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>Sir Tim Berners-Lee says too many young people do not have internet access and the digital divide has widened during the pandemic. Given the mental health cri

>Sir Tim Berners-Lee says too many young people do not have internet access and the digital divide has widened during the pandemic. Given the mental health crisis in young people (especially girls) stemming from social media use and ever present landmine of writing something inappropriate that will destroy your life later ... is that such a bad thing?

Razengan 6y ago
Preventing people’s access to something because of the potential downsides to it? You can apply it to any facility. That’s the same mentality that keeps girls locked up in some cultures, to keep them “safe”.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  To be fair, a lot of cultures prevent children from buying alcohol and firearms on their own.
  - Digit-Al 6y ago
    False equivalency. We prevent children buying alcohol and firearms because they might harm themselves and other people not because other people might use those things to harm them.
    - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
      the original comment seemed to be concerned with kids harming themselves, but at any rate we prevent kids gambling as well which is much closer to the dynamics of social media than alcohol or firearms.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >Preventing people’s access to something because of the potential downsides to it? We're not talking about adults, we're talking about children. Yes, at some point they need to be exposed to the internet because the internet is a fact of life. I'm just not sold that any child (say, under the age of 14) who doesn't have access to the internet would somehow be crippled socially, culturally or academically. I have yet to see any study that suggests limiting access to the internet for children, or even no access internet is greatly detrimental. Contrast this with the FACT that there is a mental health crisis happening right now due social media use, and that there is no effective way to segrate internet from social media. So what is the argument here? What if there is no safe-level of social media use for children? By the way it is not uncommon to see children of tech-savvy parents, who may work in the industry, outright banning or tightly controlling internet access to their children.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    This last year, a large part of UK teaching to children of all ages has been entirely online. No internet == no teaching.
    - ethbr0 6y ago
      If only someone had invented a way to partition and limit access between networks...
      - curtainsforus 6y ago
        That kids definitely won't be desperate to work around and overcome. But I'm sort-of in favor, to encourage technical skills. Set up society so kids have to learn pentesting to see boobs, and seven proxies to not get found out and told off by the local morality commisar. Instant generational competence upgrade.
    - macspoofing 6y ago
      That needs to be qualified ... greatly. 1) There is such a thing as homeschool. 2) Schools are closed because of government mandated lockdowns. Not every region or nation decided to close their schools. In fact, most didn't. We're not even sure if that level of lockdown was good policy. Certainly there are credible epidemiologists who vehemently disagree with either lockdows or school closures. 3) The level of learning by remote instruction ... the data isn't out yet, but it isn't looking great. Maybe it's better than nothing but maybe not by much. 4) This is a generational pandemic that came suddenly and required big government bureaucracies to turn on a dime, and the internet to facilitate remote work was the most natural choice. But what are you saying, had this happened in 1992, no learning would be done? Or as the saying goes "necessity is the mother of invention" and we would find alternatives. We educated children just fine before the internet. In fact I suspect we would come up with something better than zoom classes. 5) But OK. Let's give the internet points for assisting with this pandemic. Let's draft laws that in the event of global pandemics you leverage the internet for remote learning. What is your argument for post-pandemic world? But overall I vehemently disagree with the notion that: "No internet == no teaching."
dennis_moore 6y ago
To me that sounds as ridiculous as saying: "Given the high rates of obesity due to overconsumption of food, is the scarcity of food in developing countries such a bad thing?"
- jfk13 6y ago
  Isn't it more like: "Given the high rates of obesity due to overconsumption of junk food, is the unchecked availability and aggressive marketing of unhealthy, addictive junk food really a good thing?"
  - scrollaway 6y ago
    No. He said access to the internet, not to Facebook or something. You know, that thing that has new wonders of the world and incredible educational content such as Wikipedia, YouTube, etc.
    - jfk13 6y ago
      Yes, the internet has some "wonders", and I appreciate them greatly. (If I didn't think it had value, I wouldn't have spent the last decade-plus of my life working on internet-related software and standards.) However, it also has a huge amount of toxic garbage, by no means restricted to a few "social media" sites. Whether we can stem the deluge of junk, so that the average person's experience of the internet is actually a net positive, seems uncertain at this point. I don't think we've yet figured out how to manage this.
      - scrollaway 6y ago
        Food has healthy stuff and unhealthy stuff. Access to food usually means access to both. Internet has healthy stuff and unhealthy stuff. Access to the internet means access to both.
        macspoofing 6y ago
        Food is an actual necessity for ... you know ... living. Access to the internet by children is not.
kjakm 6y ago
His point is that young people have had to rely on the internet for education most of the past year and that’s been difficult for less wealthy people.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >His point is that young people have had to rely on the internet for education most of the past year and that’s been difficult for less wealthy people. I think that needs to be qualified because this kind of argumentation tends rely on naive and simplified tropes and stereotypes of various class groups.
  - Loughla 6y ago
    What are you on about? Wealth and income are absolutely tied to ease and quality of technology/internet access in the home. That's not a stereotype, it's a fact (at least in the US). I'm not trying to be flippant, but do literally any cursory search related to income and technology and you'll find many, many, many scholarly articles supporting that statement. I have to assume that the lesson holds true for other countries, though I do need to admit ignorance to that fact.
    - macspoofing 6y ago
      >Wealth and income are absolutely tied to ease and quality of technology/internet access in the home. And you think fiber internet, a MacBook Pro, iPad, and a big screen tv equates to better grades? Better learning? Better education? When it comes to education a book, pencil and paper and a teacher is all you really need. Heck, technology may even be a hindrance because of the distraction aspect. There are countries with better educational outcomes even amongst households with a fraction of income to their American comparables. It's not income level that's the issue. A child raised in a loving but low-income two-parent household will be fine growing up in this society. A child growing up in a single-parent home, especially where drugs or alcohol is an issue and living in a crime-filled, violent neighborhood (defund the police!) will be challenged. You can't just contrast wealth and not wealth. There are other factors that dominate.
hnuser123456 6y ago
Boys have far higher suicide rates, we should not overlook helping them perhaps more.

Razengan 6y ago

Preventing people’s access to something because of the potential downsides to it? You can apply it to any facility. That’s the same mentality that keeps girls locked up in some cultures, to keep them “safe”.

ethbr0 6y ago
To be fair, a lot of cultures prevent children from buying alcohol and firearms on their own.
- Digit-Al 6y ago
  False equivalency. We prevent children buying alcohol and firearms because they might harm themselves and other people not because other people might use those things to harm them.
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    the original comment seemed to be concerned with kids harming themselves, but at any rate we prevent kids gambling as well which is much closer to the dynamics of social media than alcohol or firearms.
macspoofing 6y ago
>Preventing people’s access to something because of the potential downsides to it? We're not talking about adults, we're talking about children. Yes, at some point they need to be exposed to the internet because the internet is a fact of life. I'm just not sold that any child (say, under the age of 14) who doesn't have access to the internet would somehow be crippled socially, culturally or academically. I have yet to see any study that suggests limiting access to the internet for children, or even no access internet is greatly detrimental. Contrast this with the FACT that there is a mental health crisis happening right now due social media use, and that there is no effective way to segrate internet from social media. So what is the argument here? What if there is no safe-level of social media use for children? By the way it is not uncommon to see children of tech-savvy parents, who may work in the industry, outright banning or tightly controlling internet access to their children.
- pjc50 6y ago
  This last year, a large part of UK teaching to children of all ages has been entirely online. No internet == no teaching.
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    If only someone had invented a way to partition and limit access between networks...
    - curtainsforus 6y ago
      That kids definitely won't be desperate to work around and overcome. But I'm sort-of in favor, to encourage technical skills. Set up society so kids have to learn pentesting to see boobs, and seven proxies to not get found out and told off by the local morality commisar. Instant generational competence upgrade.
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    That needs to be qualified ... greatly. 1) There is such a thing as homeschool. 2) Schools are closed because of government mandated lockdowns. Not every region or nation decided to close their schools. In fact, most didn't. We're not even sure if that level of lockdown was good policy. Certainly there are credible epidemiologists who vehemently disagree with either lockdows or school closures. 3) The level of learning by remote instruction ... the data isn't out yet, but it isn't looking great. Maybe it's better than nothing but maybe not by much. 4) This is a generational pandemic that came suddenly and required big government bureaucracies to turn on a dime, and the internet to facilitate remote work was the most natural choice. But what are you saying, had this happened in 1992, no learning would be done? Or as the saying goes "necessity is the mother of invention" and we would find alternatives. We educated children just fine before the internet. In fact I suspect we would come up with something better than zoom classes. 5) But OK. Let's give the internet points for assisting with this pandemic. Let's draft laws that in the event of global pandemics you leverage the internet for remote learning. What is your argument for post-pandemic world? But overall I vehemently disagree with the notion that: "No internet == no teaching."

dennis_moore 6y ago

To me that sounds as ridiculous as saying: "Given the high rates of obesity due to overconsumption of food, is the scarcity of food in developing countries such a bad thing?"

jfk13 6y ago
Isn't it more like: "Given the high rates of obesity due to overconsumption of junk food, is the unchecked availability and aggressive marketing of unhealthy, addictive junk food really a good thing?"
- scrollaway 6y ago
  No. He said access to the internet, not to Facebook or something. You know, that thing that has new wonders of the world and incredible educational content such as Wikipedia, YouTube, etc.
  - jfk13 6y ago
    Yes, the internet has some "wonders", and I appreciate them greatly. (If I didn't think it had value, I wouldn't have spent the last decade-plus of my life working on internet-related software and standards.) However, it also has a huge amount of toxic garbage, by no means restricted to a few "social media" sites. Whether we can stem the deluge of junk, so that the average person's experience of the internet is actually a net positive, seems uncertain at this point. I don't think we've yet figured out how to manage this.
    - scrollaway 6y ago
      Food has healthy stuff and unhealthy stuff. Access to food usually means access to both. Internet has healthy stuff and unhealthy stuff. Access to the internet means access to both.
      - macspoofing 6y ago
        Food is an actual necessity for ... you know ... living. Access to the internet by children is not.

kjakm 6y ago

His point is that young people have had to rely on the internet for education most of the past year and that’s been difficult for less wealthy people.

macspoofing 6y ago
>His point is that young people have had to rely on the internet for education most of the past year and that’s been difficult for less wealthy people. I think that needs to be qualified because this kind of argumentation tends rely on naive and simplified tropes and stereotypes of various class groups.
- Loughla 6y ago
  What are you on about? Wealth and income are absolutely tied to ease and quality of technology/internet access in the home. That's not a stereotype, it's a fact (at least in the US). I'm not trying to be flippant, but do literally any cursory search related to income and technology and you'll find many, many, many scholarly articles supporting that statement. I have to assume that the lesson holds true for other countries, though I do need to admit ignorance to that fact.
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    >Wealth and income are absolutely tied to ease and quality of technology/internet access in the home. And you think fiber internet, a MacBook Pro, iPad, and a big screen tv equates to better grades? Better learning? Better education? When it comes to education a book, pencil and paper and a teacher is all you really need. Heck, technology may even be a hindrance because of the distraction aspect. There are countries with better educational outcomes even amongst households with a fraction of income to their American comparables. It's not income level that's the issue. A child raised in a loving but low-income two-parent household will be fine growing up in this society. A child growing up in a single-parent home, especially where drugs or alcohol is an issue and living in a crime-filled, violent neighborhood (defund the police!) will be challenged. You can't just contrast wealth and not wealth. There are other factors that dominate.

hnuser123456 6y ago

Boys have far higher suicide rates, we should not overlook helping them perhaps more.