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> Social Media alone is enough to make a parent take a step back and wonder what is the right time to introduce your children to the internet. I can't help but

> Social Media alone is enough to make a parent take a step back and wonder what is the right time to introduce your children to the internet. I can't help but wonder whenever I hear this message: do you know, really? After taking with them a little, it often comes down to pretty ... innocuous things in my opinion. Sure, there's always peer pressure and they'll be constantly judged etc, but that's just a an exaggerated baseline of what teenagers always had. Surely troublesome and not good for their mental health, but they'll probably get over it eventually. From my perspective, the biggest danger that current social media created is that the creep factor is gone for stalking. To make a pretty regular example, let's say there is a teenage girl that's feeling lonely. She starts a live stream to talk with people. Some people show up and are super positive! They even give her some stickers (which are literally just money on TikTok she can check out...). Isn't it great to be valued? I don't think I need to write the rest of the story, as it's quiet obvious where the grooming eventually leads. It's especially hard to swallow because the money she could make is astronomically higher then she'd ever have a chance of making anywhere else. Good luck explaining that... Seriously, the original social media was so frickin tame. It's so much more twisted now that money is involved and everything is moving towards 1 person with an audience vs "your group of friends" before.

adamrezich 4y ago
when I got my own PC in my bedroom (with Ethernet!) as a middle-schooler around 2004, sure, there was plenty of online games and game development forums and porn and whatever else to occupy my attention… but I had no way of taking any of it with me on the go, easily-accessible wherever I am. this is the basis of my fears for introducing the children I will be having (in the next few years) to the new Internet: it's a pervasive lifestyle change. modern social media apps (instagram, tiktok) are nothing short of digital drugs that you never run out of. why do x y and z in the real world when you could just pull your phone out of your pocket, swipe your finger across its screen a few times, and instantly obtain infinite entertainment that is infinitely more engaging than anything else you could possibly do with your time? the real challenge in my opinion is to instill the dangers of these sorts of things upon one's children in such a way that despite peer pressure—including the ambient peer pressure of everyone out in public staring idly at their phones—they come to see these dangerous digital drugs as what they are, without having to partake in order to "find out for themselves." and of course, this all has to be done without accidentally causing the classic "well my family banned this in our house but now that I'm on my own I'm going to binge as much of this shit as possible" conundrum. which I was definitely guilty of myself as a young person whose family highly restricted access to video games for most of my childhood… turns out that's a great way to get a kid to end up becoming a game developer lol
McSwag 4y ago
That’s a serious concern for sure. There’s also the weaponization of information which shouldn’t be overlooked. At an age when kids really haven’t learned to think critically or have the wisdom to realize they’re being manipulated particularly those vulnerable teen years, I think parents do need to consider this. It’s pretty much at least a second job to keep tabs on what kids are viewing/consuming/doing online at all times. If you have multiple children forget it. Parental controls are extremely limited, schools require access to youtube.com and google.com and facebook for events so that pretty much opens the door to view/access most adult things without ever touching a “questionable” website. “The algorithm” still forms a bias on what kids see as well, further eroding critical thinking skills. A vast majority of parents don’t bother with any controls at all which undermines the effort of those that do which the can lead to resentment and frustration because of peer pressure. To say that I’m worried about this is an understatement but I also don’t think the cat can be put back in the bag.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  Kids were being manipulated by information long before the Internet. I was raised in evangelistic religion. It is a blight on mankind, teaching kids magical thinking, confirmation bias, survivorship bias, appeal to authority, etc. Then there's all kinds of mental gymnastics to explain "the truth", much of it written by grifters. It's good to take care, yet at the end of the day the kids have to grow up. So they need the tools to evaluate information. This can start early and schools can help even if parents won't, or even if parents are part of the problem.

adamrezich 4y ago

when I got my own PC in my bedroom (with Ethernet!) as a middle-schooler around 2004, sure, there was plenty of online games and game development forums and porn and whatever else to occupy my attention… but I had no way of taking any of it with me on the go, easily-accessible wherever I am. this is the basis of my fears for introducing the children I will be having (in the next few years) to the new Internet: it's a pervasive lifestyle change. modern social media apps (instagram, tiktok) are nothing short of digital drugs that you never run out of. why do x y and z in the real world when you could just pull your phone out of your pocket, swipe your finger across its screen a few times, and instantly obtain infinite entertainment that is infinitely more engaging than anything else you could possibly do with your time? the real challenge in my opinion is to instill the dangers of these sorts of things upon one's children in such a way that despite peer pressure—including the ambient peer pressure of everyone out in public staring idly at their phones—they come to see these dangerous digital drugs as what they are, without having to partake in order to "find out for themselves." and of course, this all has to be done without accidentally causing the classic "well my family banned this in our house but now that I'm on my own I'm going to binge as much of this shit as possible" conundrum. which I was definitely guilty of myself as a young person whose family highly restricted access to video games for most of my childhood… turns out that's a great way to get a kid to end up becoming a game developer lol

McSwag 4y ago

That’s a serious concern for sure. There’s also the weaponization of information which shouldn’t be overlooked. At an age when kids really haven’t learned to think critically or have the wisdom to realize they’re being manipulated particularly those vulnerable teen years, I think parents do need to consider this. It’s pretty much at least a second job to keep tabs on what kids are viewing/consuming/doing online at all times. If you have multiple children forget it. Parental controls are extremely limited, schools require access to youtube.com and google.com and facebook for events so that pretty much opens the door to view/access most adult things without ever touching a “questionable” website. “The algorithm” still forms a bias on what kids see as well, further eroding critical thinking skills. A vast majority of parents don’t bother with any controls at all which undermines the effort of those that do which the can lead to resentment and frustration because of peer pressure. To say that I’m worried about this is an understatement but I also don’t think the cat can be put back in the bag.

paulryanrogers 4y ago
Kids were being manipulated by information long before the Internet. I was raised in evangelistic religion. It is a blight on mankind, teaching kids magical thinking, confirmation bias, survivorship bias, appeal to authority, etc. Then there's all kinds of mental gymnastics to explain "the truth", much of it written by grifters. It's good to take care, yet at the end of the day the kids have to grow up. So they need the tools to evaluate information. This can start early and schools can help even if parents won't, or even if parents are part of the problem.