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points by dustfinger 2 hours ago | 0 comments

> I say this as a parent of two littles)

I also raised two children. My eldest is 18 and only now has a phone. When your children are adults you may no longer feel that phones, or screens, are the root cause. But, the whole world will have changed by then, so time will tell.

> Yet if you take the screen away and spend time connecting with people on a deeper level, really spend time getting to know them, life feels a hell of a lot different than what the screens show you.

I am not disagreeing with you here. My point is that the reason society is divided is not fundamentally because of phones or screens and removing them does not magically remove our ideological differences.

[–] jjulius 2 hours ago

It doesn't remove our ideological differences, no. Nor should it. What it does is make us more likely to understand and communicate better with one another. That's the first step towards getting along and finding a path forward together in spite of our differences.

Differences of opinion are okay, but it's harder to get along when our lives are lived in spaces that silo us off and encourage distrust and anger. Screens do that to us, meatspace doesn't.