Parents must see: short videos are eating children's brains? 

Text | Mi Li's mother

Recently Musk spoke again, saying:

"The discipline of the child was not so strong before, and the restraint will be strengthened in the future, because the algorithm will eat the child's brain. ”

Should children use their mobile phones?When should they use their mobile phones?How to turn on teen mode?Which app allows children to play and which ones don't let them play?How long does it take to swipe the phone?

This is a question that Mi Li's mother often sees in the background.

It can be seen that everyone is really concerned about the problem of mobile phones.

Indeed, in this era, the mobile phone is one of our organs, and the children's parents have different cognitions and decisions in this regard, some let them use it, some don't let them use it, some let them add WeChat, some can only watch documentaries, some can play egg boy party, and some eat chicken and the king every day.

Many times, children's talking points are derived from mobile phones, if several good friends are discussing what circle of friends to post, and your child has not registered a WeChat account, it will basically be very passive among classmates.

To be honest, it is not practical to completely prohibit children from touching electronic products such as televisions, mobile phones, iPads, etc.

Not to mention today's children, Grandpa Mi Li worked in a famous telecom giant back then, so I myself had a mobile phone in the fifth grade of primary school.

Although I am not as smart as I am now, I will also use it for daily communication with my family, classmates, and teachers, probably like this, I can use a charge for a month, with a colorful backlight:

The mobile phone itself is not the root of all evil, but the addiction trap in the mobile phone is.

So the question is, since you must let your child use it, you must control your child not to be addicted, and not to become a humanoid puppet of a mobile phone, what to do?

Netflix's just-released documentary "The Social Dilemma" answers this question well.

I have to say that Netflix's films really never disappoint Mi Li's mother, after watching this one, my hairs stand up, so many elites in Silicon Valley are thinking about how to accurately give you Amway's addiction mechanism, and I am really scary to think about it.

The moral dilemma of Silicon Valley's elites

At the beginning of the film, many artificial intelligence elites working in Silicon Valley are describing their feelings at work.

A researcher named Tristan always lives with a sense of guilt in his moral and ethical dilemmas, because the more he sees the accuracy of the algorithm, the more he panics about the future and fate of mankind.

Because he knows very well how the Internet exploits the psychological weakness of human beings, with the help of artificial intelligence and big data, to develop various functions that make people addictive.

This kind of research points to commercial value, but definitely not to the direction that is beneficial to the development of the individual. It's terrible, the top elites of Silicon Valley, who think about things that are not beneficial to humanity every day, are already addicted to your mobile phone, but you don't know it.

So he launched a project to expose how famous social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc., are constantly seducing you, grabbing your attention, making you happier and more satisfied, until you become addicted, so as to achieve business goals.

Tristan says there's a persuasion lab at Stanford that specializes in how to persuade people with psychological knowledge and how to apply that to Internet technology.

All Silicon Valley executives, tech gurus, will learn this lesson.

When these most talented product developers have mastered the latest research on human consciousness in modern psychology, they will be able to modify a person's behavior in the same way that they modify the code, allowing users to unconsciously spend more time and attention on short videos and social platforms.

The most scary thing about this is that on the Internet, many of the behaviors you think are made out of your subjective consciousness, such as which contacts you add and which bloggers you follow, are decided by you to do so.

But it's not at all, it's the technologists behind the scenes who are deliberately guiding you to do it step by step! They know better than you what you like to see, what kind of information you want to receive, and what kind of identity you get.

So they make you swipe something relevant, triggering your willingness to make an action. You think that's what you're trying to do, but you're completely passive.

Adults can be controlled to this extent, but what about children?

Dimensionality reduction strike

The reason why these people in Silicon Valley have a strong sense of self-blame and guilt is because they know the algorithms best, and how they eat away at people's brains.

For users who enjoy it, big data is tantamount to a dimensionality reduction attack:

"Your opponent is an artificial intelligence that knows everything about you and is able to predict your future moves, and you don't know anything about it, except that it has a video of a cat and a date of birth on it, which is not fair competition at all. ”

The film shows a multi-child family, when several children eat together, they all hold their mobile phones to watch.

The mother of the family couldn't see it and felt that she had to make a change, so she took away the children's mobile phones on the spot, saying that the meal was a meal without mobile phones, so she locked all the phones in a box.

Mom and Dad are very cooperative, and my brother and sister are also reluctant to cooperate. But my sister, who is keen on beauty and selfies, is unwilling to cooperate.

Not long after she reluctantly cooperated and handed over the phone, she chose to smash the jar regardless of the sound of the message coming in.

And this beauty-loving girl is touched by the comments below the selfie every day. She is satisfied if anyone comments that she is beautiful, and as soon as a comment points out a flaw in her appearance, she falls into anxiety.

This thrill of desperately obtaining a sense of identity from the outside world can make people feel more and more empty. The immediate gratification of receiving a review, and the anxiety of waiting for a review to be refreshed repeatedly, will make you more desperate to get attention from the outside world.

Because the moment you see a comment, you're really secreting hormones about excitement.

Researchers all know this, and in the long run, it is no wonder that they have no guilt for poisoning teenagers like this.

Because his sister smashed the jar, the boy's mobile phone screen was smashed. Mom made an agreement with him, saying that if he could not touch his phone for a week, he would get a new screen.

He happily agreed, but he didn't expect that he tossed and turned every day, doing nothing in the bedroom, and every minute seemed to be torment.

It turns out that the reason why depression and anxiety are multiplying now is because people are too dependent on this digital companion and their ability to deal with negative emotions has become weaker.

Three days passed, and the computing system found that something was wrong, and the user had not done anything for so long, so it kept pushing him all kinds of tempting videos and friend updates, and each push sent a reminder.

Although it was itchy, the boy could only stay up. Then the background system pushed him a message that hit the soul directly:

"Your ex-girlfriend has a new friend. ”

He looked at this instantaneous pupil earthquake, and before he could break his heart, the beautiful girl on the new match sent him a heartbeat signal.

Who can bear this? I took my phone back and swiped it all night.

Self-discipline on your own

Facts have proved that even the Silicon Valley elite, who know the most about algorithms, can't get rid of the temptation of big data.

Even programmers or product managers who know a thing or two can be addicted, looking at their phone every 20 minutes, or having a deep obsession with an app.

A former executive who pioneered Facebook's business model said:

"I couldn't put my phone down when I got home for two years, even though I knew there were two kids at home who needed my company. ”

In the second half of the documentary, it is about the poisoning of human beings in the information cocoon, and to be honest, it is very uncomfortable to watch Mi Li's mother.

Because big data will constantly push the information you think is right according to your preferences, that is, the information we each receive is very different.

It's possible that you swipe content every day, and you go and ask your friend what he has never heard of.

And a search engine, you fill in a keyword into it, and the alternative entries that come out are different for everyone, and they are all tailor-made.

This will make everyone's thinking more and more narrow, and his views on everything will be more solidified, because he can only see people who agree with him, saying things that agree with his own views.

What is objectivity? What is the truth? Once the tools for creating public opinion are in the hands of those with ulterior motives, what will the masses receive?

In the stage of children's cognitive construction, the most feared thing is to let big data replace objective experience and teach children some wrong things.

Even the Silicon Valley elites who invented these things themselves admit that this thing is harmful and not beneficial to human civilization, and the responsibility to protect children is really in our own hands.

Objective experience and correct values need to be learned from two aspects, that is: reading 10,000 books and traveling 10,000 miles.

Children must make sure that they read the paper books and go outside. Because the information cocoon will tempt children to lie down more and more, they will become very homely, unwilling to go out to socialize, and even less willing to look at mountains, rivers, lakes and seas.

A child who is accustomed to playing with his mobile phone, even if you take him on a trip to a beautiful place, he will feel that he is happiest to lie in bed and play with his mobile phone.

It's really to that extent, there is no doubt that the child has definitely been manipulated by big data.

Mi Li's mother found a good way to effectively reduce the temptation of pop-up pushes, that is, to turn off the notification function of the app.

Mi Li's mother can't turn on the airplane mode when she sleeps, because after all, there are old and young, and I have to let everyone contact me at any time.

But I don't want to be bothered by all kinds of pop-ups, so I will turn off the pop-up notifications of each app from the "Settings", and wait until I wake up the next day to open them.

This method is actually very good to use on the child's mobile phone, without these sudden and tempting pop-ups, the child's attention will basically not be sucked away by the mobile phone outside the specified time.

Control the frequency and time interval of your child's use of the mobile phone, and then the rest of the time is still used for studying, hobbies, paper book reading, and outdoor sports.

In this way, there will be no big problems, and there will be no disconnection with classmates and loss of popularity.

Since no one can be immune to the shroud of big data, let's face the temptation to find a more suitable way for children to use mobile phones in this environment. After all, it's useless to run away.

Personal Profile: @米粒妈爱分享 Mi Li's mother, American returnee, Haidian parent. Focus on learning, educational experience and further education.