April 12, 2024
Friday Open Comments
More on Jonathan Haidt, following up on Tuesday’s post.
As was pointed out to me in the comments, I was wrong in claiming that Haidt’s solutions had a lot to do with government intervention. I’m not even sure where I got that idea, considering I’d listened to most of Haidt’s past podcast discussions of the subject matter of social media and child development. I had listened to Haidt and heard what he said. Maybe I just got carried away with the Reason magazine reflexes.
Haidt’s proposed solutions have had more to do with parents doing better at their jobs and protecting their charges from overusing the technology. At most he’s calling for social media companies to be made responsible for monitoring the age restrictions of users signing up for accounts.
At any rate, the Atlantic had an interview between Hanna Rosin and her son, with a clip of an interview she had done previously with Haidt.
From her son, we learn the parents had tried sending him to digital-free camp once, and the parents felt like the experience was positive. But from his perspective, it had been more negative or neutral. He had complained a lot about it at the time. If anything, that merely shows that a fundamental part of the human experience is belly-aching and complaining about everything under the sun. Social media and smartphones are merely layered on top of human nature without really changing it. Teen unhappiness remains a constant for unhappy teens.
Anyhoo. I was off the mark in saying Haidt had big-government solutions for the supposed problem. His proposed solutions mainly have to do with parents doing more to restrain their offspring from spending all their time on digital devices. And I don’t see anything wrong with an appeal for better, or at least more conscientious, parenting.
Today’s special animal friend is the banded mongoose, Mungos mungo. We’ve moved westward from Lake Kariba to Victoria Falls, where these sturdy little carnivores thrive in the wet environment. They have a head-and-body length up to 18” and a tail a little shorter than the body. Their build is kind of hefty in the abdominal area, their fur is rough and gray-brown, and they have attractive vertical stripes that make me think of a 9-banded armadillo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRzFs39gNOs
In the Herpestidae family of mongooses and mongoose-type-things such as meerkats and kusimanse, there are 34 extant species in 15 genera and 2 subfamilies. They’re all very cute, in that cat/weasel/otter way that many small predators are cute. As the moniker “Herpestidae” indicates, the family members are known for eating reptiles. Some species in India famously fight cobras, but the banded carnivore is a generalist, with millipedes and beetles making up most of its diet. They also eat many other invertebrates, small amphibians and reptiles – including snakes – and birds and their eggs.
They’re creative in finding food sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXW_1i1pA0w
Like meerkats, but unlike many other mongoose species, banded meerkats live in extended-family groups. The average group size is 20, but it ranges from 7 (dad, mom, and pups) when food is scarce to 40 in extremely well-resourced habitats. These groups get along pretty well with limited heirarchy, although there is some competition within the group for mates. All the females are permitted to mate, but older females have larger litters with a better survival rate. If a group gets too big, young females may be pushed out, often joining an unattached male to start a new group. The group dens together in termite mounds, rock shelters, or thick brush. They move their residence every two or three days, if possible.
There is a high level of aggression between groups. Territories are scent-marked and patrolled, but incursions are frequent, and fights often result in injury or death. Meanwhile, females will sometimes mate with outgroup males during the confusion. I’m sure there’s a species-level genetic advantage to this. Infant mortality is high, with about 50% of pups dying before 3 months of age.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAxmAk7woyA
Banded mongooses are a species of Least Concern. They live up to 10 years in the wild and up to 17 years in captivity.
Good morning. I think Haidt is advocating for a little more support for parents, especially in the form of "no phones in school," rather than just saying, "You're on your own, Mom. Do better."
Speaking of which, "Do better," has become an annoying trope. I saw it all over The Dispatch comments recently when people were (legitimately) saying that an interviewee on a podcast was a Hamas shill.
"Do better" is now on my list of patronizing claptrap, along with "by the way," "just by the way," "for your information," and "just for your information." In fact, I think "just" as an adverb should be eradicated. It can remain as an adjective, as in, "The court's decision was just."