outlet online — but men who Read More ›

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Video player app on phone's screen and wireless earphones on dark background

“Deeply Unsettling:” Popular YouTube Host Concerned Over Online Censorship

After one of his videos was removed from YouTube, economist and talk show host Glenn Loury had questions.
Loury noted that he doesn't share Goldblatt's opinions, but that it's important to be able to debate different views freely. Read More ›
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Hispanic man staring sadly at his smartphone

The Real Issue With the “New Drug”

Pornography is a drug, through and through, and is used mainly to alleviate negative emotions and meaninglessness

One of the biggest harms of the Internet is online pornography. While prostitution (which has the root word porneia) has been around since the dawn of human history, never before has access to explicit content been so easy and varied. Today the porn industry rakes in around $100 million globally, with the U.S. making up $12-14 million of that revenue. According to this report, 40 million Americans regularly view pornography, and 25 percent of all Internet searches are porn-related. These stats are shocking, to say the least, but it begs the question of how we best understand and treat porn addiction in today’s context. While most of us would naturally assume such addiction is related to sexual impulses, “Dr. K,” Read More ›