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Why aren't parent ready to take responsibility? I have small kids and nephews, none of them get/will get smartphone till 13-15. Laptop, the 8 year old uses has

• vletal 6y ago
  FOMO? Potential social isolation? I have just a 2yo and a t-6m so I do not have to worry about these things. Yet the way you handle it sounds a bit too strict. You sure that maybe strict limits on screen time and YouTube together with speaking about what they consume would not teach them more?
  • whitepaint 6y ago
    Everyone's insane so I must be as well. Come on man. I totally agree with the OP, take personal responsibility. You raise your children not Zuck. Louis CK had great comments about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c
    • vletal 6y ago
      I was actually asking an honest question. I do not think I'm giving up on my responsibilities. It's just that does serving as a proxy to YouTube really help better than some reasonable weekly limit?
    • philistine 6y ago
      I would refrain from using Louis CK as any sort of a moral compass. For obvious reasons.
      • po1nter 6y ago
        Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
      • Karsteski 6y ago
        So should a person's mistakes be held against them for the rest of their life? Especially given what he did, which seemed very mild compared to the reaction.
        • foobiter 6y ago
          you think serially ejaculating in front of people without consent is mild? are you serious?
        • boringg 6y ago
          I think OPs comment is accurate. He does lose his ability to be used as a moral compass. He might still be funny and have interesting insights but he is not a moral compass.
          • Karsteski 6y ago
            Hmm I heavily disagree. I think that just because someone did something fucked up in the past doesn't mean they can no longer be trusted or their moral compass/judgement is somehow permanently broken. Perhaps this is the case for me because what he did wasn't really messed up from what I know about the story, just weird. I will concede that in some situations, and from my perspective these would almost entire involve sexual assault, I'd consider a person unredeemable.
            • boringg 6y ago
              In a situation where someone has indeed done some fucked up stuff - they need to prove that their moral compass has been fixed in order for them to be trusted again. I don't think you get a pass because you've been quiet for a couple years. So I disagree with you. You should probably go read up on what he did - pretty messed up power dynamics. (https://www.thecut.com/2018/08/what-about-the-careers-of-louis-ck-victims.html https://www.thecut.com/2018/08/what-about-the-careers-of-lou...)
              • Karsteski 6y ago
      • whitepaint 6y ago
        He's arguably the greatest comedian of all time. I think there's definitely a thing or two to extract from his wisdom.
        • w0de0 6y ago
          A middling slice of life observational/philosophical standup act who burned out in a conflagration of masturbatory inability to control the self is not a particularly compelling argument for greatest comedian of all time. At least Diogenes embraced it, for example.
      • tryonenow 6y ago
        The fact that someone acted immorally in one way does not imply that they are incapable of giving any moral advice. By your logic no human being can be trusted as a "moral compass". Just another problem with modern cancel culture - consistently throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
    • kube-system 6y ago
      An individual's personal responsibility only goes so far to shape the social norms that your kid will be exposed to. If the thing you don't want your kid doing becomes a norm, then abstaining may come with additional consequences of sizable consequence.
      • whitepaint 6y ago
        Society is made of individuals. Leave the decision to an individual and the equilibrium of right will be reached quicker. We don't need one huge entity to tell us what's wrong or right. We don't need governments to babysit us. Let's use an example. Let's say now the norm becomes to allow kids to drink alcohol and smoke weed. Would you allow your kids to do it? Same principles, in my opinion, stand with Instagram or any other tool / toy / gadget.
        • vletal 6y ago
          You sure that your "we do not need governments to babysit us" ideology goes well with the rest of the tread you seemingly agree with?
        • evanlivingston 6y ago
          You seen the pollution people create left to their own free will?
        • kube-system 6y ago
          A lot of parents do give some leeway in letting their kids get away with those things in order to let them fit in. Mostly, the reason kids don't do those things more is exactly because we had the government ban those things for kids. But, alas, Instagram is not a regulated drug, and I see little reason why most parents' reactions wouldn't be more similar to those they have for video games or watching movies than it would be to the use of an illegal drug. A more apt comparison might be a parent who doesn't let their kid go to the movies or play video games with their friends.
          • whitepaint 6y ago
    • throwawaymrmr 6y ago
      As somebody who was raised similarly to the OP's "sane" way, I would certainly prefer being "insane" to the social isolation I ended up in. Of course, there were countless other factors that made me who I am, but this is still something to consider.
• Sharlin 6y ago
  There are millions of parents, while there is only one Mark Zuckerberg. There's no such thing as parents collectively deciding to take responsibility, and it's unfair to the children to just expect them to have good parents. It's a classic case of a coordination problem.
  • jldugger 6y ago
    So if we break up facebook, there is no hope?
    • samcal 6y ago
      What? It's not that there's just one Zuck, it's that there are fewer Zucks than parents. The strategy would be the same if there were 5 Facebooks competing for market share.
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      • throwaway_4253 6y ago
        Ironically, it could be argued that it's easier when Facebook is the only player in town; otherwise the argument might be "But my competition does it! It's a race to the bottom - I can't compete if I act ethically!"
  • noxer 6y ago
    >and it's unfair to the children to just expect them to have good parents. Also unfair because some parents are not rich. Some aren't living in the right place. Some are not highly intelligent. Some are not woke enough. Indeed very very unfair. Lets hand over the responsibility to companies or to the state. Communistic coordinated child parenting probably isn't gonna make it better for the children but at least its fair.
    • Hnrobert42 6y ago
      Handing over control to the state? Communism? What are you talking about? I’m worried there may be a CO2 build up in your bunker.
• PicassoCTs 6y ago
  They do, they vote for politicians to make laws to remove that threat to their childs well being permanently. Why is it fair to privatize the infinite work-load of thwarting attackers, but unfair to centralize the work-load of defence?
• vletal 6y ago
  How did they come up with 13yo as the minimal age btw. Is it set globally? I feel like it's itself too low.
  • mrguyorama 6y ago
    13 is the minimum age you can get some sort of consent to log data and interact with someone in the US (with parents permission I think?) or something like that
    • vletal 6y ago
      Ah. Ok. Here in Czechia we get partial responsibility at the age of 15...
  • underdown 6y ago
    In the US it's defined by COPPA. Children's online privacy & protection act
  • heavyset_go 6y ago
    I agree it's too low, but any higher age would be "bad for business"
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• brightball 6y ago
  While I agree with you completely, I imagine there are a number of parents not savvy enough to know how to lock these things down. I tell parents about the reasons to avoid this stuff all the time and many of them are so exhausted it's more of a "whatever, they will be fine" type of response (more politely of course, but that's the gist of it). I feel it now too. My kids are in middle school and all their friends are getting phones. All I hear about is "Everybody else can do X! We're the only ones that can't." I let them have stretches of unlimited game access and when I saw what it was doing, took them away. After experiencing it, when I explained how the games work to make them addicted and the things that we saw changing in their behavior they understood and at least now they take a lot of what I say more seriously when I warn them. So that's a positive. I have backed off on some things due to the pandemic just to make it easier to play with their friends (Fortnite, Roblox, etc). Previously my generally rule was "no iPad/iPhone/Touchscreen games" but just about anything on the Switch/Xbox was fine. I find that games that you purchase vs games that are free don't have anywhere close to the same tilt toward addiction, ad feeds, timed rewards, etc. I also don't see the negative behaviors that came from these either. Over time, their friends parents seem to be going the other direction and getting more strict with the electronics, so I'm hearing less "why can't we" and more "he can't play anymore today". Social stuff though...zero chance. None. It's a disease.
  • philistine 6y ago
    Let me say I don't have children of my own, and I want to send you positive vibes and encouragement. Stay attentive and positive with your kids, and I hope we can stop the monopolists from monetizing our children.
    • brightball 6y ago
      Thank you
  • steve_adams_86 6y ago
    > a number of parents not savvy enough This is an important factor that extends into all aspects of tech that I've worked around. Us tech savvy people take a staggering amount of knowledge for granted, I think - partially due to how technical knowledge can compound and transfer so well. People use the term whitelist - why not supervise kids with a whitelist? I understand that idea (I've written the behaviour into software), and I'd even seek it out if I wanted to protect my kids. But to some people, this concept won't make sense at all. They'll ask things like "Why does the phone know what my kid can see?" or "How can the phone know what each app/website is?" – questions that almost make no sense if you know how these things work. But, that's the world we live in. I personally think it's my responsibility as someone privileged enough to be technical to help those who don't understand. Whether it's my kids or their grandma or the people I work with. Most people learn these concepts readily, but they have no idea where to start or what to look for to learn. It's not really their fault (not that you or anyone suggested it is). > games that you purchase vs games that are free don't have anywhere close to the same tilt toward addiction, ad feeds, timed rewards, etc Absolutely, it seems analogous to watching a movie vs watching T.V. > Social stuff though...zero chance. None. It's a disease. 100%
• mathattack 6y ago
  Yes, parents should make sure their kids don’t drink or smoke. Also Yes, it should be illegal to sell them cigarettes and beer.
  • RHSman2 6y ago
    This
• kolbe 6y ago
  I'm pretty tech literate, and I have no clue how to get a whitelist-only OS. I don't think it's fair to make every American understand this in order to protect their children from predatory companies.
• lhorie 6y ago
  Why is the assumption that it's an either-or thing? We can have responsible parents AND people being outraged at zuck's moneygrab-at-the-expense-of-children move. With this said, I don't exactly understand how an instagram for children can possibly hope to NOT run afoul of COPPA. All it takes is one child uploading a single photo of themselves or their siblings, or referring to a friend by name in a comment, or heck even just using their real name in their username...
• Hnrobert42 6y ago
  You seem like a very tech savvy and involved parent. Maybe having the time, energy, and education to be so savvy and involved is a privilege.
• dalbasal 6y ago
  >> Why aren't parent ready to take responsibility? There are two ways to look at this, imo: (1) Individual parents. Absolutely agree. If you are one, do your research and limit internet use. (2) Societally... It's hard. Culture doesn't move as fast as tech does. If SV culture isn't totally caught up, where is the average culture? It's hard because "think totally independently" isn't how people work, at least not all the time. Especially when it comes to parenting, people rely on norms. Meanwhile, it's hard to control those little Bs.
• Angostura 6y ago
  This is absolutely fine. Until you realise that your kids are absolutely miserable because all of their friend groups are arranging to meet in the park or whatever via WhatsApp. You’ll get really sick of downloading every. Single. Minecraft redstone tutorial for them.
  • ryandrake 6y ago
    If their "friends" are arranging play through some medium that they know the kid doesn't have access too, I have some bad news for the kid: They're probably not his friends. My friends know that I'm not on Facebook, and they know to contact me over E-mail when we're getting together. EDIT: Wow, how is this so unpopular? Do your friends regularly make plans together without you?
    • black_puppydog 6y ago
      Must've been a while since being a child, huh? I mean, I get where you're coming from, but your ideological stance not gonna help your child at all. As opposed to the stance (admittedly also ideological, but I agree with this one) that facebook and all its subsidiaries should gtfo children's lives.
      • ryandrake 6y ago
        We agree that social media should GTFO of children's lives at least! I'm just responding to the parent who said the kid's "friend groups are arranging to meet in the park or whatever via WhatsApp". If they are arranging these things and leaving the kid out, that doesn't sound like very friendly behavior to me. Back when I was a kid and dinosaurs roamed the earth, we made after-school plans in 4th period math, because we were all in the same class. If my friends suddenly started making plans in a class where they knew I wasn't present, I'd start questioning whether they were really friends.
        • danbolt 6y ago
          I think for a lot of our communications, elements of 4th period math have now moved to a group chat.
• takeda 6y ago
  Not all parents are users of HN, if anything, we are vast minority. While perhaps setting parental controls is trying to be simple and parents can get somebody's help with it, the second part like downloading video from youtube and playing it on VLC is way beyond most people. Especially that's not officially supported by YT.
• nickthemagicman 6y ago
  I believe the prevailing view is: instead of deleting Facebook and putting a white list on you home computer, it's way better for congress to enact massive federal legislation.
• rimliu 6y ago
  Why not 18? You ate not helping anybody here, sorry.
• bigbob2 6y ago
  My parents often worked 70+ hour weeks just to keep a roof over my head. If they tried to find the time to restrict content from me in the manner you suggest, I may have never become a developer. Every situation is different, so I don't think you should assume your solution is one size fits all.
• syops 6y ago
  What kind of society do you want to live in? One where children’s attention can be exploited at the whim of corporations because they happen to have parents that aren’t vigilant enough? Shouldn’t society in the form of it’s government look out for the best interests of its most vulnerable citizens? There are lots of parents who suck and aren’t ready/able to take responsibility as you put it. Shouldn’t we as a whole at least makes some effort to look out for those children born to irresponsible parents?
  • luxuryballs 6y ago
    Nah, survival of the fittest is a family affair.
• thesausageking 6y ago
  Your kids maybe too young to have experienced it, but at some age social media takes over. Even if you put your foot down and don't let your kid have an account or a phone, their friends will post photos of them and tease them. And kids can be really cruel. Given Facebook has a monopoly in social networks, it's entirely reasonable to hold them to a higher standard and question the impact of new products which use their monopoly power to launch.
  • phku 6y ago
    100% agree. When they're really young it's almost trivial to control their online habits. But they definitely hit an "age" where peer pressure and the want to fit-in becomes the all consuming incentive to be part of these social media networks. We'd managed to avoid the whole cell phone thing until our son was 13, which was some kind of miracle since I've been seeing cell phones on kids desks as young as 1st grade for years now. It's definitely an easier said than done scenario.
  • luxuryballs 6y ago
    Social media can just be iMessage though, group chats with friends, I don’t see any thing that a phone can’t do that Facebook can in terms of being required for social life.
    • Jcowell 6y ago
      Posting of events that you do with your friends or events that happen to you that you want all your friends to see is something you do on Social Media Platforms that will not translate well on Messaging Platforms. If your child were going to Disney world and they wanted their friends to see , they would probably posit it on Snapchat instead of a group chat that I doubt has everyone they interact with on Snapchat (especially if some of their friends have android devices)
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  > Why aren't parent ready to take responsibility Yes, I mean parents should be responsible not to use leaded paint. And parents should be responsible for making sure they don't buy a crib that can suffocate their infant. And parents should be responsible for making sure pajamas are not going to catch on fire. And parents should be responsible for making sure that their kids avoid cigarette ads targeted to kids (like Joe Camel). With kids, if there is a certain threshold of danger from something, especially if it is being targeted to kids, I think society should regulate (see alcohol and tobacco). I think there is increasing evidence that certain types of social media are harmful to kids.
• logicalmind 6y ago
  I used to think this way. I have 3 kids, the oldest of which is now in her mid teens. Doing what you say is way harder than you think. Mostly because you have to control not only your own children, but your children's friends as well. For example, my kids did not get phones. But all of their friends had them. Which meant my kids would just create accounts for these services on their friends phones and just post whatever they wanted without me being able to control it. A second example is when their friends get new phones. Guess what they do with the old phone? They give it other kids who don't have them. Sure, they don't have a cell plan. But that doesn't stop them from using wifi at starbucks or any other place.
• paulcole 6y ago
  > none of them get/will get smartphone till 13-15 I had technophobe parents like this. When other kids got technology I had to do without to build character or whatever. Lesson I learned is that adults are mostly pretty dumb and stubborn. Haven’t seen ‘em in 15 years.
• sweetheart 6y ago
  There is an enormous difference between some parents going through the effort to healthily manage their kids' screen time, and making the societal default lower screen time for _all_ kids. I could see the former just being incredibly alienating and depressing, as all the other kid's may have access to these things.
• AnonHP 6y ago
  > I have small kids and nephews, none of them get/will get smartphone till 13-15. During normal times, they’ll just get it from their friends or schoolmates. Unless you can surveil the kids all the time, this method alone won’t help.
• reaperducer 6y ago
  Why aren't parent ready to take responsibility? Easy to say from an ivory tower. Not everyone is you. Some people have two jobs. Some people travel a lot. Some people have to take care of sick relatives. Some people have hard jobs that consume a lot of time. Some people are poor. Some people don't have great education. Some people are simply not capable of doing all the things that you do. It's very SV Bubble to make bad products available and then blame the parents when they damage their children. That's not how a civilized society works. It's why we have a Consumer Products Safety Commission. Why can Facebook just do the right thing and not target children? Why is Facebook making money more important than everything else in the world?
• ryandrake 6y ago
  As a parent, I know I signed up for this. I need to tell her "no" many times a day, every day, for things she really wants to do. That's part of being a parent. I need to suck it up and be a parent. That said, I don't appreciate that there are people out there like Zucc, who are making it their business to create even more things I have to say no to, and specifically targeting them at kids. Just like those people out there making kids games that are essentially casino gambling, but just barely on the safe side of the legal line. Thanks, a lot assholes, for adding no value to the world and giving me yet another thing to forbid my kid from doing.
  • jgon 6y ago
    I feel this deeply, especially the final paragraph. Feels really depressing sometimes to think how much of what we define as "value" can seem essentially predatory.
• why_Mr_Anderson 6y ago
  Great way to make the life of your kids absolute hell at school. I feel sorry for them, being isolated from other kids because your parents are crazy is horrible.
• iforgetti 6y ago
  Imagine if cigarettes were legal for all ages. It might fair to call on both cigarette companies to stop selling to children and also to call on parents to prevent their kids from smoking.
• tharne 6y ago
  You're asking parents why they might have trouble competing for their children's attention vs. a company with essentially unlimited money and some of the best programmers and marketers in the world? I sincerely hope you're being sarcastic. By the way, I can almost guarantee you that your kids will find a way to get themselves smartphones before you officially allow it. Kids are resourceful, and there's nothing as tempting as something their parents tell them they can't have.
• Waterluvian 6y ago
  The ability to more intelligently control access to sites/apps WITHOUT requiring technical competence is critical. I think Apple and Android offer some fairly powerful tools to manage these things? But I've found that routers, even in 2021, are just trash garbage at offering these kinds of powers.
• pimlottc 6y ago
  Seems to me that petitioning Facebook about this is a way of parents taking responsibility for making a better world for their kids.
• criddell 6y ago
  A cell phone was basically considered a required item like binders and pens at my kids' school. Rather than ban them, they try to encourage appropriate use. For example, they encourage the use of the calendar app for tracking assignments and test dates. They use the camera to capture information for homework. Kids have projects that sometimes involves recording audio or shooting video. There's also a twitter-like app that the teacher can use to broadcast to students and students can use to communicate with the teacher.
  • mujina93 6y ago
    This is probably one of the few right approaches that can be realistically employed. Everything else is quite utopian and difficult to achieve, unfortunately.
    • swiley 6y ago
      Hopefully they don't force the kids to use services though. I know one class my sister took required the use of facebook which is pretty terrible.
• patkai 6y ago
  Everybody should take responsibility, parents first and also Zuckerberg.
• bobthechef 6y ago
  Indeed. It does seem like a defect in parenting. There is no conceivable reason why you can't forbid your kids from using these things (whether they disobey is another matter, but that's life and at least the law has been made known to said progeny; may the punishment begin!). If you can't do that, then frankly, you've got bigger issues as a parent than the inability to forbid the use of these services. Maybe start with those first.
• hnalien 6y ago
  Peer pressure is real among kids aged 8-22 (yes, that's a huge range but that's what is). You can stop your kids all you want, but then they will find ways to experience what you have deprived them of, and that will be catastrophic for their development and relationships in general. I'd like some child growth specialist to chime in, but I believe this dynamic won't be good as parents are a safe haven for kids and if kids think parents are not letting them have something that all the other kids have, it might affect them longterm.
• swiley 6y ago
  Most people don't feel they have control over their devices, why would they expect to be able to control their child's?
• sollewitt 6y ago
  Do they have friends? Do those friends have smartphones?