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My question is: Does this actually matter? Does this have a lasting impact or do the kids simply move on with no negative changes to their lives? I remember t

by devmor 4y ago

My question is: Does this actually matter? Does this have a lasting impact or do the kids simply move on with no negative changes to their lives? I remember thinking a lot of dumb stuff as a teenager. Just because I thought it doesn't mean it was bad that I did.

z9znz 4y ago
I suspect it is worse now than when some of us were kids. Some of us had less exposure to stuff that could mess us up because there was less stuff available. After all, in my early youth we had only three TV stations. I also see a parallel with HN and developers with impostor syndrome. Before HN, and even before Slashdot, I was a good developer. I wrote some impressive C, C++, and Java code that went into some serious projects. But now, thanks to HN, I know that I'm a below-average developer. Perhaps I'm not, but it sure feels that way because of what I see presented and discussed here. If I had grown up with HN, I might not have done some of the things I did; rather I might have given up and chosen a career which I didn't feel inadequate at. This is how I imagine kids today feel with all the stuff they have access to. I mean heck, you can even go to youtube and see 10 year olds making amazing creations out of just about any material you can think of. How does that feel when you're still trying to cut straight lines on paper?
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  I think the worst effects of social media are exactly the same as the worst effects of traditional media like TV: unrealistic body images, the veneration of consumption, and "aspirational" content that makes people feel like they're not good enough. Basically the stuff that fuels capitalism.
  - z9znz 4y ago
    I think Capitalism is too simple or broad a term. It really encompasses a lot of ideas into a single word, and some of those ideas are natural and admirable while others are generally counterproductive. You could say that someone who performs a dance well and gains positive attention from an audience is expressing capitalism. The idea that putting work plus talent to get appreciation (in monetary or other forms) is not necessarily bad. I think what we currently experience as capitalism is a skewed, min/max version which loses sight of the main value and focuses too much on simple financial return.
jdthedisciple 4y ago
It certainly matters: Many kids watching TikTok also start imagining wrong things about their sexuality. Apparently up to 25% of the upcoming zoomers identify as LGBTQ. Obviously, biological, empirical nonsense. Turns out most of it is absolute imagination yet many start to undergo hormone therapy etc immediately. There's a whole detrans movement of such folks who regret doing such, often irreversible, massive damage to their body. It certainly matters.
- falcolas 4y ago
  > start imagining ... things about their sexuality So they're exploring their sexuality, and you think this is wrong? I remember questioning my sexuality as a teenager... in the 90's, long before the internet functionally existed for me. > imagining wrong things ... biological, empirical nonsense Oh. Nevermind. You've already decided to cast normal behavior and questions as immoral, so I'll never change your mind.
  - jdthedisciple 4y ago
    > You've already decided to cast normal behavior and questions as immoral I may or may not have, but that aside "wrong" as I used it here clearly means "factually wrong", not "morally wrong". I'm not disputing that there are legitimate cases. Simply saying the sheer spike in it from one generation to the next should make any rational person smell the rotten tuna. I even have 1st hand experience with it: My teenie brother who thought for about 1-2 years he was trans and even considered biological sex change but as he matured a little realized that nah he's just gay. Fact is kids and teens are actually dumb and don't know a lot about human psychology and physiology. They don't understand for example that simply being a little on the feminine side as a man or vice versa doesn't make you trans. And it ruins lives - primarily their own! We should not act, as adults and parents, like we don't know better than them at least in 99% of the cases.
- madamelic 4y ago
  > Apparently up to 25% of the upcoming zoomers identify as LGBTQ. Obviously, biological, empirical nonsense. Much lower than it probably is. Most people, by my estimate, aren't perfect 0 or 6 on the Kinsey scale [0]. The majority of people are somewhere between 1 and 5. It's still a bimodal distribution but I'd estimate most people aren't purely gay or straight. Sexuality is similar to mental illness in my opinion (STAY WITH ME!), most people have sub-clinical cases of lots of mental illnesses, maybe a facet or two due to maladaption because of being a human (sexually wise: having a fetish, having a 'thing' for secondary sex characteristics of their sex, etc) but it doesn't cross a threshold where it becomes behaviourly significant. Ask someone "If you had to sleep with someone of the same sex, who would it be?" If they have an honest answer of a specific person, they aren't _technically_ straight. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale
originalvichy 4y ago
I think we can take a look at things like anorexia to see some example of what the effects might be. Some young adult women only had a short phase that they "grew out of" and some struggle with it to this day.

by devmor 4y ago

z9znz 4y ago

I suspect it is worse now than when some of us were kids. Some of us had less exposure to stuff that could mess us up because there was less stuff available. After all, in my early youth we had only three TV stations. I also see a parallel with HN and developers with impostor syndrome. Before HN, and even before Slashdot, I was a good developer. I wrote some impressive C, C++, and Java code that went into some serious projects. But now, thanks to HN, I know that I'm a below-average developer. Perhaps I'm not, but it sure feels that way because of what I see presented and discussed here. If I had grown up with HN, I might not have done some of the things I did; rather I might have given up and chosen a career which I didn't feel inadequate at. This is how I imagine kids today feel with all the stuff they have access to. I mean heck, you can even go to youtube and see 10 year olds making amazing creations out of just about any material you can think of. How does that feel when you're still trying to cut straight lines on paper?

AlexandrB 4y ago
I think the worst effects of social media are exactly the same as the worst effects of traditional media like TV: unrealistic body images, the veneration of consumption, and "aspirational" content that makes people feel like they're not good enough. Basically the stuff that fuels capitalism.
- z9znz 4y ago
  I think Capitalism is too simple or broad a term. It really encompasses a lot of ideas into a single word, and some of those ideas are natural and admirable while others are generally counterproductive. You could say that someone who performs a dance well and gains positive attention from an audience is expressing capitalism. The idea that putting work plus talent to get appreciation (in monetary or other forms) is not necessarily bad. I think what we currently experience as capitalism is a skewed, min/max version which loses sight of the main value and focuses too much on simple financial return.

jdthedisciple 4y ago

It certainly matters: Many kids watching TikTok also start imagining wrong things about their sexuality. Apparently up to 25% of the upcoming zoomers identify as LGBTQ. Obviously, biological, empirical nonsense. Turns out most of it is absolute imagination yet many start to undergo hormone therapy etc immediately. There's a whole detrans movement of such folks who regret doing such, often irreversible, massive damage to their body. It certainly matters.

falcolas 4y ago
> start imagining ... things about their sexuality So they're exploring their sexuality, and you think this is wrong? I remember questioning my sexuality as a teenager... in the 90's, long before the internet functionally existed for me. > imagining wrong things ... biological, empirical nonsense Oh. Nevermind. You've already decided to cast normal behavior and questions as immoral, so I'll never change your mind.
- jdthedisciple 4y ago
  > You've already decided to cast normal behavior and questions as immoral I may or may not have, but that aside "wrong" as I used it here clearly means "factually wrong", not "morally wrong". I'm not disputing that there are legitimate cases. Simply saying the sheer spike in it from one generation to the next should make any rational person smell the rotten tuna. I even have 1st hand experience with it: My teenie brother who thought for about 1-2 years he was trans and even considered biological sex change but as he matured a little realized that nah he's just gay. Fact is kids and teens are actually dumb and don't know a lot about human psychology and physiology. They don't understand for example that simply being a little on the feminine side as a man or vice versa doesn't make you trans. And it ruins lives - primarily their own! We should not act, as adults and parents, like we don't know better than them at least in 99% of the cases.
madamelic 4y ago
> Apparently up to 25% of the upcoming zoomers identify as LGBTQ. Obviously, biological, empirical nonsense. Much lower than it probably is. Most people, by my estimate, aren't perfect 0 or 6 on the Kinsey scale [0]. The majority of people are somewhere between 1 and 5. It's still a bimodal distribution but I'd estimate most people aren't purely gay or straight. Sexuality is similar to mental illness in my opinion (STAY WITH ME!), most people have sub-clinical cases of lots of mental illnesses, maybe a facet or two due to maladaption because of being a human (sexually wise: having a fetish, having a 'thing' for secondary sex characteristics of their sex, etc) but it doesn't cross a threshold where it becomes behaviourly significant. Ask someone "If you had to sleep with someone of the same sex, who would it be?" If they have an honest answer of a specific person, they aren't _technically_ straight. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale

originalvichy 4y ago

I think we can take a look at things like anorexia to see some example of what the effects might be. Some young adult women only had a short phase that they "grew out of" and some struggle with it to this day.