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While people are on the fence about it, our children are having their youth, innocence and brains destroyed by tiktok et al. Those platforms are cancer to adult

by zo1 3y ago

While people are on the fence about it, our children are having their youth, innocence and brains destroyed by tiktok et al. Those platforms are cancer to adults even, let alone impressionable kids... yet here we are still debating it and faffing around about "1st amendment yaddi yadda".

Clubber 3y ago
>children are having their youth, innocence and brains destroyed by tiktok For one, ease up on the hyperbole if you want to be taken seriously. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt because the news is nothing but hyperbole these days, so it's easy to pick up the habit. Second, most kids aren't having "their youth, innocence and brains destroyed." The news takes the edge cases, amplifies them and presents it as the norm to peddle fear because fear sells. Nothing ever is bad as the news makes it out to be, but they gotta make a dollar, you see how bad the news business is since the internet? FWIW, my kid uses social media and just connects with her friends. Nothing overly malicious goes on, they just goof off. I've checked. You really wanna protect the kids from anxiety and whatnot, block the news and all the talking heads trying to manipulate the next generation to their political opinions.
- zo1 3y ago
  I exaggerate for a reason, because I feel strongly about it and think that it does do those things in a literal sense. Besides, I've consumed tiktok and seen the content. It is nowhere near appropriate for children, it's night and day.
- light_hue_1 3y ago
  Don't minimize what's going on. There's a massive rise in depression in young children. The teen suicide rate has almost doubled. The idea that you know what's going on, on their social media is pretty funny. Certainly what every adult always assumed about me. And now that I have kids, I can see how easily other kids fool their parents all the time. And what's overly malicious? It may be social media itself without anything bad driving this. Merely seeing a sanitized version of people's lives over and over again, without anyone bullying you, that leads to depression because your life isn't as good. No. Don't block the news. Because then you miss important things like this. https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/priorities/youth-mental-health/social-media/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/priorities/youth-mental-h...
  - Clubber 3y ago
    I think if you wanted to reduce teen suicide a significant amount, banning social media isn't going to do it. It certainly isn't responsible for half. Of course banning it doesn't cost the government any money, so it's top of the list as opposed to any real solutions. You also cherry picked your stats. If you open a larger window, the current teen suicide rate is not as abnormal as you are making it out to be. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6630a6.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6630a6.htm Perhaps all the fear mongering is having an effect on their mental state, no? Teens don't yet realize that most of the world is phony bullshit.
    - medvezhenok 3y ago
      Umm, that chart is 10 years out of date - it ends in 2015; the beginning of the social media era. The current teen suicide rate is ~62 / 100K, which is just about double (or triple!) the last value in that chart. And is also an anomaly over the last 40 years.
      - Clubber 3y ago
        I stand corrected on the current stats. I went with what the CDC had on a google search. It's aggravating that most sources don't show the entire picture. Here's a chart showing that this trend is mostly in the mountain states and Native Americans are the largest demographic affected by this trend by nearly triple. Both these stats disprove the theory that social media has much of an impact on teen suicide across the entire nation, otherwise why wouldn't states like California and Florida have a higher rate? Residents of those states obviously use social media too. https://www.charliehealth.com/research/the-us-teen-suicide-rate-is-on-the-rise https://www.charliehealth.com/research/the-us-teen-suicide-r... >2015; the beginning of the social media era. The social media area had been in full swing for 10 years by 2015. Facebook was established in 2004 and blew up by 2006. Twitter blew up a few years later. The narrative that social media is the cause in the rise of teen suicide across the country is simply false. Native Americans in mountain states are bearing the brunt of it and causing the national average to spike. Instead of "tilting" to social media, we should try to understand why Native American teens are having such a difficult time and solve that problem. That doesn't draw headlines though, does it?
- ditto664 3y ago
  > For one, ease up on the hyperbole if you want to be taken seriously. I disagree that this is hyperbole. It's a huge problem among kids. Literacy rates are dropping. Listen to the stories you hear from teachers.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    Teachers have ALWAYS made those screams. My mother, a french teacher always complained that before she could teach kids french, she had to teach them how to read a clock, how to do math, and how the days of the week work (these were fifth graders mind you). She blamed education policy, but this is nothing more than what happens when 30% of your students are in poverty. The reality is that some percentage of students will always fall through the cracks, and the human brain loves to blame whatever is "new" for problems that are "new" to you. This has been a problem for teachers since at least the No Child Left Behind policy, and even goes as far back as Socrates bemoaning his students being terrible because books meant they didn't have to have perfect memories. Students suffered because covid was both a huge disruption to their education, and parents freaked out instead of trying to handle it (and plenty of people literally could not handle it anyway). It doesn't help that half the country openly cries that education is nothing more than liberal indoctrination, and openly downplay the value of even basic education, like the three Rs, and claims that anything higher than a high school education is also liberal indoctrination, is "woke", and is valueless. I 100% hate tiktok, but I don't think it is (currently) being used to mentally attack the US. Maybe someday if we are ever at war with China, but right now they are content believing that inclusivity is toxic on it's own. I don't think tiktok changes people's brain significantly. I do think it is extremely low value way to spend time, and that it is addictive, two serious issues when taken together, but then again I spent my life watching several hours of TV a day. I especially don't like how tiktok seems to purposely direct new male users to what is basically softcore porn.
- dang 3y ago
  > For one, ease up on the hyperbole if you want to be taken seriously. That is the kind of swipe the HN guidelines ask people to edit out of their comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Edit out swipes."), so please don't post like this. Your comment would be fine without that sentence and the one after it. (I'm not saying the GP comment is particularly good—it was pretty fulminatey—but it wasn't quite over the line, whereas yours was, primarily because yours got personal.)
  - Clubber 3y ago
    >so please don't post like this. Ok. >because yours got personal In my defense, I made an effort to attacking the person's statement, not the person themselves.
- bryan_w 3y ago
  You can tell by how many different replies that needed you to believe the hysteria, that there's something inorganic about this topic.

by zo1 3y ago

Clubber 3y ago

>children are having their youth, innocence and brains destroyed by tiktok For one, ease up on the hyperbole if you want to be taken seriously. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt because the news is nothing but hyperbole these days, so it's easy to pick up the habit. Second, most kids aren't having "their youth, innocence and brains destroyed." The news takes the edge cases, amplifies them and presents it as the norm to peddle fear because fear sells. Nothing ever is bad as the news makes it out to be, but they gotta make a dollar, you see how bad the news business is since the internet? FWIW, my kid uses social media and just connects with her friends. Nothing overly malicious goes on, they just goof off. I've checked. You really wanna protect the kids from anxiety and whatnot, block the news and all the talking heads trying to manipulate the next generation to their political opinions.

zo1 3y ago
I exaggerate for a reason, because I feel strongly about it and think that it does do those things in a literal sense. Besides, I've consumed tiktok and seen the content. It is nowhere near appropriate for children, it's night and day.
light_hue_1 3y ago
Don't minimize what's going on. There's a massive rise in depression in young children. The teen suicide rate has almost doubled. The idea that you know what's going on, on their social media is pretty funny. Certainly what every adult always assumed about me. And now that I have kids, I can see how easily other kids fool their parents all the time. And what's overly malicious? It may be social media itself without anything bad driving this. Merely seeing a sanitized version of people's lives over and over again, without anyone bullying you, that leads to depression because your life isn't as good. No. Don't block the news. Because then you miss important things like this. https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/priorities/youth-mental-health/social-media/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/priorities/youth-mental-h...
- Clubber 3y ago
  I think if you wanted to reduce teen suicide a significant amount, banning social media isn't going to do it. It certainly isn't responsible for half. Of course banning it doesn't cost the government any money, so it's top of the list as opposed to any real solutions. You also cherry picked your stats. If you open a larger window, the current teen suicide rate is not as abnormal as you are making it out to be. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6630a6.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6630a6.htm Perhaps all the fear mongering is having an effect on their mental state, no? Teens don't yet realize that most of the world is phony bullshit.
  - medvezhenok 3y ago
    Umm, that chart is 10 years out of date - it ends in 2015; the beginning of the social media era. The current teen suicide rate is ~62 / 100K, which is just about double (or triple!) the last value in that chart. And is also an anomaly over the last 40 years.
    - Clubber 3y ago
      I stand corrected on the current stats. I went with what the CDC had on a google search. It's aggravating that most sources don't show the entire picture. Here's a chart showing that this trend is mostly in the mountain states and Native Americans are the largest demographic affected by this trend by nearly triple. Both these stats disprove the theory that social media has much of an impact on teen suicide across the entire nation, otherwise why wouldn't states like California and Florida have a higher rate? Residents of those states obviously use social media too. https://www.charliehealth.com/research/the-us-teen-suicide-rate-is-on-the-rise https://www.charliehealth.com/research/the-us-teen-suicide-r... >2015; the beginning of the social media era. The social media area had been in full swing for 10 years by 2015. Facebook was established in 2004 and blew up by 2006. Twitter blew up a few years later. The narrative that social media is the cause in the rise of teen suicide across the country is simply false. Native Americans in mountain states are bearing the brunt of it and causing the national average to spike. Instead of "tilting" to social media, we should try to understand why Native American teens are having such a difficult time and solve that problem. That doesn't draw headlines though, does it?
ditto664 3y ago
> For one, ease up on the hyperbole if you want to be taken seriously. I disagree that this is hyperbole. It's a huge problem among kids. Literacy rates are dropping. Listen to the stories you hear from teachers.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  Teachers have ALWAYS made those screams. My mother, a french teacher always complained that before she could teach kids french, she had to teach them how to read a clock, how to do math, and how the days of the week work (these were fifth graders mind you). She blamed education policy, but this is nothing more than what happens when 30% of your students are in poverty. The reality is that some percentage of students will always fall through the cracks, and the human brain loves to blame whatever is "new" for problems that are "new" to you. This has been a problem for teachers since at least the No Child Left Behind policy, and even goes as far back as Socrates bemoaning his students being terrible because books meant they didn't have to have perfect memories. Students suffered because covid was both a huge disruption to their education, and parents freaked out instead of trying to handle it (and plenty of people literally could not handle it anyway). It doesn't help that half the country openly cries that education is nothing more than liberal indoctrination, and openly downplay the value of even basic education, like the three Rs, and claims that anything higher than a high school education is also liberal indoctrination, is "woke", and is valueless. I 100% hate tiktok, but I don't think it is (currently) being used to mentally attack the US. Maybe someday if we are ever at war with China, but right now they are content believing that inclusivity is toxic on it's own. I don't think tiktok changes people's brain significantly. I do think it is extremely low value way to spend time, and that it is addictive, two serious issues when taken together, but then again I spent my life watching several hours of TV a day. I especially don't like how tiktok seems to purposely direct new male users to what is basically softcore porn.
dang 3y ago
> For one, ease up on the hyperbole if you want to be taken seriously. That is the kind of swipe the HN guidelines ask people to edit out of their comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Edit out swipes."), so please don't post like this. Your comment would be fine without that sentence and the one after it. (I'm not saying the GP comment is particularly good—it was pretty fulminatey—but it wasn't quite over the line, whereas yours was, primarily because yours got personal.)
- Clubber 3y ago
  >so please don't post like this. Ok. >because yours got personal In my defense, I made an effort to attacking the person's statement, not the person themselves.
bryan_w 3y ago
You can tell by how many different replies that needed you to believe the hysteria, that there's something inorganic about this topic.