What happens when children don’t have the internet for a whole day

Is it even true?<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theitbaby.com&#x2F;wordpress&#x2F;2016&#x2F;01&#x2F;25&#x2F;they-wanted-to-see-what-would-happen-if-they-took-tech-from-kids-for-a-whole-day-it-was-fake&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theitbaby.com&#x2F;wordpress&#x2F;2016&#x2F;01&#x2F;25&#x2F;they-wanted-to...</a>

I was initially surprised, but then I saw this:<p>&gt; According to the rules of the experiment, the children had to explain the next day how they had coped with being alone under such conditions.<p>Title is misleading; the children didn&#x27;t have access to any modern technology.<p>tl;dr no modern technology (no TV radio) and no other people.<p>&gt; the today’s generation of young people are too often entertained by things not of their making, are incapable of finding ways to keep themselves busy, and are completely unfamiliar with the idea of the world of their imagination.<p>The experiment doesn&#x27;t imply that.<p>Even yesterday&#x27;s generation was also entertained by things not of their making (books, radio, TV).<p>Talking to an imaginary friend can&#x27;t replace real human interaction, especially for 8 hours.<p>Plus with modern technology they are able to keep themselves busy.

They where not allowed to communicate with friends for 8 hours and stripped of their usual entertainment, while normally they would spend most time in school, sports clubs and with their families?<p>I think you could have done this experiment 20 years ago and get the same results.<p>What will be different nowadays is that your friends are always an your pocket. A situation where you are confronted with something emotional and unable to talk to a friend right away might be more unusual and frightening than it was 20 years ago.<p>Maybe kids 20 years ago could handle boredom better, but I think this study has too many flaws to judge about that.

I actually find the results to be pretty optimistic. We&#x27;ve become a more connected society because of our technology and it feels good to communicate with other people. That&#x27;s why we developed the technology in the first place; to shorten the distance between us. What&#x27;s so wrong with that? We&#x27;re only moving forward to a world that&#x27;s even more connected, not back to the 1800&#x27;s. Sure, we&#x27;re dependent on things we did not make; we stand on the shoulders of giants, but that&#x27;s how we move forward. We take the things passed to us, use and build on them to make a better world. It&#x27;s ok to have some psychological issues when you take it all away.

A day? How about 6 months <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;lifeandstyle&#x2F;2011&#x2F;jan&#x2F;01&#x2F;technology-ban-kids-home-experiment" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;lifeandstyle&#x2F;2011&#x2F;jan&#x2F;01&#x2F;technol...</a><p>This and the article mentioned elsewhere (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tnp.sg&#x2F;news&#x2F;singapore-news&#x2F;what-happens-when-5-students-spend-8-hours-without-internet" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tnp.sg&#x2F;news&#x2F;singapore-news&#x2F;what-happens-when-5-st...</a>) are far more accurate representations of what happens - kids may moan a bit but then they adapt. Your kids are not going to have suicidal thoughts because you turned off the internet for a bit (or if they are it&#x27;s not the switch off that&#x27;s the problem). The original article is just scaremongering, HN shouldn&#x27;t be pandering to this kind of clickbait.

&gt; The author of the experiment, a family psychologist, wanted to prove her working hypothesis that the today’s generation of young people are too often entertained by things not of their making, are incapable of finding ways to keep themselves busy, and are completely unfamiliar with the idea of the world of their imagination.<p>That is not how you do science.

This made sense until I got to the part that said <i>it was forbidden to communicate with others according to the rules of the experiment</i>. This, to me, makes the experiment less convincing and the outcome less of a surprise.<p>A lot of online activities, no matter how brainless, are social. It doesn&#x27;t seem fair to say &quot;kids can&#x27;t live without their mobile phones&quot; when it&#x27;s really about them not being able to communicate. I&#x27;m pretty certain the results would be less drastic if they could have just hung out and played boardgames.

I have 4 kids. The more I let them use the Internet the less they interact with each other and when they do interact it usually is in a poor way. The less Internet I let them use, the more they interact together, use their imaginations when playing and there are way less fights and bickering.

This experiment is interesting but doesn&#x27;t only test what happens when the kids do not have access to internet, it also tests the result of social isolation. They were forced to be alone and not have any contact with other kids.<p>It would be more interesting to redo the same experiment but allow the kids to meet and talk with each other. I think there would probably be a lot less anxiety.

The original source (Russian) from 2012 ... <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;snob.ru&#x2F;selected&#x2F;entry&#x2F;45522" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;snob.ru&#x2F;selected&#x2F;entry&#x2F;45522</a>

Kids locked alone in a room for 8 hours get bored, News at 11....

I get taking away Internet to see what would happen, but why would you remove all social contact altogether? And why remove the telephone? We&#x27;ve had access to the telephone for decades.<p>Plus I&#x27;m pretty sure you could find some variant of &quot;damn kids, rap music&quot; engraved on the wall of a cave in mesopotamia. It&#x27;s somehow ingrained in our genetic structure to think our children are idiots (which I suppose is a little beneficial).

Kids can&#x27;t entertain themselves &quot;with things of their making&quot;. Let&#x27;s give them books to read instead. What?<p>I wonder if when books were invented people would complain &quot;this youth, they do nothing but read, they can&#x27;t even &lt;insert outdated form of entertainment&gt; anymore&quot;.

They are fine and read more books and do more sports. My internet-at-home is strictly managed and they have to earn credits to use it shortly.<p>I consider internet&#x2F;games are mental drugs for kids, maybe too harsh, but they can play at will when they grow up and leave my house.

So if you deprive kids of 2 things (internet AND social interaction) for 8h, you can safely infer all abnormal behaviours were caused by the lack of only one of those things?<p>Also, as someone else mentioned, the &quot;study&quot; appears to be nonexistent.

I don&#x27;t know about the study but when I cut out the Internet my kids become productive real fast - one cleans up her room other will look out the window and find the lawn needs mowing and will happily mow and sometimes even edge. Some times they come and talk to me.<p>I then give them Internet back - so far it&#x27;s a good positive feedback loop for them. I guess it won&#x27;t work with all kids - mine like doing other things but are just too distracted when there&#x27;s Internet.

More accurately would be &quot;What happens when you socially isolate children for 8 hours&quot;.<p>The social isolation part is probably the most important aspect of the study. I&#x27;ll bet you that if it only limited modern technology, but allowed the participants to interact with people, we would get totally different results.<p>I think it&#x27;s quite easy to forego technology for longer periods - you often do that on vacations, to give an example.

Obvious result if true. 8 hours is not enough, the block on social communication turned it into an experiment on loneliness with strangers not disconnection.<p>The kids should have been allowed to talk with their friends face to face in a monitored way.<p>What was the protocol to prevent interference by researchers? Was the questionnaire vetted against leading question and bias?

I&#x27;m skeptical. I need more details about the anxious feelings. That is a key piece of evidence and all we have about it is hearsay.

Alternative title &quot;teenagers can&#x27;t be alone for 8 hours without technology&quot;. The issue is being alone with their thoughts. The fact that such a significant number had severe anxiety without access to easy distractions seems problematic. Self-reflection, deeper thinking or ability to focus on a task are important skills.

The shortened title is simply the result of HN title length limits.

Due to my age I thought back to my childhood. When we didn&#x27;t have internet. My first thought was: they use the Commodore as it is? :)

Internet (...and human contact whatsoever).

What happens when children don&#x27;t have magazines for a whole day.<p>Is what this article would be titled in 1740.

This strongly smells of bullshit and has no place on Hacker News.

It is interesting, and the reactions are extreme.<p>But the experiment forces some element of social isolation that may have distorted the result.<p>I grew up without the Internet, and sometimes without a phone or TV. But I still had friends to play with.