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Plenty of parents likely do not let their kids use social media. How effective do you think that is? Kids can and will circumvent their parents' restrictions.

Plenty of parents likely do not let their kids use social media. How effective do you think that is? Kids can and will circumvent their parents' restrictions. You can certainly make it harder by not giving your kid a cell phone, or giving them a dumbphone. But the article makes a good point that it's a tricky line between protecting your kid and effectively ostracizing them. Especially during the pandemic. Could you imagine being a kid who can't see their friends, can't text them, can only send them emails? You'd have effectively no social contact. And you can't govern by telling people to be better parents. If one set of parents has a social media addicted child, that's on them. If ten million parents have a social media addicted child, you have a policy problem.

barsonme 5y ago
How come scale (“ten million”) makes it a policy problem? There are a whole heck of a lot of poor parenting practices out there, manny practiced at scale.
yumraj 5y ago
> How effective do you think that is? In the short term, very. In the long term, as in once the kids are off to college and so on, who knows. But, overall I think much more effective than the households/kids with unrestricted access. > your kid and effectively ostracizing them. This is an interesting one. If the kids are educated as to why a certain action is being taken, as opposed to just No then kids can accept the policy and be fine with it. Messaging such as Signal or iMessage is allowed, but I just don't understand as to why kids have to share million selfies each day. So anything out of the Zuck-factory is a complete no-no. Bottom line, I'd rather ostracize kids in the short term than cause longer term psychological harm. > If ten million parents have a social media addicted child, you have a policy problem. I never said don't do policy, but that is not a substitute for better parenting. Let me ask this, will the same parent who allow their kids unfettered access to social media allow their kids similar access to porn websites? I'm pretty sure they won't. Which is why it's not either/or, it's both. This is why I said that the narrative is incomplete.
- ryankrage77 5y ago
  > In the short term, very. Based on my own experience, not so much. I managed to sign up for & use facebook on a dumb phone against my parents wishes, and I wasn't particularly technically proficient at the time. I only got caught when I logged into the account on the family computer, and angling the screen away from my parents made them suspicious. They also implemented various blocks, both on the router and with software on the PC. This taught me about DNS, proxies, VPNs and Tor, and led to me seeing a lot of messed up things, since I was so curious to see what they didn't want me to see. Simply preventing your kid from doing something leads to them learning how to sneak past you. As you said, > If the kids are educated as to why a certain action is being taken, as opposed to just No then kids can accept the policy and be fine with it
- hardwaregeek 5y ago
  I'm curious. Do you have kids or have you been a kid somewhat recently? The latter is true for me. I find it pretty surprising that you'd imagine that you can keep kids away from social media. Even if you explain it, an 11 year old isn't going to understand the long term psychological implications of social media. They're just going to understand that you're keeping them away from their friends. Do you honestly think any average child will wait until college to circumvent their parents? That said, I'm sympathetic to your viewpoint. I would certainly not provide unfettered access to social media to my children (if I had any). And there should be some amount of advertising/training around healthy digital habits. But it's a little more nuanced than just blaming parents for being incompetent.
- Broken_Hippo 5y ago
  If the kids are educated as to why a certain action is being taken, as opposed to just No then kids can accept the policy and be fine with it. My parents explained the reason for not allowing me some music: I listened nonetheless as I found the rule unreasonable. DARE explained drugs were bad, but they weren't being honest about the stuff they were saying. My mother forbid me from eating hard candy for years because I choked one. It embarrassed me and I did it nonetheless if she weren't around. I know I'm not the only one that does this. In other words, explanations are only helpful if they are truthful and seem reasonable to the child. Forcing a child or teen to be an outcast isn't generally reasonable. (the child choosing is fine). Messaging such as Signal or iMessage is allowed, but I just don't understand as to why kids have to share million selfies each day. So anything out of the Zuck-factory is a complete no-no. Bottom line, I'd rather ostracize kids in the short term than cause longer term psychological harm. You know, messaging isn't realistically better if they are being ostracized. You could teach someone rules about it and keep an eye on activity. Some things will simply be out of your control, though. Being ostracized can very easily cause long term psychological harm and it easily leads to bullying as well - after a while, you wind up out of the loop and have trouble talking to your peers. Folks go to therapy to learn how to undo this. You probably recognize it in folks that have overly strict parents.
laurex 5y ago
Our 13-year-old doesn't have IG/FB/Twitter and he is fine, and even proud about it. He does have Minecraft, Discord, and other video games (and some access to YouTube at his other house, but he doesn't have an account). There are of course problems with every platform, but we have watched a bunch of the social media documentaries and talked about it, and he's aware that what he is "missing out on" is primarily the kind of interaction that won't leave him feeling good. Being off "social media" doesn't mean being without communication with other kinds online.

barsonme 5y ago

How come scale (“ten million”) makes it a policy problem? There are a whole heck of a lot of poor parenting practices out there, manny practiced at scale.

yumraj 5y ago

> How effective do you think that is? In the short term, very. In the long term, as in once the kids are off to college and so on, who knows. But, overall I think much more effective than the households/kids with unrestricted access. > your kid and effectively ostracizing them. This is an interesting one. If the kids are educated as to why a certain action is being taken, as opposed to just No then kids can accept the policy and be fine with it. Messaging such as Signal or iMessage is allowed, but I just don't understand as to why kids have to share million selfies each day. So anything out of the Zuck-factory is a complete no-no. Bottom line, I'd rather ostracize kids in the short term than cause longer term psychological harm. > If ten million parents have a social media addicted child, you have a policy problem. I never said don't do policy, but that is not a substitute for better parenting. Let me ask this, will the same parent who allow their kids unfettered access to social media allow their kids similar access to porn websites? I'm pretty sure they won't. Which is why it's not either/or, it's both. This is why I said that the narrative is incomplete.

ryankrage77 5y ago
> In the short term, very. Based on my own experience, not so much. I managed to sign up for & use facebook on a dumb phone against my parents wishes, and I wasn't particularly technically proficient at the time. I only got caught when I logged into the account on the family computer, and angling the screen away from my parents made them suspicious. They also implemented various blocks, both on the router and with software on the PC. This taught me about DNS, proxies, VPNs and Tor, and led to me seeing a lot of messed up things, since I was so curious to see what they didn't want me to see. Simply preventing your kid from doing something leads to them learning how to sneak past you. As you said, > If the kids are educated as to why a certain action is being taken, as opposed to just No then kids can accept the policy and be fine with it
hardwaregeek 5y ago
I'm curious. Do you have kids or have you been a kid somewhat recently? The latter is true for me. I find it pretty surprising that you'd imagine that you can keep kids away from social media. Even if you explain it, an 11 year old isn't going to understand the long term psychological implications of social media. They're just going to understand that you're keeping them away from their friends. Do you honestly think any average child will wait until college to circumvent their parents? That said, I'm sympathetic to your viewpoint. I would certainly not provide unfettered access to social media to my children (if I had any). And there should be some amount of advertising/training around healthy digital habits. But it's a little more nuanced than just blaming parents for being incompetent.
Broken_Hippo 5y ago
If the kids are educated as to why a certain action is being taken, as opposed to just No then kids can accept the policy and be fine with it. My parents explained the reason for not allowing me some music: I listened nonetheless as I found the rule unreasonable. DARE explained drugs were bad, but they weren't being honest about the stuff they were saying. My mother forbid me from eating hard candy for years because I choked one. It embarrassed me and I did it nonetheless if she weren't around. I know I'm not the only one that does this. In other words, explanations are only helpful if they are truthful and seem reasonable to the child. Forcing a child or teen to be an outcast isn't generally reasonable. (the child choosing is fine). Messaging such as Signal or iMessage is allowed, but I just don't understand as to why kids have to share million selfies each day. So anything out of the Zuck-factory is a complete no-no. Bottom line, I'd rather ostracize kids in the short term than cause longer term psychological harm. You know, messaging isn't realistically better if they are being ostracized. You could teach someone rules about it and keep an eye on activity. Some things will simply be out of your control, though. Being ostracized can very easily cause long term psychological harm and it easily leads to bullying as well - after a while, you wind up out of the loop and have trouble talking to your peers. Folks go to therapy to learn how to undo this. You probably recognize it in folks that have overly strict parents.

laurex 5y ago

Our 13-year-old doesn't have IG/FB/Twitter and he is fine, and even proud about it. He does have Minecraft, Discord, and other video games (and some access to YouTube at his other house, but he doesn't have an account). There are of course problems with every platform, but we have watched a bunch of the social media documentaries and talked about it, and he's aware that what he is "missing out on" is primarily the kind of interaction that won't leave him feeling good. Being off "social media" doesn't mean being without communication with other kinds online.