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A vital amount of social interaction that kids and young adults experience is online. For reclusive or socially anxious individuals it may even be the majority

A vital amount of social interaction that kids and young adults experience is online. For reclusive or socially anxious individuals it may even be the majority of interaction. It isn't like how it was 20 or even 10 years ago, blanket banning will leave them significantly socially isolated and stunted. IME anyone over the age of 25 will not fully appreciate this unless they regularly interact with and (critically!) actively listen to what kids have to say.

tgv 3y ago
Taking away heroin from addicted people will leave them feeling bad. That's not a reason to keep supplying it to them. > blanket banning will leave them significantly socially isolated If they get that much of their interaction online, they're already socially isolated. That it happens to be called social media doesn't mean it's actually social.
- flangola7 3y ago
  Unilaterally taking heroin away from individuals (especially without investing in the necessary support structures) is also a wrong and doomed strategy (I think everyone here is familiar with the abject disaster that was the War on Drugs), so that's not very encouraging. Government does have a place here, but it's in the form of banning hyperoptimizing attention/advertising algorithms and other business models that rely on precision crafted human manipulation, not micromanaging as a parental stand-in.
  - tgv 3y ago
    But it's not a reason to just keep supplying addicts with heroin, which is the implied laissez-faire solution of the parent comment. > the War on Drugs That's not a one-dimensional topic, and in the case of social media, the suppliers are very, very well known.
williamcotton 3y ago
Ok, so if the world has changed to the point where these kids cannot live satisfied lives without their phones… then we need to start progressively raising the voting age now so they never have any input into how the rest of us live. We can make them leper colonies filled with screens with up-arrows to click on.
- hgsgm 3y ago
  I think a lot of adults misapprehend that kids chatting with friends is the same as adults arguing with strangers on HN and Redditm
  - concordDance 3y ago
    The boundary gets fuzzy sometimes. E.g. instagram
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  A cellphone is a communication device for when you leave the house.
- mustacheemperor 3y ago
  Do you utilize your phone to make plans and remain socially connected with your own friends? Or do you conduct your life completely over landline and computer e-mail? I would assume that in 2023, phones are a key tool for most adults' satisfied lives too.
  - williamcotton 3y ago
    Do you realize how absurd a leper colony for tech addicted young adults would be? I’m happy to take the downvotes caused by leaving off the /s!
    - mustacheemperor 3y ago
      Haha, I think my radar for tongue in cheek vs genuinely absurd beliefs has been completely busted by my own lifetime with internet social media! Even on HN.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bcrosby95 3y ago
Anecdotally, my friends who've had kids in the last 10 years are much more strict about social media than people who had kids 20 years ago. Newer parents have had the benefit of hindsight and got to see firsthand how fucked places like Facebook can be. But I'm not sure what the national trend is.
mustacheemperor 3y ago
It seems similar to 15ish years ago in some ways. I remember my parents insisting instant messaging would result in us disclosing all our personal information to online predators and being kidnapped, so while most other kids at school were building friendships outside over AIM, we were excluded. Other parents would admirably fawn over how effectively we were restricted from all electronic socialization, while us kids were completely exhausted by the experience and eventually just learned to circumvent NetNanny. Telling kids today to stay completely off their phones seems even more futile. There's commenters mystified that kids "can't live without their phones"...Well, what do they learn when they are surrounded by adults who literally depend on their phones to live? How many of us are making plans with our own friends without one?
- SL61 3y ago
  I had a similar experienced as a kid in the 2000s, though not quite as strict as yours. My group of school friends would talk in person at school and then hop on a Call of Duty lobby when they got home, or chat on Facebook/SMS. Without internet or a cell phone, I was only present for a small portion of the their conversations and activities. Someone might post something funny or shocking on Facebook and everyone would be talking about it at school the next day. Sometimes people would continue a conversation that had started online the night before, and I had to either sit quietly or ask someone to fill me in (with mixed results). The result of all this is that I never quite formed bonds with that group, I was always on the periphery, the guy who hung out with them at school. I assume all of that is more intense today than it was circa 2010. The "keep your kids off social media" advice only works if a lot of other parents do the same, and if you live in an area where kids can easily visit each other in person.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    Additional perspective. I was in the loop at school before tech took over. Despite being the type that keeps in touch I’ve mostly lost contact with everyone from high school. Once folks start families etc it’s game over. Have some good memories but all in all that time could have been spent more productively in hindsight.
b800h 3y ago
Do you suppose that encouraging reclusive and socially anxious people to avoid their problems is going to help them in the long run?
Brusco_RF 3y ago
> For reclusive or socially anxious individuals it may even be the majority of interaction. Chicken? or egg?
whats_a_quasar 3y ago
"For reclusive or socially anxious individuals it may even be the majority of interaction" This is definitely true. But we ought to also consider the risk that tech is creating socially anxious individuals. Some of those kids, if they interacted more in-person and spent less time alone, would eventually find like-minded friends to hang out with.

tgv 3y ago

Taking away heroin from addicted people will leave them feeling bad. That's not a reason to keep supplying it to them. > blanket banning will leave them significantly socially isolated If they get that much of their interaction online, they're already socially isolated. That it happens to be called social media doesn't mean it's actually social.

flangola7 3y ago
Unilaterally taking heroin away from individuals (especially without investing in the necessary support structures) is also a wrong and doomed strategy (I think everyone here is familiar with the abject disaster that was the War on Drugs), so that's not very encouraging. Government does have a place here, but it's in the form of banning hyperoptimizing attention/advertising algorithms and other business models that rely on precision crafted human manipulation, not micromanaging as a parental stand-in.
- tgv 3y ago
  But it's not a reason to just keep supplying addicts with heroin, which is the implied laissez-faire solution of the parent comment. > the War on Drugs That's not a one-dimensional topic, and in the case of social media, the suppliers are very, very well known.

williamcotton 3y ago

Ok, so if the world has changed to the point where these kids cannot live satisfied lives without their phones… then we need to start progressively raising the voting age now so they never have any input into how the rest of us live. We can make them leper colonies filled with screens with up-arrows to click on.

hgsgm 3y ago
I think a lot of adults misapprehend that kids chatting with friends is the same as adults arguing with strangers on HN and Redditm
- concordDance 3y ago
  The boundary gets fuzzy sometimes. E.g. instagram
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
A cellphone is a communication device for when you leave the house.
mustacheemperor 3y ago
Do you utilize your phone to make plans and remain socially connected with your own friends? Or do you conduct your life completely over landline and computer e-mail? I would assume that in 2023, phones are a key tool for most adults' satisfied lives too.
- williamcotton 3y ago
  Do you realize how absurd a leper colony for tech addicted young adults would be? I’m happy to take the downvotes caused by leaving off the /s!
  - mustacheemperor 3y ago
    Haha, I think my radar for tongue in cheek vs genuinely absurd beliefs has been completely busted by my own lifetime with internet social media! Even on HN.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bcrosby95 3y ago

Anecdotally, my friends who've had kids in the last 10 years are much more strict about social media than people who had kids 20 years ago. Newer parents have had the benefit of hindsight and got to see firsthand how fucked places like Facebook can be. But I'm not sure what the national trend is.

mustacheemperor 3y ago

It seems similar to 15ish years ago in some ways. I remember my parents insisting instant messaging would result in us disclosing all our personal information to online predators and being kidnapped, so while most other kids at school were building friendships outside over AIM, we were excluded. Other parents would admirably fawn over how effectively we were restricted from all electronic socialization, while us kids were completely exhausted by the experience and eventually just learned to circumvent NetNanny. Telling kids today to stay completely off their phones seems even more futile. There's commenters mystified that kids "can't live without their phones"...Well, what do they learn when they are surrounded by adults who literally depend on their phones to live? How many of us are making plans with our own friends without one?

SL61 3y ago
I had a similar experienced as a kid in the 2000s, though not quite as strict as yours. My group of school friends would talk in person at school and then hop on a Call of Duty lobby when they got home, or chat on Facebook/SMS. Without internet or a cell phone, I was only present for a small portion of the their conversations and activities. Someone might post something funny or shocking on Facebook and everyone would be talking about it at school the next day. Sometimes people would continue a conversation that had started online the night before, and I had to either sit quietly or ask someone to fill me in (with mixed results). The result of all this is that I never quite formed bonds with that group, I was always on the periphery, the guy who hung out with them at school. I assume all of that is more intense today than it was circa 2010. The "keep your kids off social media" advice only works if a lot of other parents do the same, and if you live in an area where kids can easily visit each other in person.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  Additional perspective. I was in the loop at school before tech took over. Despite being the type that keeps in touch I’ve mostly lost contact with everyone from high school. Once folks start families etc it’s game over. Have some good memories but all in all that time could have been spent more productively in hindsight.

b800h 3y ago

Do you suppose that encouraging reclusive and socially anxious people to avoid their problems is going to help them in the long run?

Brusco_RF 3y ago

> For reclusive or socially anxious individuals it may even be the majority of interaction. Chicken? or egg?

whats_a_quasar 3y ago

"For reclusive or socially anxious individuals it may even be the majority of interaction" This is definitely true. But we ought to also consider the risk that tech is creating socially anxious individuals. Some of those kids, if they interacted more in-person and spent less time alone, would eventually find like-minded friends to hang out with.