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Feels like there has been a noticeable shift globally these past few years in favor of burdening websites to protect kids online. Makes me wonder: has the inter

by jamesu 3y ago

Feels like there has been a noticeable shift globally these past few years in favor of burdening websites to protect kids online. Makes me wonder: has the internet really gotten worse, or is something else going on here?

treffer 3y ago
You can expect a kid to be online before they turn into teenager. At least to some extent. Moderation of that through parents is horrible (it's clise to surveillance / watch every step of your child). It's just that first consumption age went down and audience widened. Overall I think the internet has become safer, especially through the required handling of content complaints. It's just that the usage went into a direction that needs more safeguards.
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  I'm surprised to see people speaking positively of safeguards here. Normally the HN line is that the onus fit these things should be entirely on the parents and it's an attack on freedom to have an hindrance to a child viewing and doing whatever they want online.
xbmcuser 3y ago
It's make sense to me 20-30 years ago access to computers and internet was not easy so could be controlled a bit by parents. Today Parents can try to control their own childrens devices but reality is most children run circles around their parents when it comes to tech. Yes we the tech enthusiast might not be fooled by our children but not the case for the large portion of the population. Most of us don't like it or won't agree but the days of the internet being the wild west will slowly be over it will be converted to a regulated internet as the powers that be/people in power don't like it when they can't control.
eganist 3y ago
I'll reply with a bunch of anecdotes, so please bear with me. A few trends over the last two decades: * targeted monetization of everything under the sun * a total shift towards a subscription economy for nearly everything digital. * a near total shift towards mobile content consumption devices especially for younger consumers (tablets and phones) has likely resulted in the following: * low quality algorithmically driven junk food content (tiktok, instagram reels, the garbage people post to advice subreddits) * startups j-curving for usage and leaning into advertising as their only viable business case * Google scraping your inbox for ad keywords in the mid 2000s and beyond, Microsoft injecting ads into Windows 10 and 11, etc. Perhaps worse: * Generation Alpha and later Gen Z kids having relatively diminished technical literacy compared to elder Gen Z and Millenials (absolutely anecdotal. I'm citing three teacher friends frustrated that kids navigate their way around computers more poorly with each passing year) * subconscious mass influence of behavior patterns (foreign election interference, your trip to your local McDonald's, sneaker hype culture) Practically the only thing that hasn't actually gotten worse online, regardless of our own diverse opinions about it, is Wikipedia. It's a for-profit warzone of competing interests making competing edits, but it's an example of what can happen when the constant growth/profit/exit-motive isn't there. Many of the hobbyist sites running on sites like vbulletin or invision are gone; we use subreddits for those now. And people don't even bother with those, more and more people just post meme gifs in the comments of reels, sitting there scrolling through with their thumbs rather than contributing something new and unique.
- idontwantthis 3y ago
  Tech Illiteracy is definitely a problem with kids. Even if they do have a real computer, school might entirely be web based. Google classroom, google drive, google office. No one learns what they don’t use. That being said, I’m a senior developer now and I didn’t really touch a command line until junior year of college. I guess we all learn what we need to learn and if a kid really wants to learn how a computer works he or she will.
  - Dracophoenix 3y ago
    How is tech illiteracy being defined in this case? In my experience, most kids were not technically literate during the 2000s unless you thought moving applications into a USB stick or websurfing counts as technical literacy.
    - idontwantthis 3y ago
      That’s kind of my point: it’s a little wishy washy, but things like knowing what a file is, and how to run a desktop application.
- adestefan 3y ago
  I have a kid that's in middle school and last year there was about a 2 month stretch of multiple daily fights that were driven by views on TikTok by 6th graders, so around age 11. It started out small. Maybe a kid would start something in the hall while his friends pulled out their phones, recorded it and posted it to TikTok. Then they realized if they start a larger fight on the way to lunch they'd get more views because kids had their phones at lunch. Once that leveled off they realized that fights in class got even more views because it involved a teacher. It got to the point where my kid would walk outside to go to their next class because the halls were just filled with kids trying to do anything to get views on TikTok. The larger issue were the second and third order effects this caused. Kids started refusing to go to school because of the fights and attendance problems soared. Multiple classes were constantly disrupted. Due to the layout of the school most of the hallways are narrow so it was near impossible to get to class on time. It took the spring break and major intervention from the administration, staff, and students to finally have the fad die out. It still flared up from time to time in the spring, but never as bad as the winter. This year it's now about how funky of a combination of socks and crocs you can post to Instagram.
tzs 3y ago
If you have Paramount+ there was a South Park special, "South Park (Not Suitable For Children)", released there a couple of days ago that covers (excellently and hilariously) some of this.

by jamesu 3y ago

treffer 3y ago

You can expect a kid to be online before they turn into teenager. At least to some extent. Moderation of that through parents is horrible (it's clise to surveillance / watch every step of your child). It's just that first consumption age went down and audience widened. Overall I think the internet has become safer, especially through the required handling of content complaints. It's just that the usage went into a direction that needs more safeguards.

AlecSchueler 3y ago
I'm surprised to see people speaking positively of safeguards here. Normally the HN line is that the onus fit these things should be entirely on the parents and it's an attack on freedom to have an hindrance to a child viewing and doing whatever they want online.

xbmcuser 3y ago

It's make sense to me 20-30 years ago access to computers and internet was not easy so could be controlled a bit by parents. Today Parents can try to control their own childrens devices but reality is most children run circles around their parents when it comes to tech. Yes we the tech enthusiast might not be fooled by our children but not the case for the large portion of the population. Most of us don't like it or won't agree but the days of the internet being the wild west will slowly be over it will be converted to a regulated internet as the powers that be/people in power don't like it when they can't control.

eganist 3y ago

I'll reply with a bunch of anecdotes, so please bear with me. A few trends over the last two decades: * targeted monetization of everything under the sun * a total shift towards a subscription economy for nearly everything digital. * a near total shift towards mobile content consumption devices especially for younger consumers (tablets and phones) has likely resulted in the following: * low quality algorithmically driven junk food content (tiktok, instagram reels, the garbage people post to advice subreddits) * startups j-curving for usage and leaning into advertising as their only viable business case * Google scraping your inbox for ad keywords in the mid 2000s and beyond, Microsoft injecting ads into Windows 10 and 11, etc. Perhaps worse: * Generation Alpha and later Gen Z kids having relatively diminished technical literacy compared to elder Gen Z and Millenials (absolutely anecdotal. I'm citing three teacher friends frustrated that kids navigate their way around computers more poorly with each passing year) * subconscious mass influence of behavior patterns (foreign election interference, your trip to your local McDonald's, sneaker hype culture) Practically the only thing that hasn't actually gotten worse online, regardless of our own diverse opinions about it, is Wikipedia. It's a for-profit warzone of competing interests making competing edits, but it's an example of what can happen when the constant growth/profit/exit-motive isn't there. Many of the hobbyist sites running on sites like vbulletin or invision are gone; we use subreddits for those now. And people don't even bother with those, more and more people just post meme gifs in the comments of reels, sitting there scrolling through with their thumbs rather than contributing something new and unique.

idontwantthis 3y ago
Tech Illiteracy is definitely a problem with kids. Even if they do have a real computer, school might entirely be web based. Google classroom, google drive, google office. No one learns what they don’t use. That being said, I’m a senior developer now and I didn’t really touch a command line until junior year of college. I guess we all learn what we need to learn and if a kid really wants to learn how a computer works he or she will.
- Dracophoenix 3y ago
  How is tech illiteracy being defined in this case? In my experience, most kids were not technically literate during the 2000s unless you thought moving applications into a USB stick or websurfing counts as technical literacy.
  - idontwantthis 3y ago
    That’s kind of my point: it’s a little wishy washy, but things like knowing what a file is, and how to run a desktop application.
adestefan 3y ago
I have a kid that's in middle school and last year there was about a 2 month stretch of multiple daily fights that were driven by views on TikTok by 6th graders, so around age 11. It started out small. Maybe a kid would start something in the hall while his friends pulled out their phones, recorded it and posted it to TikTok. Then they realized if they start a larger fight on the way to lunch they'd get more views because kids had their phones at lunch. Once that leveled off they realized that fights in class got even more views because it involved a teacher. It got to the point where my kid would walk outside to go to their next class because the halls were just filled with kids trying to do anything to get views on TikTok. The larger issue were the second and third order effects this caused. Kids started refusing to go to school because of the fights and attendance problems soared. Multiple classes were constantly disrupted. Due to the layout of the school most of the hallways are narrow so it was near impossible to get to class on time. It took the spring break and major intervention from the administration, staff, and students to finally have the fad die out. It still flared up from time to time in the spring, but never as bad as the winter. This year it's now about how funky of a combination of socks and crocs you can post to Instagram.

tzs 3y ago

If you have Paramount+ there was a South Park special, "South Park (Not Suitable For Children)", released there a couple of days ago that covers (excellently and hilariously) some of this.