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Each generation of parents fails on something. This generation is failing at recognizing the dangers of social media. Teenagers and even children are being ra

Each generation of parents fails on something. This generation is failing at recognizing the dangers of social media. Teenagers and even children are being radicalized on-line, sold dangerous diets, manipulated by state sponsored creators, lied by companies, taught anti-science, and the list goes on and on. How is all this not heavily regulated? Even adults need protection from scammers, fake products, misleading ads, hidden product promotions that look like personal opinions... We have gone back a 100 years when it comes to consumer rights, and children are the ones that are paying the highest price.

cmrdporcupine 2y ago
As a parent, I never failed to recognize it. I just failed to be able to do anything about it. You were a teenager once, I'm sure you can remember how little influence your parents actually had over how you actually spent your time. Or at least saw that in your friends. This is a society wide thing. Parents are pretty much powerless. So yes, regulation. But you'll see how discussion of any proposal for this goes down in this forum. Just imagine across the whole polis.
- radicaldreamer 2y ago
  Regulation of social media probably polls pretty well, I think polls have even found that most high schoolers want to reduce or end their usage of it
  - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
    Phone use during class time is banned in my kid's high schools. Makes no difference -- it's completely unenforced by the teachers. They're practically physically adults, teachers don't want to risk the confrontation, etc. And the kids suffer for it. And my youngest uses no social media but their mind is still eaten by constant phone usage. More than social media, the problem is the device. The form factor. The "smartphone" is a malevolent technology.
    - mugwumprk 2y ago
      Petition to build Faraday cages into every public school classroom in the country
      - jay_kyburz 2y ago
        Phones are banned on school ground here and its working. My kids have never been allowed social media here at home, and they don't see friends doing it because phones are not allowed at school at all. Neither give a shit about their phone and we have to force them to take it if they are going out so we can call them if we need them.
- yamazakiwi 2y ago
  I want to add it is important to show that you are against those things as well, too many people react by shifting blame when they stand to gain more by saying, "Yeah, I don't like that either."
- glitchc 2y ago
  We can always take the phone away. As a parent of a teenager, sometimes I have to make hard choices. This is one of them. Kids don't need cellphones. We want them to have one often because of our own insecurities.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    > We can always take the phone away. Kids are… resourceful. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/teen-goes-viral-for-tweeting-from-lg-smart-fridge-after-mom-confiscates-all-electronics/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/teen-goes-viral-for-tweeting-fr... Last week, a 15-year-old girl named Dorothy looked at the smart fridge in her kitchen and decided to try and talk to it: "I do not know if this is going to tweet I am talking to my fridge what the heck my Mom confiscated all of my electronics again." Sure enough, it worked. The message Dorothy said out loud to her fridge was tweeted out by her Twitter account. (And before that, she used her DS, her Wii, and a cousin's old iPod. There's always a friend's house, too.)
    - itishappy 2y ago
      I'd posit that social media restricted-solely-to-a-fridge is still significantly less harmful than social media literally-always-within-arms-reach.
      - ceejayoz 2y ago
        This was the best they could come up with on short/no notice. $50 (or a hand-me-down from a friend) will buy you an Android burner phone that can hop on the neighbor's wifi.
        itishappy 2y ago
        Confiscate the hell out of it. That's what parenting is for. How much money is a kid going to spend on burner phones before deciding to just stop bringing them to the house?
        2y ago
- basisword 2y ago
  Genuinely asking - is it impossible to just enforce a no phones until 16+ rule with your kids? The reasons against it I see are either “it’s too hard for the parents” or hypothetical (“they would have no social life”). There were tonnes of things I wanted to do as a teenager that my parents prevented me from doing. Including things my friends were allowed to do by their less strict parents. There was of course things I did despite them but phones seem like a simple one for parents to control given teenagers can’t afford them otherwise until they start working at 16+. Allowing instant messaging via a computer seems like a nice middle ground.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    Only if you're willing to ban them from ever going to friends' houses, where they'll use their friends' devices to do it.
    - itishappy 2y ago
      A cell phone is available 168 hours a week. A friend's phone might be available, say, 10% of that?
      - ceejayoz 2y ago
        Friend gets a new phone, gives you the old one. Neighbor has open wifi. Hide it deep in the giant pile of laundry in your bedroom. Whack-a-mole is fun at an arcade. It's not fun when it's your kids.
        itishappy 2y ago
        That's still significantly better than having it available at the dinner table, no? The goal of parenting is to raise good kids. Unfortunately, it's not always going to be fun.
        ceejayoz 2y ago
        We don't permit phones at the dinner table, no. Nor in the bedroom. But we've learned things like "no Snapchat at all" make for a social pariah, which is frequently worse than the problem it's trying to solve.
- itishappy 2y ago
  > You were a teenager once, I'm sure you can remember how little influence your parents actually had over how you actually spent your time. Actually, I remember the opposite. I had problems with screen time so my parents put a password on the computer. It wasn't 100% effective, of course, but it was closer to 90% than 0%.
  - aylmao 2y ago
    > You were a teenager once, I'm sure you can remember how little influence your parents actually had over how you actually spent your time. There might be bias here if one remembers one's own teenage years, because I'm sure many teenagers _think_ their parents don't have influence over them. If you ask the parents though I'm sure many would agree aren't fully in control, but do notice they have a lot of influence still. Personally, the older I grow, the more I realize how much influence in general my parents actually had over me.
basisword 2y ago
>> How is all this not heavily regulated? It isn’t properly regulated because the CEO’s and founders just moan that it isn’t possible to regulate so much user generated content. I’m of the opinion that, in that case, their sites shouldn’t exist but people seem to have convinced themselves that Facebook et al provide too much value to stand up to.
- ClumsyPilot 2y ago
  > CEO’s and founders just moan that it isn’t possible to regulate Surely if a CEO with a billion dollar budget can’t regulate it, neither can a parent?
  - olyjohn 2y ago
    A parent only needs to regulate their child. Not 25 billions daily posts.
    - ClumsyPilot 2y ago
      It sounds like extremely convenient offloading of responsibility for a toxic product
- Frieren 2y ago
  > I’m of the opinion that, in that case, their sites shouldn’t exist I totally agree with this. If,for example, hydrogen cars exploded all the time that will not be a reason to not regulate them but a reason for a complete ban.
ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
What exactly do you want relegated? What powers do you want Trump to have to control the speech of Americans?
BlueTemplar 2y ago
I'm curious as to when was the generation that failed to recognize the dangers of invitingly large (treasure) chests. :3 (I finished watching the last episode just as you posted this comment, still giddy about it. :D I tried to spread out watching the season for the first time over more than a week, and failed miserably...)

cmrdporcupine 2y ago

As a parent, I never failed to recognize it. I just failed to be able to do anything about it. You were a teenager once, I'm sure you can remember how little influence your parents actually had over how you actually spent your time. Or at least saw that in your friends. This is a society wide thing. Parents are pretty much powerless. So yes, regulation. But you'll see how discussion of any proposal for this goes down in this forum. Just imagine across the whole polis.

radicaldreamer 2y ago
Regulation of social media probably polls pretty well, I think polls have even found that most high schoolers want to reduce or end their usage of it
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  Phone use during class time is banned in my kid's high schools. Makes no difference -- it's completely unenforced by the teachers. They're practically physically adults, teachers don't want to risk the confrontation, etc. And the kids suffer for it. And my youngest uses no social media but their mind is still eaten by constant phone usage. More than social media, the problem is the device. The form factor. The "smartphone" is a malevolent technology.
  - mugwumprk 2y ago
    Petition to build Faraday cages into every public school classroom in the country
    - jay_kyburz 2y ago
      Phones are banned on school ground here and its working. My kids have never been allowed social media here at home, and they don't see friends doing it because phones are not allowed at school at all. Neither give a shit about their phone and we have to force them to take it if they are going out so we can call them if we need them.
yamazakiwi 2y ago
I want to add it is important to show that you are against those things as well, too many people react by shifting blame when they stand to gain more by saying, "Yeah, I don't like that either."
glitchc 2y ago
We can always take the phone away. As a parent of a teenager, sometimes I have to make hard choices. This is one of them. Kids don't need cellphones. We want them to have one often because of our own insecurities.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  > We can always take the phone away. Kids are… resourceful. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/teen-goes-viral-for-tweeting-from-lg-smart-fridge-after-mom-confiscates-all-electronics/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/teen-goes-viral-for-tweeting-fr... Last week, a 15-year-old girl named Dorothy looked at the smart fridge in her kitchen and decided to try and talk to it: "I do not know if this is going to tweet I am talking to my fridge what the heck my Mom confiscated all of my electronics again." Sure enough, it worked. The message Dorothy said out loud to her fridge was tweeted out by her Twitter account. (And before that, she used her DS, her Wii, and a cousin's old iPod. There's always a friend's house, too.)
  - itishappy 2y ago
    I'd posit that social media restricted-solely-to-a-fridge is still significantly less harmful than social media literally-always-within-arms-reach.
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      This was the best they could come up with on short/no notice. $50 (or a hand-me-down from a friend) will buy you an Android burner phone that can hop on the neighbor's wifi.
      - itishappy 2y ago
        Confiscate the hell out of it. That's what parenting is for. How much money is a kid going to spend on burner phones before deciding to just stop bringing them to the house?
        2y ago
basisword 2y ago
Genuinely asking - is it impossible to just enforce a no phones until 16+ rule with your kids? The reasons against it I see are either “it’s too hard for the parents” or hypothetical (“they would have no social life”). There were tonnes of things I wanted to do as a teenager that my parents prevented me from doing. Including things my friends were allowed to do by their less strict parents. There was of course things I did despite them but phones seem like a simple one for parents to control given teenagers can’t afford them otherwise until they start working at 16+. Allowing instant messaging via a computer seems like a nice middle ground.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  Only if you're willing to ban them from ever going to friends' houses, where they'll use their friends' devices to do it.
  - itishappy 2y ago
    A cell phone is available 168 hours a week. A friend's phone might be available, say, 10% of that?
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      Friend gets a new phone, gives you the old one. Neighbor has open wifi. Hide it deep in the giant pile of laundry in your bedroom. Whack-a-mole is fun at an arcade. It's not fun when it's your kids.
      - itishappy 2y ago
        That's still significantly better than having it available at the dinner table, no? The goal of parenting is to raise good kids. Unfortunately, it's not always going to be fun.
        ceejayoz 2y ago
        We don't permit phones at the dinner table, no. Nor in the bedroom. But we've learned things like "no Snapchat at all" make for a social pariah, which is frequently worse than the problem it's trying to solve.
itishappy 2y ago
> You were a teenager once, I'm sure you can remember how little influence your parents actually had over how you actually spent your time. Actually, I remember the opposite. I had problems with screen time so my parents put a password on the computer. It wasn't 100% effective, of course, but it was closer to 90% than 0%.
- aylmao 2y ago
  > You were a teenager once, I'm sure you can remember how little influence your parents actually had over how you actually spent your time. There might be bias here if one remembers one's own teenage years, because I'm sure many teenagers _think_ their parents don't have influence over them. If you ask the parents though I'm sure many would agree aren't fully in control, but do notice they have a lot of influence still. Personally, the older I grow, the more I realize how much influence in general my parents actually had over me.

basisword 2y ago

>> How is all this not heavily regulated? It isn’t properly regulated because the CEO’s and founders just moan that it isn’t possible to regulate so much user generated content. I’m of the opinion that, in that case, their sites shouldn’t exist but people seem to have convinced themselves that Facebook et al provide too much value to stand up to.

ClumsyPilot 2y ago
> CEO’s and founders just moan that it isn’t possible to regulate Surely if a CEO with a billion dollar budget can’t regulate it, neither can a parent?
- olyjohn 2y ago
  A parent only needs to regulate their child. Not 25 billions daily posts.
  - ClumsyPilot 2y ago
    It sounds like extremely convenient offloading of responsibility for a toxic product
Frieren 2y ago
> I’m of the opinion that, in that case, their sites shouldn’t exist I totally agree with this. If,for example, hydrogen cars exploded all the time that will not be a reason to not regulate them but a reason for a complete ban.

ThrowawayTestr 2y ago

What exactly do you want relegated? What powers do you want Trump to have to control the speech of Americans?

BlueTemplar 2y ago

I'm curious as to when was the generation that failed to recognize the dangers of invitingly large (treasure) chests. :3 (I finished watching the last episode just as you posted this comment, still giddy about it. :D I tried to spread out watching the season for the first time over more than a week, and failed miserably...)