16 ms·

I work at a fancy private school and partially am have hosted numerous events for parents on kids and social media. We have been banging on this key for easily

I work at a fancy private school and partially am have hosted numerous events for parents on kids and social media. We have been banging on this key for easily the past 8 years, with varying levels of emphasis. The response from parents has also been universally consistent: A lot of nodding, and, ultimately, very little action. There has always been a small but consistent group of parents who stand firmly on their decision to delay giving their child broad access to social media until later, and the vast, vast majority who can't be bothered to. I haven't noticed the scale tip in any direction in all these years.

KaoruAoiShiho 3y ago
What reasonable action could be taken on the parent side? I feel like apps should be regulated to for example, only show up to 20 videos max on tiktok per day to prevent doom scrolling. I don't think preventing kids from accessing social media entirely is viable or reasonable.
- youreincorrect 3y ago
  Don't give your kid a smartphone or laptop without only whitelisting certain sites. If they somehow get a device without permission, it gets donated.
  - swader999 3y ago
    Isolating them from their peers can be just as mentally devastating. I don't think there is a good solution to this.
    - youreincorrect 3y ago
      They can deal with it. In middle school, I was called a faggot, relentlessly, for not owning a Jansport backpack. I am 100% serious. They'll find friends, I'm pretty sure of it.
      - kzrdude 3y ago
        I still hope that one day we'll find a way to stop that (to a big extent).
        karaterobot 3y ago
        Some day, we'll all have Jansport backpacks.
        lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Still using mine from 5th grade 20+ years later. The oldest thing I own.
      - jstarfish 3y ago
        [flagged]
      - yamtaddle 3y ago
        But if they don't have social media, how will they see other kids calling them names for not owning the right backpack outside of school? Think of the harm to their socialization!
      - hammyhavoc 3y ago
        I was called plenty of unpleasant stuff, including that. I didn't find any friends and I left at sixteen because of it. I'm not so sure. At thirty, I'm still fairly socially isolated outside of work.
      - standardUser 3y ago
        [flagged]
        mrguyorama 3y ago
        If that is suffering than every child will always suffer, because an very normal part of childhood is someone finding a reason to bully someone else. It's part of developing understanding of social structures and your place in them, some kids will inevitably decide they must be at the top of the pecking order in their little personal hierarchy. You physically cannot prevent children from making up ways to pick on each other, there's like a doctor Seuss book about this for heaven's sake. This isn't saying "stop trying to prevent bullying" but rather "if you are afraid of your child being bullied because they aren't on social media, them being on social media will not stop them from being bullied" and social media makes bullying worse because now it follows them around instead of possibly stopping at 3pm
    - xpe 3y ago
      Sounds like MAAD: Mutually Assured Attention Destruction.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - sibeliuss 3y ago
      You're probably not thinking hard enough here.
    - TheFreim 3y ago
      I didn't have a cell phone while all my friends did, I wasn't isolated.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      That isn't isolating them from their peers.
      - dathinab 3y ago
        it is guaranteed at least subtle socially isolating them
        JohnFen 3y ago
        No more so than it's isolating them by giving them a curfew, telling them they can't hang out in certain places, not giving them a car, etc. That level of "isolation" seems innocuous at worst to me (even though it may seem like the end of the world to the kids).
        yamtaddle 3y ago
        Every kid through history was horribly isolated before we got smartphones and social media, I guess. They're already spending the best hours of every weekday for like 3/4 of each year with their peers. More, if they do any other activities that involve other kids. Seems like quite a bit. I'm skeptical that they'll be harmed if they can't catch up on the latest bullying-memes, creep shots of other students, and tips for getting old guys to send you money online (all real examples, and none of them one-offs—trends) at 1AM on a school night.
        mrguyorama 3y ago
        If your kid is never isolated, how can they possibly develop healthy behaviors around boredom and isolation?
        dathinab 3y ago
        I hope you understand and just decided to pretend not to that _social_ isolation is not about physical isolation or boredom or having free time with nothing to do. While the "simplest" way to archive social isolation is to be physically isolated you can be social isolated while having people around you 24/7.
    - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
      “Teenage suicide is at an all time high… I sure wouldn’t want my kid to stop being terminally connected to those kids and whatever could possibly be causing that!”
    - unethical_ban 3y ago
      It's fair to call out that if one kid doesn't have a phone and everyone else does, it may be hard on them. Phones are a way to be "in" and in the know, if you don't have one then you may be on the outside looking in. A few things. 1. Fuck being on the inside. Work with your kid and their self-esteem and their friends to realize that shit-talking and drama online is shallow, painful and makes you a worse person. 2. Work with the parents in your kid's social circle to talk to them about social media impact, and maybe make sure that in-person time after school is happening. Alternatively, "just" get your kid involved in after-school programs that require social activity. Band, choir, sports, hobby clubs. 3. Don't cut off social media/computing entirely. Abstinence from it full-time would be really hard to enforce. Yes, look at putting parental controls. Yes, consider limiting which apps they can have. Put time limits on it, and yeet any unapproved devices.
      - swader999 3y ago
        At around thirteen it's almost impossible to get into calm rational discussions with things as emotionally charged as this.
    - dathinab 3y ago
      Not sure why you are down voted but this is really a really really big issue. This is why "large scale action" e.g. from school or better regulators are needed and why parents only can act very limited. Don't force social isolation on your children just because idk. "this game is bad". Even if they social circle is "good" and doesn't start excluding or harassing them because of this (totally can happen, you can't really choose with whom you are in a class) it still is leads to a subtle isolation which might by itself not cause any mental issues, but can amplify existing issues, prevent mental scare from being healed etc. And such issues don't always come from "big bad thing" sometimes small bad things wrongly processed as a child can be enough to cause life long mental issues if the child has never the chance to reprocess/recondition/overcome them. EDIT: Just to be clear doesn't mean children should have unchecked social media/game/etc. access.
      - psyfi 3y ago
        Not allowing your children to own a phone ≠ Force social isolation.
        swader999 3y ago
        It can in many circumstances. I live rural and we don't have a land line. It's hard to get the kids over to their friends as much as they want. My solution is to talk to the other parents. We all agreed to no tik too. I turn our wifi off after bed time. We have a phone contract with our 14 year old that stipulates the usual be nice and don't live on your phone rules. They swim, ski, kayak and play school volleyball and badminton so there's lots of opportunities for that sort of interacting but I think it would be pretty harsh to cut them off of their phones. If I could get 3/4 of their friends parents to agree I would for sure until they are 16.
        dathinab 3y ago
        social isolation isn't a yes/no question it's a gradient and in many situation it is pretty much guaranteed to at least cause slight degree of social isolation, in some (like very rual) it might cause a large degree of social isolation similar having a phone isn't a yes/no question, things like parent control exist, even through they often slightly suck
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - bart_spoon 3y ago
      Not being on Tiktok is not social isolation nor is it mentally devastating. I think many here are projecting their own addictions when they make these hyperbolic assertions.
      - pixl97 3y ago
        And conversely without understanding the isolations modern children experience that your counterassertions fall short explaining the current situation we're in. If your solution is "go play outside with other kids" and the park is empty because all other kids are busy doing isolated things or on tic tok, then you have a problem.
        bart_spoon 3y ago
        The park isn't empty though. The sports teams aren't empty. The after school groups aren't empty. The church groups aren't empty.
    - karaterobot 3y ago
      Aren't there at least a few studies that indicate better long-term mental health outcomes among kids who don't use social media until later in life? Sorry for the lack of citation, but if that is true, wouldn't that pretty much obviate this problem? If, on balance, the outcome is better, then whatever short terms shocks they may experience are better than the alternative.
    - boeingUH60 3y ago
      Abstaining from social media is not isolation. There are more healthy ways to interact with friends without the perils of social media platforms.
    - rsync 3y ago
      I don’t have time right now to go into details but it was surprisingly simple, from a filter rules perspective, to create an “iMessage only” access point. So there is no isolation from peers, but also no other usage of the device. We turn it off completely at 9pm. Edit: oh, the other important detail is that they have no-data SIM cards. Tello sells text and talk only sims for $8/mo or whatever. Weirdly, when they are away from home, apple finds a way to tunnel blue bubbles through (sms only) … not sure how … bottom line is, at home, it’s iMessage or nothing.
    - omginternets 3y ago
      Thankfully, there are other ways of interacting with one's peers, most of which create more meaningful connections than social media. To put it more bluntly: if social media is the only thing standing between a child and total isolation, that child has far bigger problems. Maybe sign your kid up for little league?
      - hammyhavoc 3y ago
        Little league? Social media? Are we talking children or teenagers? What's frequently missed is that most organization of meet-ups, birthday parties, talking to romantic interests, going to concerts et al, all happens on social media and in group chats now, and has done for the best part of fifteen years in the West. For the prior generation, if you aren't online, you aren't cool, and you won't know about cool things that are happening. The current generation seems to have a fascination with dumb phones and eschewing tech obsession if the media spin is to be believed versus the numbers on social media apps. Both can be valid things that are occurring though, but I'm willing to bet that the dumb phone movement is a small one or a LARP for elitist cool points.
        omginternets 3y ago
        >What's frequently missed is that most organization of meet-ups, birthday parties, talking to romantic interests, going to concerts et al, all happens on social media and in group chats now, and has done for the best part of fifteen years in the West. Yeah, no. People still talk to each other. I leave it to you to exercise some adaptability and find suitable workarounds. This is a small problem. I guarantee you that you solve harder ones on a daily basis.
        hammyhavoc 3y ago
        As neither a parent nor a teenager, I find this a weird one to leave with me. I merely repeated some valid concerns, to which you presented no solutions, just snippiness. What workarounds am I looking for? And for whom? Why aren't the people concerned looking for their own workarounds?
    - wonderwonder 3y ago
      How are they isolated? If kids are involved in sports and extra curriculars they will have plenty of social interaction. Nothing on social media is good for young minds. Everything is a pitch trying to sell some sort of viewpoint. I'm the parent, I'll provide morals and insight into topics I think are important that aren't or shouldn't be covered in school. I don't need Jim.lottahoes78 teaching my kid anything.
      - hammyhavoc 3y ago
        > Everything is a pitch trying to sell some sort of viewpoint. What about cities? What about stores? What about TV? What about magazines? What about the radio? What about school? What about music? What about books? Whilst I agree with you, where do we draw the line? Personally, having worked in advertising/marketing for over a decade and grown completely disenchanted with it and pivoted to just doing creative shit, I don't think we should advertise to kids, period. It's exploitative and gross.
        wonderwonder 3y ago
        I agree with you. Marketing to kids is wrong. I think social media is more insidious though. They are not selling products they are selling view points and often at the expense of others. Believe this or you're a Nazi. Don't drink this beer. Social media is the battlefield of the culture wars and I don't want my kids to be casualties.
        mrguyorama 3y ago
        Our state banned billboards like 80 years ago. Make that happen in your state. They are valueless.
        bart_spoon 3y ago
        Which state is that? I didn't realize that was a thing in the US, but it sounds great.
        3y ago
    - Utkarsh_Mood 3y ago
      I dont really think them not being on social media is akin to 'Isolation' from their peers. Thats really overblowing the situation. There are hundreds of other ways to meet your friends.
      - km3k 3y ago
        I don't get why a lot of this discussion assumes children can't communicate with peers without social media. Calling and texting are still a thing. So is coordinating during school to plan meetups after school. Besides, I think very few people are saying children should have a total ban on all forms of social media and communication. We need to find methods to restrict/reduce social media and then ease those restrictions as the children mature, with a focus to minimize the negative aspects of social media usage and still allow communication with peers. For example, when our children were small, we didn't allow phones or social media, but allowed them to text/call friends with our phones. As they got older, we introduced Google Voice via family desktop computers so they had their own number for texts/calls, but given that it was on a desktop computer, it had limited usage. After that, we introduced a family smartphone that was shared among our younger children so they could text and have some limited social media, mainly group chat apps based on their clubs/sports. Once they became teenagers, we allow them their own phone, but still had restrictions on apps installed, types of websites available and time spent. Gradually over time, we introduce new apps, discuss app usage and review how things are going with the goal of increased independence over time. For managing restrictions, we've used a lot of things, but never found a perfect solution. Bark works pretty well for signalling us of potential problems while giving our children a level of privacy. I use a Firewalla router to manage home internet access restrictions and Google Family Link to manage mobile devices. Both are mainly used to restrict time-based access (no middle of the night access) and for temporary restrictions to allow us to focus on things like homework and family events. I can see why a lot of parents put no restrictions up or just ban too much. It takes a lot of work to create a nuanced set of restrictions that gradually give more independence as the child matures. Unfortunately, we've seen friends of our children who have had a lot of issues due to totally unrestricted internet access. We need to find and foster more middle grounds for easing children into social media and related technologies. Neither full unrestricted access nor total bans are helpful.
    - zo1 3y ago
      Sure there is: Identify the degenerate behaviour and punish it. Whatever that may be and 51% of us can agree on. If that's tik tok, all social media, YouTube, infinite scroll, use generated media websites, drug misogyny and degenerate sex promoting lyrics, violent fps games, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, ads aimed at children, pictures of swastikas, hormone altering medicine, or whatever, so be it. If you don't ban it at the source and society-wide, then parents are left with very little means to protect their children's development and growth into good individuals that reflect their beliefs. I don't get how we're being so laissez-faire and willing to just "see where it goes" when it comes to our society and our future as a species. We're at a critical juncture right now and need to make a decision; we can't fence sit any longer while the winds of peer pressure randomly drag us wherever and based on nothing more than who shouts the loudest or who cancels dissent the best. /rant
      - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
        You may be right. But free speech and free markets have done a lot of good, along with the bad. Trying to rein them in gets a lot of pushback, because the alternatives have been pretty terrible too.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      I had 14 friends on myspace back in its heyday. I could not play runescape because my computer was too old. I had dialup until 2008. It actually was not mentally devastating. Hell, I still have all those friends and we barely have a way to communicate NOW. When you go to school 8 hours of every day and see your friends, you don't really need a stupid app to interact with them. Hell, blocking out social media doesn't prevent you from texting or messaging your friends! Discord though is social media IMO, anything that forms a "group" that can have leaders and followers and bullies is social media.
      - boring_twenties 3y ago
        > you don't really need a stupid app to interact with them Yes, you do, because they will not want to interact with you if you're not on the preferred app. This is the case even with adults: I somewhat regularly meet people who will flatly refuse to talk to you if you don't have a green bubble, or an Instagram account, or whathaveyou. These are educated professionals in their 20's and 30's.
        citizenkeen 3y ago
        Hang out with less shitty people.
        graboidhunter 3y ago
        > I somewhat regularly meet people who will flatly refuse to talk to you if you don't have a green bubble, or an Instagram account, or whathaveyou. These are educated professionals in their 20's and 30's. Find better friends?
        boring_twenties 3y ago
        I didn't say they were my friends, I said the opposite, people I just met
        km3k 3y ago
        That's a good indicator that they're people to avoid.
    - yumraj 3y ago
      Purely for argument sake: would the above apply if peer kids were in gang, or into drugs or alcohol or whatever? Social media is no different from those, IMHO of course.
    - schnable 3y ago
      This is why regulation is useful even though it's imperfect. If it's against the law for under 18s to use social media, parents no longer need to justify allowing their kids access because all of their peers allow it. By necessity, more traditional means of socialization will reemerge.
    - mixmastamyk 3y ago
      That's what soccer leagues are for. Or chess club for the non-athletically inclined.
- gjsman-1000 3y ago
  I think in the future, we should look into device-level age verification. You scan your Driver's License on your iPhone once; and after that, your iPhone tells the website that you are 16 and over without providing any other information unless the user expressly grants it. This solution would not make everyone happy, but politics is all about tradeoffs. By keeping everything on the device-level, we would hopefully reduce the need for third-parties, ISP-level filtering, or providing too much information. The downside is that for open-source phones, in order for the system to be secure, there would likely need to be a similar Age ID check at checkout for any device that can bypass said filter. This would not be the first time that the US Government strongly "encouraged" device manufacturers to build-in rating system equipment (remember V-Chip?). And as for "some kids might bypass it," I don't really care. Speed Limits are easily and frequently bypassed, but that doesn't mean it would be safe to get rid of them.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > You scan your Driver's License on your iPhone once And who's checking that ID? In what form is the record of it being kept, and where? I would not use a device that had this sort of requirement. There's too much surveillance as it is. The solution to this with children is easy -- don't get them a smartphone.
    - gjsman-1000 3y ago
      > And who's checking that ID? In what form is the record of it being kept, and where? I would not use a device that had this sort of requirement. There's too much surveillance as it is. I would do it on a state-by-state level. Your phone verifies your age with, say, the state of California one time, and then it's set and California has no idea what you visit or why. And if you don't like this due to hacking risk; remember that the State of California literally has your photo, social security number, address, height, weight, gender, and more. Hacking risk increase is minuscule from what it already is. And not just California - any state can look you up if they want; otherwise, how would traffic tickets or arrests for interstate drivers happen? > The solution to this with children is easy -- don't get them a smartphone. Or we ban children from possession or purchase of smartphones under a certain age. Which, I would be favor of, but may be too politically unpalatable.
- ianmcgowan 3y ago
  Not sure if it's reasonable, but a very simple answer is to get your kid a feature phone, if the intent is to be able to stay in touch/emergency contact (we let our kids bike to middle school and it was nice to be in touch). We didn't get them smart phones until high school. Though if my kids are any indication, it's still 50/50 - one is on tiktok/snapchat/insta constantly, and the other could care less.
  - bebop 3y ago
    Some parents in our social circle have been getting their kids smart watches. This allows talk to text and phone calls, but pretty much no internet. These devices are also good for parental controls like allow listing phone numbers (first thing our friends son did was make crank calls :)
    - ChicagoBoy11 3y ago
      I frequently recommend the apple watch with cellular to families... it has nice built in support to be set up for a child, the watch form factor is nice for lots of kids (harder to lose), and you are still getting a premium product (important for the families that I work with).
      - bart_spoon 3y ago
        I thought Apple Watches required an iPhone to pair with? Is that not the case?
        bebop 3y ago
        You can get them with a radio built in.
        bart_spoon 3y ago
        Yes, but I thought they still required pairing with a iPhone to set up. Once set-up is complete they can be used independently, but my impression is that it requires pairing to an iPhone, at least initially.
- davemp 3y ago
  > I don't think preventing kids from accessing social media entirely is viable or reasonable. One solution to this is to have a public computer in the house that the children can use. As they age and become more responsible you can give them more computing privacy. In the mean time you can kind of get an idea if they're developing bad habits and address it.
  - cutemonster 3y ago
    I like this idea. And, letting them use it only after 20:00, encourages them to hang out with friends after school (instead of running home to play games alone all afternoons and evenings).
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      Don't discount multiplayer gaming as socialization with friends. My mother hated how much I was on the computer, but I had ample friendships and computer related hobbies and learning, and well my entire life is spent on a computer. That's just how some lives are nowadays. If they are just queuing with randoms or spending all their time watching a stupid twitch streamer, that's not socialization though. I don't think you can actually form connections with other gamers anymore with the way modern matchmaking works.
      - synecdoche 3y ago
        There's something to be said about missing out on other dimensions of social life when socializing online. I would argue that it's not a substitute and poor preparation for the human condition.
- bart_spoon 3y ago
  Children have been around for 7 billion years. Only the last 20 years have children grown up with social media for even part of their childhood. Do you truly believe it has now become that critical to the childhood experience? Especially given avalanche of research demonstrating its harm?
  - standardUser 3y ago
    If I didn't watch the Simpsons, play Nintendo and listen to the local alt rock radio station when I was a kid, I would have had very little in common with my peers. Same situation today, just different media. Turns out, shared experiences facilitate bonding. Who knew?
    - bart_spoon 3y ago
      Funny, I didn't watch the Simpsons or listen to alt rock radio, but I had no issues socializing or finding friends. Turns out no one thinks the Simpsons or and alt-rock are essentials to children being able to properly socialize with one another. And yet people are arguing that social media, despite all its harmful effects, can't be withheld from a child without damaging them.
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        My parents did not let me watch Simpsons or any other American media, and I think it hampered my socializing. You either have to fake it to be in the conversation at school, or you just stay silent while everyone is talking about music/movies/tv show. I basically learned how to lie, sneak around, and keep two separate worlds going, as long as I needed my parents’ financial support.
      - greatwave1 3y ago
        How much of youth culture while you were growing up was shaped by the Simpsons and alt rock, and how much of youth culture today is shaped by the internet and social media? I would argue that almost all of Gen-Z culture today is driven by internet communities and social media, and raising a child without access to online media will make it difficult for them to relate to many (not necessarily all) of their peers.
CharlesW 3y ago
> There has always been a small but consistent group of parents who stand firmly on their decision to delay giving their child broad access to social media until later, and the vast, vast majority who can't be bothered to. For the latter group, do you feel like it's always willful ignorance? For example, some parents think you're talking about TikTok, when (as I'm sure you know) it often starts with Roblox/Minecraft chat and associated Discord servers. What tools have you found useful to help parents understand and manage this?
- bart_spoon 3y ago
  Every time this topic comes up, many of the responses here are about how it is pointless to try and impose limits on social media (or anything for that matter) on children, as they will inevitably circumvent them or something like that. To me it comes off like mental gymnastics to excuse a failure to actually parent.
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    The same could be said for teen drinking, smoking, casual sex, and drug use. Those who are dead-set on doing it will always find a way, that's the energy of teenage rebellion at work. Whilst I do agree that it's a failure to parent to a large extent, locking things behind restrictions can also make people want it more without them understanding why they're being restricted from having something that clearly makes a lot of people happy. I go back to my teenage self, and if instead of treating me like an idiot, people explained the pros and cons to it, and helped me to understand it, I might just not want it for myself. In the same way that I had teen pregnancy and accidental overdoses explained to me, I understood the risk-to-reward ratio and why people were concerned enough to try and educate about it. FWIW, whilst I don't take drugs, I do believe in legalizing them because punishing users makes precious little sense instead of helping them kick the addiction and get their life on track. However, legalizing of drugs equally doesn't mean I think people should seek them out, but those who are going to take them are probably going to take them anyway, and that should be something we can deal with in an appropriate and compassionate manner.
    - 3y ago
bendango 3y ago
It’s not social media though; it’s the shit show they see through it. That’s not going anywhere. Exploitation of young agency to prop up value stores and ideals of elders is what awaits them away from the screen. Setting themselves aside to clean up the toxic mess of dying generations awaits them. This may come as a shock but I don’t feel an obligation to your existence specifically. Look at the public dismiss public healthcare and demand the kids work just as we did; we censored TV coddling their sensibilities and office jobs to protect the hallucinated value of private corporations. I feel as much obligation to the “American Civic Life” hallucination as I do a more traditional religion. ACL has just taken hold of the biology religion did; causing people to hallucinate I owe them recognizing some spoken meme like “this person has high net worth.” That’s thought policing. Western society is a police state and it spends billions on hypernormalized messaging to insure it stays that way. Not one person on this forum is an obligation to me. You’re all hallucinating authority. Just like the parents you’re complaining about, you’re going to ignore the idea you have real obligation to yourself and society owes you nothing. Vain coddled primate; do it my way! … No. You’re not a divine mandate. Grow that potato.
dundercoder 3y ago
I've worked in tech for 20+ years and I have 4 young kids. We allow our teenager use of a locked down smartphone, with a clearly explained zero expectation of privacy. We don't allow any social media on the phone itself. YouTube and other sites can be used under supervision for agreed on lengths of time. Once or twice a week my wife or I will go through their text messages with them and ask questions about anything that seems off. It is a LOT of work. But so far, it has paid off. The more responsible the usage, the more freedom we give. When bad patterns start surfacing, we rein it in. IMO parents are reluctant to intervene because they either don't know where to start, or struggle with how much work it is.
- zachturn 3y ago
  > Once or twice a week my wife or I will go through their text messages with them and ask questions about anything that seems off. > IMO parents are reluctant to intervene because they either don't know where to start, or struggle with how much work it is. There are also parents who disagree with this ideology and would find this an invasion of their child's privacy. I'd caution against the thinking "we find this valuable and if people don't do it it's because they aren't willing to put as much work in as we do"
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - citizenkeen 3y ago
    The mantra we use with our kids is "We will try and respect your privacy but we aren't bound by it." As I often tell my son, "It's your room but it's my house." And we make it extra clear that the moment they go online, they have no expectation of privacy. Better they learn that someone's snooping now than be surprised when it's Google/Facebook/NSA.
    - greatwave1 3y ago
      I think most children find it significantly more invasive for their parents to be snooping through their messages, than to have that information being collected in some government database.
basisword 3y ago
It feels to me like smoking. A generation was there at the start of social media, got addicted and now can’t quit. Their kids see them doing it and they do the same. Eventually they’ll realise the negative side of it and they’ll try to stop their kids from getting in to it (but won’t quit themselves).
- ChicagoBoy11 3y ago
  I suspect the analogy between this kind of media consumption and smoking will prove to be far more analogous than we'd like to admit.
  - basisword 3y ago
    [flagged]
meghan_rain 3y ago
did you notice any advantages of the kids that had delayed exposure to social media? ie smarter, better focus, better motivation, better emotional iq? it would be HUGE news if this were the case, very curious about your reply
- ChicagoBoy11 3y ago
  Anecdotally, yes. We have some students who are very vocal about how they perceived having a more structured early use of social media once they get to nearing the end of high-school. Having said that, I'll caution that this is hardly any sort of statistical evidence, as its that students who suffered because of it (because of not being ostracized, not part of the cool kids who have phone, etc.) didn't feel bothered to come forward in my work. The one VERY CLEAR correlation that I see, though, is that families who are EXTREMELY intentional about this fare far better. More than the minutiae of what age they did or didn't give phones, which apps to allow or not, etc., the families that I have seen have lots of success are families who have dedicated time for these conversations and have made them a habit in their family. The ones who I have seen struggle have been of the "set it and forget it" mentality, even the ones who try to just "install an app" that will just do the parenting for them.
  - meghan_rain 3y ago
    thanks
jrochkind1 3y ago
Does the school allow cell phones in school? If so, why? Relying on parents to somehow prevent their kids from doing what all their peers are doing, I'm not surprised this is a fight parents choose not to have, or don't know how to win, or don't have the energy for. Can the school "be bothered" to try to do something at the school level, that will effect the entire peer group, instead of hoping that parents will find a way to swim against the stream? There might be other ways than simply prohibiting phones. Or maybe the school "can't be bothered" to try?
- yamazakiwi 3y ago
  Faraday classrooms
- ChicagoBoy11 3y ago
  We don't until the kids get to high-school. But you'd be hardpressed to notice this: right before they step on campus, or right after dismissal, they all come out. But during the day, they are, in fact, hardly seen.

KaoruAoiShiho 3y ago

What reasonable action could be taken on the parent side? I feel like apps should be regulated to for example, only show up to 20 videos max on tiktok per day to prevent doom scrolling. I don't think preventing kids from accessing social media entirely is viable or reasonable.

youreincorrect 3y ago
Don't give your kid a smartphone or laptop without only whitelisting certain sites. If they somehow get a device without permission, it gets donated.
- swader999 3y ago
  Isolating them from their peers can be just as mentally devastating. I don't think there is a good solution to this.
  - youreincorrect 3y ago
    They can deal with it. In middle school, I was called a faggot, relentlessly, for not owning a Jansport backpack. I am 100% serious. They'll find friends, I'm pretty sure of it.
    - kzrdude 3y ago
      I still hope that one day we'll find a way to stop that (to a big extent).
      - karaterobot 3y ago
        Some day, we'll all have Jansport backpacks.
        lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Still using mine from 5th grade 20+ years later. The oldest thing I own.
    - jstarfish 3y ago
      [flagged]
    - yamtaddle 3y ago
      But if they don't have social media, how will they see other kids calling them names for not owning the right backpack outside of school? Think of the harm to their socialization!
    - hammyhavoc 3y ago
      I was called plenty of unpleasant stuff, including that. I didn't find any friends and I left at sixteen because of it. I'm not so sure. At thirty, I'm still fairly socially isolated outside of work.
    - standardUser 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        If that is suffering than every child will always suffer, because an very normal part of childhood is someone finding a reason to bully someone else. It's part of developing understanding of social structures and your place in them, some kids will inevitably decide they must be at the top of the pecking order in their little personal hierarchy. You physically cannot prevent children from making up ways to pick on each other, there's like a doctor Seuss book about this for heaven's sake. This isn't saying "stop trying to prevent bullying" but rather "if you are afraid of your child being bullied because they aren't on social media, them being on social media will not stop them from being bullied" and social media makes bullying worse because now it follows them around instead of possibly stopping at 3pm
  - xpe 3y ago
    Sounds like MAAD: Mutually Assured Attention Destruction.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - sibeliuss 3y ago
    You're probably not thinking hard enough here.
  - TheFreim 3y ago
    I didn't have a cell phone while all my friends did, I wasn't isolated.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    That isn't isolating them from their peers.
    - dathinab 3y ago
      it is guaranteed at least subtle socially isolating them
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        No more so than it's isolating them by giving them a curfew, telling them they can't hang out in certain places, not giving them a car, etc. That level of "isolation" seems innocuous at worst to me (even though it may seem like the end of the world to the kids).
        yamtaddle 3y ago
        Every kid through history was horribly isolated before we got smartphones and social media, I guess. They're already spending the best hours of every weekday for like 3/4 of each year with their peers. More, if they do any other activities that involve other kids. Seems like quite a bit. I'm skeptical that they'll be harmed if they can't catch up on the latest bullying-memes, creep shots of other students, and tips for getting old guys to send you money online (all real examples, and none of them one-offs—trends) at 1AM on a school night.
        mrguyorama 3y ago
        If your kid is never isolated, how can they possibly develop healthy behaviors around boredom and isolation?
        dathinab 3y ago
        I hope you understand and just decided to pretend not to that _social_ isolation is not about physical isolation or boredom or having free time with nothing to do. While the "simplest" way to archive social isolation is to be physically isolated you can be social isolated while having people around you 24/7.
  - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    “Teenage suicide is at an all time high… I sure wouldn’t want my kid to stop being terminally connected to those kids and whatever could possibly be causing that!”
  - unethical_ban 3y ago
    It's fair to call out that if one kid doesn't have a phone and everyone else does, it may be hard on them. Phones are a way to be "in" and in the know, if you don't have one then you may be on the outside looking in. A few things. 1. Fuck being on the inside. Work with your kid and their self-esteem and their friends to realize that shit-talking and drama online is shallow, painful and makes you a worse person. 2. Work with the parents in your kid's social circle to talk to them about social media impact, and maybe make sure that in-person time after school is happening. Alternatively, "just" get your kid involved in after-school programs that require social activity. Band, choir, sports, hobby clubs. 3. Don't cut off social media/computing entirely. Abstinence from it full-time would be really hard to enforce. Yes, look at putting parental controls. Yes, consider limiting which apps they can have. Put time limits on it, and yeet any unapproved devices.
    - swader999 3y ago
      At around thirteen it's almost impossible to get into calm rational discussions with things as emotionally charged as this.
  - dathinab 3y ago
    Not sure why you are down voted but this is really a really really big issue. This is why "large scale action" e.g. from school or better regulators are needed and why parents only can act very limited. Don't force social isolation on your children just because idk. "this game is bad". Even if they social circle is "good" and doesn't start excluding or harassing them because of this (totally can happen, you can't really choose with whom you are in a class) it still is leads to a subtle isolation which might by itself not cause any mental issues, but can amplify existing issues, prevent mental scare from being healed etc. And such issues don't always come from "big bad thing" sometimes small bad things wrongly processed as a child can be enough to cause life long mental issues if the child has never the chance to reprocess/recondition/overcome them. EDIT: Just to be clear doesn't mean children should have unchecked social media/game/etc. access.
    - psyfi 3y ago
      Not allowing your children to own a phone ≠ Force social isolation.
      - swader999 3y ago
        It can in many circumstances. I live rural and we don't have a land line. It's hard to get the kids over to their friends as much as they want. My solution is to talk to the other parents. We all agreed to no tik too. I turn our wifi off after bed time. We have a phone contract with our 14 year old that stipulates the usual be nice and don't live on your phone rules. They swim, ski, kayak and play school volleyball and badminton so there's lots of opportunities for that sort of interacting but I think it would be pretty harsh to cut them off of their phones. If I could get 3/4 of their friends parents to agree I would for sure until they are 16.
      - dathinab 3y ago
        social isolation isn't a yes/no question it's a gradient and in many situation it is pretty much guaranteed to at least cause slight degree of social isolation, in some (like very rual) it might cause a large degree of social isolation similar having a phone isn't a yes/no question, things like parent control exist, even through they often slightly suck
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - bart_spoon 3y ago
    Not being on Tiktok is not social isolation nor is it mentally devastating. I think many here are projecting their own addictions when they make these hyperbolic assertions.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      And conversely without understanding the isolations modern children experience that your counterassertions fall short explaining the current situation we're in. If your solution is "go play outside with other kids" and the park is empty because all other kids are busy doing isolated things or on tic tok, then you have a problem.
      - bart_spoon 3y ago
        The park isn't empty though. The sports teams aren't empty. The after school groups aren't empty. The church groups aren't empty.
  - karaterobot 3y ago
    Aren't there at least a few studies that indicate better long-term mental health outcomes among kids who don't use social media until later in life? Sorry for the lack of citation, but if that is true, wouldn't that pretty much obviate this problem? If, on balance, the outcome is better, then whatever short terms shocks they may experience are better than the alternative.
  - boeingUH60 3y ago
    Abstaining from social media is not isolation. There are more healthy ways to interact with friends without the perils of social media platforms.
  - rsync 3y ago
    I don’t have time right now to go into details but it was surprisingly simple, from a filter rules perspective, to create an “iMessage only” access point. So there is no isolation from peers, but also no other usage of the device. We turn it off completely at 9pm. Edit: oh, the other important detail is that they have no-data SIM cards. Tello sells text and talk only sims for $8/mo or whatever. Weirdly, when they are away from home, apple finds a way to tunnel blue bubbles through (sms only) … not sure how … bottom line is, at home, it’s iMessage or nothing.
  - omginternets 3y ago
    Thankfully, there are other ways of interacting with one's peers, most of which create more meaningful connections than social media. To put it more bluntly: if social media is the only thing standing between a child and total isolation, that child has far bigger problems. Maybe sign your kid up for little league?
    - hammyhavoc 3y ago
      Little league? Social media? Are we talking children or teenagers? What's frequently missed is that most organization of meet-ups, birthday parties, talking to romantic interests, going to concerts et al, all happens on social media and in group chats now, and has done for the best part of fifteen years in the West. For the prior generation, if you aren't online, you aren't cool, and you won't know about cool things that are happening. The current generation seems to have a fascination with dumb phones and eschewing tech obsession if the media spin is to be believed versus the numbers on social media apps. Both can be valid things that are occurring though, but I'm willing to bet that the dumb phone movement is a small one or a LARP for elitist cool points.
      - omginternets 3y ago
        >What's frequently missed is that most organization of meet-ups, birthday parties, talking to romantic interests, going to concerts et al, all happens on social media and in group chats now, and has done for the best part of fifteen years in the West. Yeah, no. People still talk to each other. I leave it to you to exercise some adaptability and find suitable workarounds. This is a small problem. I guarantee you that you solve harder ones on a daily basis.
        hammyhavoc 3y ago
        As neither a parent nor a teenager, I find this a weird one to leave with me. I merely repeated some valid concerns, to which you presented no solutions, just snippiness. What workarounds am I looking for? And for whom? Why aren't the people concerned looking for their own workarounds?
  - wonderwonder 3y ago
    How are they isolated? If kids are involved in sports and extra curriculars they will have plenty of social interaction. Nothing on social media is good for young minds. Everything is a pitch trying to sell some sort of viewpoint. I'm the parent, I'll provide morals and insight into topics I think are important that aren't or shouldn't be covered in school. I don't need Jim.lottahoes78 teaching my kid anything.
    - hammyhavoc 3y ago
      > Everything is a pitch trying to sell some sort of viewpoint. What about cities? What about stores? What about TV? What about magazines? What about the radio? What about school? What about music? What about books? Whilst I agree with you, where do we draw the line? Personally, having worked in advertising/marketing for over a decade and grown completely disenchanted with it and pivoted to just doing creative shit, I don't think we should advertise to kids, period. It's exploitative and gross.
      - wonderwonder 3y ago
        I agree with you. Marketing to kids is wrong. I think social media is more insidious though. They are not selling products they are selling view points and often at the expense of others. Believe this or you're a Nazi. Don't drink this beer. Social media is the battlefield of the culture wars and I don't want my kids to be casualties.
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        Our state banned billboards like 80 years ago. Make that happen in your state. They are valueless.
        bart_spoon 3y ago
        Which state is that? I didn't realize that was a thing in the US, but it sounds great.
        3y ago
  - Utkarsh_Mood 3y ago
    I dont really think them not being on social media is akin to 'Isolation' from their peers. Thats really overblowing the situation. There are hundreds of other ways to meet your friends.
    - km3k 3y ago
      I don't get why a lot of this discussion assumes children can't communicate with peers without social media. Calling and texting are still a thing. So is coordinating during school to plan meetups after school. Besides, I think very few people are saying children should have a total ban on all forms of social media and communication. We need to find methods to restrict/reduce social media and then ease those restrictions as the children mature, with a focus to minimize the negative aspects of social media usage and still allow communication with peers. For example, when our children were small, we didn't allow phones or social media, but allowed them to text/call friends with our phones. As they got older, we introduced Google Voice via family desktop computers so they had their own number for texts/calls, but given that it was on a desktop computer, it had limited usage. After that, we introduced a family smartphone that was shared among our younger children so they could text and have some limited social media, mainly group chat apps based on their clubs/sports. Once they became teenagers, we allow them their own phone, but still had restrictions on apps installed, types of websites available and time spent. Gradually over time, we introduce new apps, discuss app usage and review how things are going with the goal of increased independence over time. For managing restrictions, we've used a lot of things, but never found a perfect solution. Bark works pretty well for signalling us of potential problems while giving our children a level of privacy. I use a Firewalla router to manage home internet access restrictions and Google Family Link to manage mobile devices. Both are mainly used to restrict time-based access (no middle of the night access) and for temporary restrictions to allow us to focus on things like homework and family events. I can see why a lot of parents put no restrictions up or just ban too much. It takes a lot of work to create a nuanced set of restrictions that gradually give more independence as the child matures. Unfortunately, we've seen friends of our children who have had a lot of issues due to totally unrestricted internet access. We need to find and foster more middle grounds for easing children into social media and related technologies. Neither full unrestricted access nor total bans are helpful.
  - zo1 3y ago
    Sure there is: Identify the degenerate behaviour and punish it. Whatever that may be and 51% of us can agree on. If that's tik tok, all social media, YouTube, infinite scroll, use generated media websites, drug misogyny and degenerate sex promoting lyrics, violent fps games, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, ads aimed at children, pictures of swastikas, hormone altering medicine, or whatever, so be it. If you don't ban it at the source and society-wide, then parents are left with very little means to protect their children's development and growth into good individuals that reflect their beliefs. I don't get how we're being so laissez-faire and willing to just "see where it goes" when it comes to our society and our future as a species. We're at a critical juncture right now and need to make a decision; we can't fence sit any longer while the winds of peer pressure randomly drag us wherever and based on nothing more than who shouts the loudest or who cancels dissent the best. /rant
    - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
      You may be right. But free speech and free markets have done a lot of good, along with the bad. Trying to rein them in gets a lot of pushback, because the alternatives have been pretty terrible too.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    I had 14 friends on myspace back in its heyday. I could not play runescape because my computer was too old. I had dialup until 2008. It actually was not mentally devastating. Hell, I still have all those friends and we barely have a way to communicate NOW. When you go to school 8 hours of every day and see your friends, you don't really need a stupid app to interact with them. Hell, blocking out social media doesn't prevent you from texting or messaging your friends! Discord though is social media IMO, anything that forms a "group" that can have leaders and followers and bullies is social media.
    - boring_twenties 3y ago
      > you don't really need a stupid app to interact with them Yes, you do, because they will not want to interact with you if you're not on the preferred app. This is the case even with adults: I somewhat regularly meet people who will flatly refuse to talk to you if you don't have a green bubble, or an Instagram account, or whathaveyou. These are educated professionals in their 20's and 30's.
      - citizenkeen 3y ago
        Hang out with less shitty people.
      - graboidhunter 3y ago
        > I somewhat regularly meet people who will flatly refuse to talk to you if you don't have a green bubble, or an Instagram account, or whathaveyou. These are educated professionals in their 20's and 30's. Find better friends?
        boring_twenties 3y ago
        I didn't say they were my friends, I said the opposite, people I just met
        km3k 3y ago
        That's a good indicator that they're people to avoid.
  - yumraj 3y ago
    Purely for argument sake: would the above apply if peer kids were in gang, or into drugs or alcohol or whatever? Social media is no different from those, IMHO of course.
  - schnable 3y ago
    This is why regulation is useful even though it's imperfect. If it's against the law for under 18s to use social media, parents no longer need to justify allowing their kids access because all of their peers allow it. By necessity, more traditional means of socialization will reemerge.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    That's what soccer leagues are for. Or chess club for the non-athletically inclined.
gjsman-1000 3y ago
I think in the future, we should look into device-level age verification. You scan your Driver's License on your iPhone once; and after that, your iPhone tells the website that you are 16 and over without providing any other information unless the user expressly grants it. This solution would not make everyone happy, but politics is all about tradeoffs. By keeping everything on the device-level, we would hopefully reduce the need for third-parties, ISP-level filtering, or providing too much information. The downside is that for open-source phones, in order for the system to be secure, there would likely need to be a similar Age ID check at checkout for any device that can bypass said filter. This would not be the first time that the US Government strongly "encouraged" device manufacturers to build-in rating system equipment (remember V-Chip?). And as for "some kids might bypass it," I don't really care. Speed Limits are easily and frequently bypassed, but that doesn't mean it would be safe to get rid of them.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > You scan your Driver's License on your iPhone once And who's checking that ID? In what form is the record of it being kept, and where? I would not use a device that had this sort of requirement. There's too much surveillance as it is. The solution to this with children is easy -- don't get them a smartphone.
  - gjsman-1000 3y ago
    > And who's checking that ID? In what form is the record of it being kept, and where? I would not use a device that had this sort of requirement. There's too much surveillance as it is. I would do it on a state-by-state level. Your phone verifies your age with, say, the state of California one time, and then it's set and California has no idea what you visit or why. And if you don't like this due to hacking risk; remember that the State of California literally has your photo, social security number, address, height, weight, gender, and more. Hacking risk increase is minuscule from what it already is. And not just California - any state can look you up if they want; otherwise, how would traffic tickets or arrests for interstate drivers happen? > The solution to this with children is easy -- don't get them a smartphone. Or we ban children from possession or purchase of smartphones under a certain age. Which, I would be favor of, but may be too politically unpalatable.
ianmcgowan 3y ago
Not sure if it's reasonable, but a very simple answer is to get your kid a feature phone, if the intent is to be able to stay in touch/emergency contact (we let our kids bike to middle school and it was nice to be in touch). We didn't get them smart phones until high school. Though if my kids are any indication, it's still 50/50 - one is on tiktok/snapchat/insta constantly, and the other could care less.
- bebop 3y ago
  Some parents in our social circle have been getting their kids smart watches. This allows talk to text and phone calls, but pretty much no internet. These devices are also good for parental controls like allow listing phone numbers (first thing our friends son did was make crank calls :)
  - ChicagoBoy11 3y ago
    I frequently recommend the apple watch with cellular to families... it has nice built in support to be set up for a child, the watch form factor is nice for lots of kids (harder to lose), and you are still getting a premium product (important for the families that I work with).
    - bart_spoon 3y ago
      I thought Apple Watches required an iPhone to pair with? Is that not the case?
      - bebop 3y ago
        You can get them with a radio built in.
        bart_spoon 3y ago
        Yes, but I thought they still required pairing with a iPhone to set up. Once set-up is complete they can be used independently, but my impression is that it requires pairing to an iPhone, at least initially.
davemp 3y ago
> I don't think preventing kids from accessing social media entirely is viable or reasonable. One solution to this is to have a public computer in the house that the children can use. As they age and become more responsible you can give them more computing privacy. In the mean time you can kind of get an idea if they're developing bad habits and address it.
- cutemonster 3y ago
  I like this idea. And, letting them use it only after 20:00, encourages them to hang out with friends after school (instead of running home to play games alone all afternoons and evenings).
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    Don't discount multiplayer gaming as socialization with friends. My mother hated how much I was on the computer, but I had ample friendships and computer related hobbies and learning, and well my entire life is spent on a computer. That's just how some lives are nowadays. If they are just queuing with randoms or spending all their time watching a stupid twitch streamer, that's not socialization though. I don't think you can actually form connections with other gamers anymore with the way modern matchmaking works.
    - synecdoche 3y ago
      There's something to be said about missing out on other dimensions of social life when socializing online. I would argue that it's not a substitute and poor preparation for the human condition.
bart_spoon 3y ago
Children have been around for 7 billion years. Only the last 20 years have children grown up with social media for even part of their childhood. Do you truly believe it has now become that critical to the childhood experience? Especially given avalanche of research demonstrating its harm?
- standardUser 3y ago
  If I didn't watch the Simpsons, play Nintendo and listen to the local alt rock radio station when I was a kid, I would have had very little in common with my peers. Same situation today, just different media. Turns out, shared experiences facilitate bonding. Who knew?
  - bart_spoon 3y ago
    Funny, I didn't watch the Simpsons or listen to alt rock radio, but I had no issues socializing or finding friends. Turns out no one thinks the Simpsons or and alt-rock are essentials to children being able to properly socialize with one another. And yet people are arguing that social media, despite all its harmful effects, can't be withheld from a child without damaging them.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      My parents did not let me watch Simpsons or any other American media, and I think it hampered my socializing. You either have to fake it to be in the conversation at school, or you just stay silent while everyone is talking about music/movies/tv show. I basically learned how to lie, sneak around, and keep two separate worlds going, as long as I needed my parents’ financial support.
    - greatwave1 3y ago
      How much of youth culture while you were growing up was shaped by the Simpsons and alt rock, and how much of youth culture today is shaped by the internet and social media? I would argue that almost all of Gen-Z culture today is driven by internet communities and social media, and raising a child without access to online media will make it difficult for them to relate to many (not necessarily all) of their peers.

CharlesW 3y ago

> There has always been a small but consistent group of parents who stand firmly on their decision to delay giving their child broad access to social media until later, and the vast, vast majority who can't be bothered to. For the latter group, do you feel like it's always willful ignorance? For example, some parents think you're talking about TikTok, when (as I'm sure you know) it often starts with Roblox/Minecraft chat and associated Discord servers. What tools have you found useful to help parents understand and manage this?

bart_spoon 3y ago
Every time this topic comes up, many of the responses here are about how it is pointless to try and impose limits on social media (or anything for that matter) on children, as they will inevitably circumvent them or something like that. To me it comes off like mental gymnastics to excuse a failure to actually parent.
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  The same could be said for teen drinking, smoking, casual sex, and drug use. Those who are dead-set on doing it will always find a way, that's the energy of teenage rebellion at work. Whilst I do agree that it's a failure to parent to a large extent, locking things behind restrictions can also make people want it more without them understanding why they're being restricted from having something that clearly makes a lot of people happy. I go back to my teenage self, and if instead of treating me like an idiot, people explained the pros and cons to it, and helped me to understand it, I might just not want it for myself. In the same way that I had teen pregnancy and accidental overdoses explained to me, I understood the risk-to-reward ratio and why people were concerned enough to try and educate about it. FWIW, whilst I don't take drugs, I do believe in legalizing them because punishing users makes precious little sense instead of helping them kick the addiction and get their life on track. However, legalizing of drugs equally doesn't mean I think people should seek them out, but those who are going to take them are probably going to take them anyway, and that should be something we can deal with in an appropriate and compassionate manner.
  - 3y ago

bendango 3y ago

It’s not social media though; it’s the shit show they see through it. That’s not going anywhere. Exploitation of young agency to prop up value stores and ideals of elders is what awaits them away from the screen. Setting themselves aside to clean up the toxic mess of dying generations awaits them. This may come as a shock but I don’t feel an obligation to your existence specifically. Look at the public dismiss public healthcare and demand the kids work just as we did; we censored TV coddling their sensibilities and office jobs to protect the hallucinated value of private corporations. I feel as much obligation to the “American Civic Life” hallucination as I do a more traditional religion. ACL has just taken hold of the biology religion did; causing people to hallucinate I owe them recognizing some spoken meme like “this person has high net worth.” That’s thought policing. Western society is a police state and it spends billions on hypernormalized messaging to insure it stays that way. Not one person on this forum is an obligation to me. You’re all hallucinating authority. Just like the parents you’re complaining about, you’re going to ignore the idea you have real obligation to yourself and society owes you nothing. Vain coddled primate; do it my way! … No. You’re not a divine mandate. Grow that potato.

dundercoder 3y ago

I've worked in tech for 20+ years and I have 4 young kids. We allow our teenager use of a locked down smartphone, with a clearly explained zero expectation of privacy. We don't allow any social media on the phone itself. YouTube and other sites can be used under supervision for agreed on lengths of time. Once or twice a week my wife or I will go through their text messages with them and ask questions about anything that seems off. It is a LOT of work. But so far, it has paid off. The more responsible the usage, the more freedom we give. When bad patterns start surfacing, we rein it in. IMO parents are reluctant to intervene because they either don't know where to start, or struggle with how much work it is.

zachturn 3y ago
> Once or twice a week my wife or I will go through their text messages with them and ask questions about anything that seems off. > IMO parents are reluctant to intervene because they either don't know where to start, or struggle with how much work it is. There are also parents who disagree with this ideology and would find this an invasion of their child's privacy. I'd caution against the thinking "we find this valuable and if people don't do it it's because they aren't willing to put as much work in as we do"
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- citizenkeen 3y ago
  The mantra we use with our kids is "We will try and respect your privacy but we aren't bound by it." As I often tell my son, "It's your room but it's my house." And we make it extra clear that the moment they go online, they have no expectation of privacy. Better they learn that someone's snooping now than be surprised when it's Google/Facebook/NSA.
  - greatwave1 3y ago
    I think most children find it significantly more invasive for their parents to be snooping through their messages, than to have that information being collected in some government database.

basisword 3y ago

It feels to me like smoking. A generation was there at the start of social media, got addicted and now can’t quit. Their kids see them doing it and they do the same. Eventually they’ll realise the negative side of it and they’ll try to stop their kids from getting in to it (but won’t quit themselves).

ChicagoBoy11 3y ago
I suspect the analogy between this kind of media consumption and smoking will prove to be far more analogous than we'd like to admit.
- basisword 3y ago
  [flagged]

meghan_rain 3y ago

did you notice any advantages of the kids that had delayed exposure to social media? ie smarter, better focus, better motivation, better emotional iq? it would be HUGE news if this were the case, very curious about your reply

ChicagoBoy11 3y ago
Anecdotally, yes. We have some students who are very vocal about how they perceived having a more structured early use of social media once they get to nearing the end of high-school. Having said that, I'll caution that this is hardly any sort of statistical evidence, as its that students who suffered because of it (because of not being ostracized, not part of the cool kids who have phone, etc.) didn't feel bothered to come forward in my work. The one VERY CLEAR correlation that I see, though, is that families who are EXTREMELY intentional about this fare far better. More than the minutiae of what age they did or didn't give phones, which apps to allow or not, etc., the families that I have seen have lots of success are families who have dedicated time for these conversations and have made them a habit in their family. The ones who I have seen struggle have been of the "set it and forget it" mentality, even the ones who try to just "install an app" that will just do the parenting for them.
- meghan_rain 3y ago
  thanks

jrochkind1 3y ago

Does the school allow cell phones in school? If so, why? Relying on parents to somehow prevent their kids from doing what all their peers are doing, I'm not surprised this is a fight parents choose not to have, or don't know how to win, or don't have the energy for. Can the school "be bothered" to try to do something at the school level, that will effect the entire peer group, instead of hoping that parents will find a way to swim against the stream? There might be other ways than simply prohibiting phones. Or maybe the school "can't be bothered" to try?

yamazakiwi 3y ago
Faraday classrooms
ChicagoBoy11 3y ago
We don't until the kids get to high-school. But you'd be hardpressed to notice this: right before they step on campus, or right after dismissal, they all come out. But during the day, they are, in fact, hardly seen.