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Parental supervision only works if the parent cares enough to even monitor digital usage. Instagram kids is quite possibly the worst idea for society I've seen

Parental supervision only works if the parent cares enough to even monitor digital usage. Instagram kids is quite possibly the worst idea for society I've seen in a while. The correlation between social media use and mental health issues, dropping grades, etc, in kids that are getting younger and younger, is stunning in my (admittedly anecdotal) experience. I hope this is legislated against, heavily. Seriously, I'm seeing kids that are as young as 12 years old, spending hours on TikTok or the Instagram explore page, IN CLASS. It's just a terrible, terrible thing to see.

supercanuck 5y ago
Parental supervision only works if the parent *IS CAPABALE* enough to even monitor digital usage.
- hwers 5y ago
  I mean both need to be true
  - supercanuck 5y ago
    You can “care” and be incapable.
goda90 5y ago
Maybe it needs a system where the account locks if there isn't occasional parental monitoring. Then the kids would be the ones encouraging their parents to check. Maybe the parent has to take a selfie for facial verification or something.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  Sometimes software isn't the answer. I think this is a good example. One of my child's friends plays Roblox nearly every waking hour outside of school. He's 5. People naturally would ask "where are his parents?" ...she's a single mom working two jobs, and he's at home with a teenage sister as his only supervision most of the time. This isn't uncommon in the US. I was a latchkey kid myself, my babysitter was TV. People say that parents need to pay attention to their kids more, but parents don't need more or better software, they need money and time.
  - watwut 5y ago
    This issue with this is that contemporary American parents are already spending more time with kids then used to be norm. Compared to past, even relaxed parents are helicopter parents. Maybe the expectation that parents will be constantly there, hovering over the young teenagers itself, micromanaging every aspect of their lifes on itself is unhealthy on itself.
    - micromacrofoot 5y ago
      I agree that this is a problem, albeit a different one. The subset of people I'm talking about almost certainly don't fit into this category. There are still millions of kids with struggling parents who don't have proper guidance (note, guidance isn't necessarily supervision). In the case of parents who are spending more time than ever with their kids, the problem could certainly be more related to aptitude. We live in a society where our lawmakers don't fully understand the technology most people are spending hours a day being manipulated by, so it certainly seems likely most parents don't understand the impact either. Either way, to say that these companies will solve it themselves with better software for parents doesn't seem like a solution to either issue. It's kind of like "the factories are safer for children now because they're wearing hard hats" — it's the wrong conversation driven by the wrong people.
- mfer 5y ago
  Most parents are unaware of the issues that are caused. Parent would often just be annoyed and press the approve button without thinking. Like the way no one reads the TOS. Those selfies for facial verification would most likely be used for something unrelated and most people would be unhappy with if they knew. Think of the ways these could be misused.
- pengstrom 5y ago
  This is going to end in a social media monitoring SaaS. Get curated alerts for "problematic" behavior. Completely transparent. Inevitable customer pressure will make current LGBT discrimination look quaint. Wonderful.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  Jesus, that's dystopian. Get the parents in the system by hooking the kids?
sharemywin 5y ago
wow you figured it out parents don't care about their kids.
sufficer 5y ago
It's kind of sad just seeing people glued to smartphones 24/7. I guess I started noticing it when going out again after lockdown restrictions were lifted where I live.
- mattgreenrocks 5y ago
  Yes, there needs to be a larger conversation about the level of addiction exhibited by adults. Kids are also an issue, but it doesn't help when adults are setting the expectation that phone addiction is okay.
  - asdff 5y ago
    At least my generation of adults has had smartphones since middle school now. People have neck problems from craning over. The minute there is a lull in the conversation the addicted and hungry brain seeks to fill the void with dopamine, and a phone appears open to some infinite scrolling app before the user can understand what even just happened. Oh and people rip juuls like there is no tomorrow either, so there are physical addictions among my generation. You have older millenials now in their mid thirties who are hiding in the bathroom stalls at their workplaces to hit their juul. All that effort getting generation X off of cigarettes and the work is undone within a few short years with a single company from san fransisco. Unbelievable that we always foolishly go after the vice of the day (when I was a kid it was flavored cigarettes, look at all the good banning that did) instead of outlawing using the science of addiction for profit in the first place and nipping all of these dark patterns in the bud in one fell swoop.
    - sodality2 5y ago
      It is absolutely as pervasive as you say, I can confirm. It takes a LOT of discipline to not fall in the pit. The algorithms truly are that hard to resist especially at a young and impressionable age.
    - FearlessNebula 5y ago
      I’m super guilty of this. I don’t take a piss without scrolling Reddit
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
If they're doing that in class it sounds like a failing of the school itself. They can confiscate phones if they're being distracting or disruptive. Whatever happened to rules in class?
- watwut 5y ago
  I have to agree here. It is no different then any other distraction, toy or whatever in class. If the teacher is unable to get control over those, there is larger issues in there - either with teacher or with the school not empowering teacher.
  - sodality2 5y ago
    It's far worse than that. You take a toy, they're done for the day. Kids have been known to bring iPods, old phones, etc to sacrifice to teachers. Plus, laptops are mandatory to have in my district (though not mandatory to use), so it takes about five seconds to cheat or get distracted in class.
- tjpnz 5y ago
  When I was going through High School in the early 2000s teachers had a box you had to put your phone into at the beginning of each class. Worked fine then, can't see why it wouldn't now.
  - floren 5y ago
    When I've worked in classified environments, they'd have an array of phone-sized lockboxes right outside the classified area. Put your phone in, take the key (which is on a springy lanyard to go around your wrist). I assume high school students would immediately invent The Key Eating Game or something, where you swallow the lockbox key for TikTok clout
  - asdff 5y ago
    When I was in highschool about a decade later we figured out we could just hand the teacher some ancient flip phone and keep our actual iphones in our pocket.
foofoo4u 5y ago
Makes me wonder if its possible to install a faraday cage within the walls of the classroom in order to block signal.
- sodality2 5y ago
  In fact, a school I took my most recent SAT at did indeed have some sort of cell blocker. But they had in-school wifi, so I'm not quite sure what the reasoning is. (Apps like Snapchat and Spotify and Netflix are blocked, but Instagram and TikTok are not, so the firewall's not super well-made)
gentleman11 5y ago
Facebook figures parents don’t care about their kids privacy or letting the kids be manipulated. They just figure that parents want in on it, so they’re sharing their data and tracking.

supercanuck 5y ago

Parental supervision only works if the parent *IS CAPABALE* enough to even monitor digital usage.

hwers 5y ago
I mean both need to be true
- supercanuck 5y ago
  You can “care” and be incapable.

goda90 5y ago

Maybe it needs a system where the account locks if there isn't occasional parental monitoring. Then the kids would be the ones encouraging their parents to check. Maybe the parent has to take a selfie for facial verification or something.

micromacrofoot 5y ago
Sometimes software isn't the answer. I think this is a good example. One of my child's friends plays Roblox nearly every waking hour outside of school. He's 5. People naturally would ask "where are his parents?" ...she's a single mom working two jobs, and he's at home with a teenage sister as his only supervision most of the time. This isn't uncommon in the US. I was a latchkey kid myself, my babysitter was TV. People say that parents need to pay attention to their kids more, but parents don't need more or better software, they need money and time.
- watwut 5y ago
  This issue with this is that contemporary American parents are already spending more time with kids then used to be norm. Compared to past, even relaxed parents are helicopter parents. Maybe the expectation that parents will be constantly there, hovering over the young teenagers itself, micromanaging every aspect of their lifes on itself is unhealthy on itself.
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    I agree that this is a problem, albeit a different one. The subset of people I'm talking about almost certainly don't fit into this category. There are still millions of kids with struggling parents who don't have proper guidance (note, guidance isn't necessarily supervision). In the case of parents who are spending more time than ever with their kids, the problem could certainly be more related to aptitude. We live in a society where our lawmakers don't fully understand the technology most people are spending hours a day being manipulated by, so it certainly seems likely most parents don't understand the impact either. Either way, to say that these companies will solve it themselves with better software for parents doesn't seem like a solution to either issue. It's kind of like "the factories are safer for children now because they're wearing hard hats" — it's the wrong conversation driven by the wrong people.
mfer 5y ago
Most parents are unaware of the issues that are caused. Parent would often just be annoyed and press the approve button without thinking. Like the way no one reads the TOS. Those selfies for facial verification would most likely be used for something unrelated and most people would be unhappy with if they knew. Think of the ways these could be misused.
pengstrom 5y ago
This is going to end in a social media monitoring SaaS. Get curated alerts for "problematic" behavior. Completely transparent. Inevitable customer pressure will make current LGBT discrimination look quaint. Wonderful.
robbedpeter 5y ago
Jesus, that's dystopian. Get the parents in the system by hooking the kids?

sharemywin 5y ago

wow you figured it out parents don't care about their kids.

sufficer 5y ago

It's kind of sad just seeing people glued to smartphones 24/7. I guess I started noticing it when going out again after lockdown restrictions were lifted where I live.

mattgreenrocks 5y ago
Yes, there needs to be a larger conversation about the level of addiction exhibited by adults. Kids are also an issue, but it doesn't help when adults are setting the expectation that phone addiction is okay.
- asdff 5y ago
  At least my generation of adults has had smartphones since middle school now. People have neck problems from craning over. The minute there is a lull in the conversation the addicted and hungry brain seeks to fill the void with dopamine, and a phone appears open to some infinite scrolling app before the user can understand what even just happened. Oh and people rip juuls like there is no tomorrow either, so there are physical addictions among my generation. You have older millenials now in their mid thirties who are hiding in the bathroom stalls at their workplaces to hit their juul. All that effort getting generation X off of cigarettes and the work is undone within a few short years with a single company from san fransisco. Unbelievable that we always foolishly go after the vice of the day (when I was a kid it was flavored cigarettes, look at all the good banning that did) instead of outlawing using the science of addiction for profit in the first place and nipping all of these dark patterns in the bud in one fell swoop.
  - sodality2 5y ago
    It is absolutely as pervasive as you say, I can confirm. It takes a LOT of discipline to not fall in the pit. The algorithms truly are that hard to resist especially at a young and impressionable age.
  - FearlessNebula 5y ago
    I’m super guilty of this. I don’t take a piss without scrolling Reddit

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

If they're doing that in class it sounds like a failing of the school itself. They can confiscate phones if they're being distracting or disruptive. Whatever happened to rules in class?

watwut 5y ago
I have to agree here. It is no different then any other distraction, toy or whatever in class. If the teacher is unable to get control over those, there is larger issues in there - either with teacher or with the school not empowering teacher.
- sodality2 5y ago
  It's far worse than that. You take a toy, they're done for the day. Kids have been known to bring iPods, old phones, etc to sacrifice to teachers. Plus, laptops are mandatory to have in my district (though not mandatory to use), so it takes about five seconds to cheat or get distracted in class.
tjpnz 5y ago
When I was going through High School in the early 2000s teachers had a box you had to put your phone into at the beginning of each class. Worked fine then, can't see why it wouldn't now.
- floren 5y ago
  When I've worked in classified environments, they'd have an array of phone-sized lockboxes right outside the classified area. Put your phone in, take the key (which is on a springy lanyard to go around your wrist). I assume high school students would immediately invent The Key Eating Game or something, where you swallow the lockbox key for TikTok clout
- asdff 5y ago
  When I was in highschool about a decade later we figured out we could just hand the teacher some ancient flip phone and keep our actual iphones in our pocket.

foofoo4u 5y ago

Makes me wonder if its possible to install a faraday cage within the walls of the classroom in order to block signal.

sodality2 5y ago
In fact, a school I took my most recent SAT at did indeed have some sort of cell blocker. But they had in-school wifi, so I'm not quite sure what the reasoning is. (Apps like Snapchat and Spotify and Netflix are blocked, but Instagram and TikTok are not, so the firewall's not super well-made)

gentleman11 5y ago

Facebook figures parents don’t care about their kids privacy or letting the kids be manipulated. They just figure that parents want in on it, so they’re sharing their data and tracking.