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My kids are in middle school. Almost all of their friends have no restrictions at all on phone use, electronics, video streaming, etc. A few have been on TikTo
by brightball 3y ago
My kids are in middle school.
Almost all of their friends have no restrictions at all on phone use, electronics, video streaming, etc. A few have been on TikTok and Instagram since they were in 5th grade. The amount of pressure I hear to let them have Snapchat is constant.
Regardless, we maintained the restrictions. Apple Family makes it fairly easy to manage. Xbox controls are a little more of a pain but they work too to moderate.
I’ve talked to my kids about the addictive and psychological elements of how certain games work or videos. They listened but didn’t understand.
Last week, they started talking to me about how a lot of their friends have a phone in front of their face all the time and they see what we’ve been trying to warn them about. It was a struggle to get there but seeing that they finally really understood was big.
The flip side though, the reason they understand is because they see people who have fallen victim to it. It’s like understanding why your parents warned you about drugs because you see what happened to your friend who fell into it.
We know the consequences. At this point, parents shouldn’t have to spend so much time worrying about this. It’s not easy but it should be.
- mattgreenrocks 3y agoI am with you. I will die on this hill. Social media is toxic: it’s not real, it’s a waste of life when there’s tons of other awesome things you can do. And the legitimization of chasing Internet Points is truly sad.
- boppo1 3y agoI'm an illustrator/painter and instagram has been a MASSIVE net positive on my life. I have come across extremely useful products (allaprima pochade) and artists who provide unparalleled education. I have learned WAY more from artists I have found on instagram, and for a paltry $600 compared to the thousands I absolutely wasted on university classes led by professors who I discovered too late were incompetent.
- micromacrofoot 3y agothe sad thing is that in a lot of professions like this you need social media to promote your work
- badpun 3y agoIsn't Hacker News social media though?
- pfisch 3y agoAre you at all concerned that you aren't inoculating them to deal with the real world now in a safer space? In the future it will all be unlocked at once and they may be unable to deal with the addictive nature of this stuff. They might also not know how to interact properly in the real world.
- llamaimperative 3y agoIt’s a prisoner’s dilemma which is why the companies need to be regulated. Very similar to child labor laws where there were lots of firms refusing to use it, but were getting put out of business by those who did. Solution: use the law to force everyone onto equal ground. Otherwise many many avenues of improvement for our society are impossible to take for the two reasons you and GP mention.
- pfisch 3y agoI agree
- Aerbil313 3y ago> In the future it will all be unlocked at once and they may be unable to deal with the addictive nature of this stuff. I’m adult. I’m still unable to deal if I don’t implement heavy restrictions on every screen I use. I don’t even have Tiktok, FB, IG or Twitter, just HN and reddit. I know how addiction feels, and this feels like it. Social media is poison.
- Mezzie 3y agoI get really concerned about this as someone who worked in universities for a while. Watching the 18 year old kids get targeted by the credit card/loan/predatory industries made me really sad.
- batch12 3y agoFor me, not at all. Along the same line, I don't expose the kids to tiny bits of pornography or heroin either. These examples may sound like hyperbole, but not everything can be prevented with vaccine methodology, imo. If kids need tiktok to know how to interact properly with the world, that's a failure of parents and society. Maybe they'll instead be one of the few with cognitive superpowers that include independent thought, creativity, and attention.