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The EU wants to cure your teen’s smartphone addiction
- eimrine 3y agoKids always were a locomotive of censorship in the Internets.
- esarbe 3y agoIt's not about censorship.
- eimrine 3y agoIt is about making barriers between information and readers.
- esarbe 3y agoNo, this is about limiting smartphone screen time. If that includes setting up new barriers between information and readers then that is a undesirable result, but it is not what these discussions are about.
- eimrine 3y agoLimiting screen time for some groups of ppl is a perfect foundation of social rating.
- esarbe 3y agoSounds you're making the fallacy of the slippery slope. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope There are no credible efforts to introduce anything like a "social rating" in the EU.
- eimrine 3y agoI disagree with the idea that some of my devices should obey not only to me/owner. What I see is more and more of government/vendor presence on people's devices such as smartphones. These data are already enough for a lot of harmful things to big masses of people and I am scared any time seeing that my government needs even more privileges.
- esarbe 3y agoGood. Smartphones and excessive screen time are damaging, for adults and even more so for children. I'm perfectly happy to deny the companies proliferating these unhealthy habits any chance to make profit. There should be no legal means to profit from other people's addition.
- nate_meurer 3y agoDo you feel the same way about far more damaging addictions, such as alcohol and unhealthy food? Do you agree that the government should outlaw the sale of booze, soda pop, fast food, etc?
- esarbe 3y agoNothing in these discussions is about "outlawing" smartphone usage. I do support regulation of production, trade and disposal of the products you mention, though.
- zoobab 3y ago1980s: BMX 2020s: Smartphone/Tablet https://www.facebook.com/tvfansonline/photos/a.432474260246337/987118464781911/?type=3 https://www.facebook.com/tvfansonline/photos/a.4324742602463...
- esarbe 3y agoApples and oranges.
- mattpallissard 3y agoOh, I don't know. How about you just _don't_ give your kids a smartphone? This reads very much like appealing to tobacco companies; "hey could you, um, you know, make this less addictive and carcinogenic?" I have five kids. The oldest two have friends that have various devices. But I don't care about their friends and don't cave. Believe me, it's really not that hard. Kids whine about all sorts of things, just add wanting a smart phone to that list. As an added bonus they get a lesson in not giving in to social pressure. Parents parenting is the only way to solve this problem. And yes, some parents aren't going to do a good job parenting. It's the same with tobacco, drugs, alcohol, or any other dangerous behavior. I honestly can't wrap my mind around how people think regulation is going to do that job for them. No amount of regulation outside of an outright ban is going to make this go away. Sure, some guardrails can help, but at the end of the day people have to be taught how to avoid bad behavior on their own.
- esarbe 3y ago> I honestly can't wrap my mind around how people think regulation is going to do that job for them. It works pretty well for alcohol and for tobacco. With regards to tobacco, there's been a clear trend towards less tobacco usage in teenagers since 1997. that's when awareness campaigns began. I don't think that people think that "regulation is going to do [parenting] for them". I think most people that let their children use smartphones simply don't care too much or are not aware about the serious problems arising from excessive smartphone usage.
- voxic11 3y agoBut don't most children get smartphones from their parents? It's still legal for parents to give their children alcohol or tobacco if they want to. Minors just can't buy it (and in the case of alcohol possess it except when served it by their parents). So imo those laws aren't intended to replace parenting. Its still up to parents to decide whether or not their minor children get access to alcohol and tobacco.
- esarbe 3y ago
- phero_cnstrcts 3y agoThe state wants to become your kids parents.
- sorwin 3y agoThe addiction isnt to the smartphone, but to social media applications. It's the constant pumping of information and misinformation, as well as a false sense of reality. Teens (and other age groups) are constantly bombarded with topics, issues, and information which they have to make sense of. Quite often, this information is pretty depressing, rage inducing, or emotionally manipulative in one way or another. They learn from this - instead of having a curated view of the world and information from their parents, elders, siblings, etc.
- Calvin02 3y agoI think you should ask a teen what social media is to them. My nieces and nephews are constantly messaging each other. 95% of their usage is messaging. It is spread across several apps. Discord for gaming, IG for trends, TT for short videos, etc. This is how they stay in touch with friends. They aren’t obsessively doom scrolling, which I found quite interesting.
- cubefox 3y agoThey may not be scrolling, but doom is probably there. https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/a693397d-949f-43e4-9cad-3482af899f84_1410x852.png https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/a... https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/teen-depression.jpg https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/teen-d...
- nate_meurer 3y agoYou're not listening. Someone just told you their personal experience, and you responded by saying they're "probably" wrong.
- cubefox 3y agoI actually haven't said "their" experience is wrong.
- barbazoo 3y ago
- veave 3y agoNothing harder than getting parents to do some parenting
- barbazoo 3y agoNice line, might even get you some upvotes but it sounds pretty ignorant of the realities of the world we live in.
- veave 3y agoActually it always gets me a lot of downvotes but I will keep repeating it because it is the truth. All personal responsibility is being outsourced to the state until we have no autonomy left and it's depressing.
- barbazoo 3y agoIf we change the individualistic culture that makes it necessary for, in the worst case, a single person to care for and parent a child, then yes, sure. But the world many people live in right now makes this very very hard and judging people is not helping.
- barbazoo 3y agoLots of comments already from people who don't appear to have experience parenting.
- MrNeon 3y agoI like how you made your comment ambiguous.
- diehunde 3y agoHaving experience in parenting has nothing to do with understanding addiction though. If a psychiatrist tells you the best way is to just not give them a smartphone are you going to dismiss their opinion if they don’t have kids?
- barbazoo 3y agoThat's somewhat of a strawman though isn't it? I'm not saying not giving kids smartphones wouldn't work.
- mrwnmonm 3y agoThe West and their enlightenment that ruined the world.