More work is needed to explain the findings, but the researchers suspect a two-way relationship underpins the results. In this scenario, people with better thinking skills are more likely to use digital devices, but there are also cognitive benefits to be had from embracing the technology.
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”- Socrates
Misattributed to Socrates. Mis/disinformation spreads quickly over the Internet, so it’s up to all of us not to be vectors for it.
We have increasingly extensive bodies of scientific evidence indicating the harms of giving young kids the sort of near-unrestricted access to smart devices and social media that are common in society today.
That one person said “something similar bad” but it wasn’t actually that bad in the past (or even that this is a pattern) doesn’t invalidate scientific evidence. If kids started smoking cigarettes en masse, you could pull up this exact same quote, and it would be just as strong an argument as it is here.