3 ms·

Crazy to think how less government would need to act like a mom if there were one or two parents out there who were familiar with the word "no."

mikkupikku 1y ago
Let's do away with the laws requiring shops to check ID before selling cigarettes. After all, a parent can simply tell their child not to smoke cigarettes and that's clearly good enough, right? All in the name of less government, which is clearly the most important priority here.
- card_zero 1y ago
  You make a persuasive case, but nicotine is genuinely addictive. Something to do with releasing stored glucose and substituting for food, and causing irritability on what I take to be a physiological level on withdrawal. Otherwise I'd agree.
  - benregenspan 1y ago
    But in this context, is it so important to distinguish between whether something is physiologically addictive vs. just seriously habit-forming? Except for substances where withdrawal is genuinely life-threatening, the practical difference seems to be in degree, not kind. Nicotine withdrawal causes irritability, but (I know having experienced both) so can breaking a bad social media habit. (And it seems like there's a physiological basis to both cases, it's just that one involves endogenous chemicals and the other doesn't)
- ipaddr 11mo ago
  That system has massive holes. Using convenience store employees many recent immigrants to be the gatekeeper to cigarettes for your kids seems foolish. Who trusts that last line of defense? If a kid fails at once location another location will succeed and there are no punishment for attempting to purchase underage.
josephg 1y ago
If all the other kids are on social media all the time, it makes it much harder to keep your kids off it. Would you want to be the one kid in school who’s not online? Would you want that for your kids? Bans like this make much more sense at a community level. Not an individual level.
- jmye 1y ago
  > Would you want to be the one kid in school who’s not online? I mean, who cares what the kid wants? It's your job as a parent to be a parent. Sometimes that means telling your kid no, even if that means they're not your best friend for a day or two. > Would you want that for your kids? Unequivocally, yes. Social media is cancer. I'd prefer my daughter not be pathologically depressed and my son not turn into a little hateball because of Meta's shitty algorithms. I have no idea why this is even a question, aside from the pure cowardice of Millennial parents. None of this to comment on GP's suggestion that we don't need laws, or the idea that we shouldn't do this societally anyways.
  - balamatom 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - jmye 1y ago
      What a disgusting response.
      - balamatom 1y ago
        I'm saying it for their children's sake.
- SunshineTheCat 1y ago
  The idea that it's "hard" therefore we need government to save us is exactly why the program itself will never work. The problem is much deeper than law or government can fix.
exssss 1y ago
Except it's not so easy, because there's social pressure on the kids to use them to fit in with the group.
barbazoo 1y ago
If you live in isolation, totally! We live in a civilization so we have to coordinate and compromise to get along.
Barrin92 1y ago
For one there is no indication that parents are any more literate in regards to digital practices than their kids. More importantly the constant appeal to the responsibility of parents misses that this is a collective action problem. The reason most parents give up to regulate their children's online activity is because the children end up isolated if an individual household prevents their kid from socializing online. All the other kids are online, therefore switching individually ends in isolation. What might be beneficial for each household is unworkable as long as there is no collective mechanism. (which is the case for virtually every problem caused by social networks)
- SaltyBackendGuy 1y ago
  > For one there is no indication that parents are any more literate in regards to digital practices than their kids This one hit me recently. My 4th grader has a friend who is on tik-toc and has a phone. Me, living in a bubble, where other parents I've met are terrified of social media and phones for their kids, was shocked when I met the mom and she wasn't aware of all the negative impact of social media. But, like with smokers, you can tell them it's bad for you but it's up to them to quit. It's absolutely a collective action problem.
mtoner23 1y ago
oh yeah, children famously do what their parents are told. especially when it comes to interacting with their friends. and they never are more adept at understanding technology and circumventing parental controls.
sfpotter 1y ago
So... you don't have kids, I take it?
ceejayoz 1y ago
I, too, was a really great parent before having children. 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... > Dorothy, who runs an Ariana Grande fan account, was suffering through a typical teenage nightmare: Her mom took away her phone. But the resourceful teen didn't let that stop her from communicating with her followers. First, she started using Twitter on her Nintendo DS, a handheld video game device. > Sometime after finding her DS, it was taken again, so Dorothy started tweeting from yet another connected device: her fridge. "My mom uses it to google recipes for baking so I just googled Twitter," she told CBS News.
- eszed 1y ago
  That's the hacker spirit!
- GaryBluto 1y ago
  I doubt this is true. I doubt that the Nintendo (3)DS web browser would be sufficient to post on Twitter, even in 2019.
  - ceejayoz 11mo ago
    There was a whole mobile.twitter.com simplified interface for devices like that. Removed in 2020. Plus this: https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Support/Nintendo-3DS-2DS/Usage-/Internet-Browser/Notification-of-the-Discontinuation-of-Nintendo-3DS-Image-Share-and-Wii-U-Image-Share-2269370.html https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Support/Nintendo-3DS-2DS/Usag... > As of 25 October 2022, it is no longer possible to use Nintendo 3DS Image Share or Wii U Image Share to post images on Facebook and Twitter.
- radu_floricica 1y ago
  That's... pretty awesome? And I'm pretty sure she did it just for laughs. I also built a listening device to hear what my mom was saying when I wasn't there. But it was too boring to me to actually listen to the conversations, I don't think I ever actually did it. But I did enjoy immensely setting it up.
tjpnz 1y ago
Then give parents the tools they need! I can reliably black hole all social media on my home network, and can configure DNS on their phones to do similar. A lot of that knowledge I picked up working in tech, but no tech company is going to offer such robust solutions to parents.
yard2010 11mo ago
Do you have children? You are correct. But it's easier said than done.

mikkupikku 1y ago

Let's do away with the laws requiring shops to check ID before selling cigarettes. After all, a parent can simply tell their child not to smoke cigarettes and that's clearly good enough, right? All in the name of less government, which is clearly the most important priority here.

card_zero 1y ago
You make a persuasive case, but nicotine is genuinely addictive. Something to do with releasing stored glucose and substituting for food, and causing irritability on what I take to be a physiological level on withdrawal. Otherwise I'd agree.
- benregenspan 1y ago
  But in this context, is it so important to distinguish between whether something is physiologically addictive vs. just seriously habit-forming? Except for substances where withdrawal is genuinely life-threatening, the practical difference seems to be in degree, not kind. Nicotine withdrawal causes irritability, but (I know having experienced both) so can breaking a bad social media habit. (And it seems like there's a physiological basis to both cases, it's just that one involves endogenous chemicals and the other doesn't)
ipaddr 11mo ago
That system has massive holes. Using convenience store employees many recent immigrants to be the gatekeeper to cigarettes for your kids seems foolish. Who trusts that last line of defense? If a kid fails at once location another location will succeed and there are no punishment for attempting to purchase underage.

josephg 1y ago

If all the other kids are on social media all the time, it makes it much harder to keep your kids off it. Would you want to be the one kid in school who’s not online? Would you want that for your kids? Bans like this make much more sense at a community level. Not an individual level.

jmye 1y ago
> Would you want to be the one kid in school who’s not online? I mean, who cares what the kid wants? It's your job as a parent to be a parent. Sometimes that means telling your kid no, even if that means they're not your best friend for a day or two. > Would you want that for your kids? Unequivocally, yes. Social media is cancer. I'd prefer my daughter not be pathologically depressed and my son not turn into a little hateball because of Meta's shitty algorithms. I have no idea why this is even a question, aside from the pure cowardice of Millennial parents. None of this to comment on GP's suggestion that we don't need laws, or the idea that we shouldn't do this societally anyways.
- balamatom 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - jmye 1y ago
    What a disgusting response.
    - balamatom 1y ago
      I'm saying it for their children's sake.
SunshineTheCat 1y ago
The idea that it's "hard" therefore we need government to save us is exactly why the program itself will never work. The problem is much deeper than law or government can fix.

exssss 1y ago

Except it's not so easy, because there's social pressure on the kids to use them to fit in with the group.

barbazoo 1y ago

If you live in isolation, totally! We live in a civilization so we have to coordinate and compromise to get along.

Barrin92 1y ago

For one there is no indication that parents are any more literate in regards to digital practices than their kids. More importantly the constant appeal to the responsibility of parents misses that this is a collective action problem. The reason most parents give up to regulate their children's online activity is because the children end up isolated if an individual household prevents their kid from socializing online. All the other kids are online, therefore switching individually ends in isolation. What might be beneficial for each household is unworkable as long as there is no collective mechanism. (which is the case for virtually every problem caused by social networks)

SaltyBackendGuy 1y ago
> For one there is no indication that parents are any more literate in regards to digital practices than their kids This one hit me recently. My 4th grader has a friend who is on tik-toc and has a phone. Me, living in a bubble, where other parents I've met are terrified of social media and phones for their kids, was shocked when I met the mom and she wasn't aware of all the negative impact of social media. But, like with smokers, you can tell them it's bad for you but it's up to them to quit. It's absolutely a collective action problem.

mtoner23 1y ago

oh yeah, children famously do what their parents are told. especially when it comes to interacting with their friends. and they never are more adept at understanding technology and circumventing parental controls.

sfpotter 1y ago

So... you don't have kids, I take it?

ceejayoz 1y ago

I, too, was a really great parent before having children. 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... > Dorothy, who runs an Ariana Grande fan account, was suffering through a typical teenage nightmare: Her mom took away her phone. But the resourceful teen didn't let that stop her from communicating with her followers. First, she started using Twitter on her Nintendo DS, a handheld video game device. > Sometime after finding her DS, it was taken again, so Dorothy started tweeting from yet another connected device: her fridge. "My mom uses it to google recipes for baking so I just googled Twitter," she told CBS News.

eszed 1y ago
That's the hacker spirit!
GaryBluto 1y ago
I doubt this is true. I doubt that the Nintendo (3)DS web browser would be sufficient to post on Twitter, even in 2019.
- ceejayoz 11mo ago
  There was a whole mobile.twitter.com simplified interface for devices like that. Removed in 2020. Plus this: https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Support/Nintendo-3DS-2DS/Usage-/Internet-Browser/Notification-of-the-Discontinuation-of-Nintendo-3DS-Image-Share-and-Wii-U-Image-Share-2269370.html https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Support/Nintendo-3DS-2DS/Usag... > As of 25 October 2022, it is no longer possible to use Nintendo 3DS Image Share or Wii U Image Share to post images on Facebook and Twitter.
radu_floricica 1y ago
That's... pretty awesome? And I'm pretty sure she did it just for laughs. I also built a listening device to hear what my mom was saying when I wasn't there. But it was too boring to me to actually listen to the conversations, I don't think I ever actually did it. But I did enjoy immensely setting it up.

tjpnz 1y ago

Then give parents the tools they need! I can reliably black hole all social media on my home network, and can configure DNS on their phones to do similar. A lot of that knowledge I picked up working in tech, but no tech company is going to offer such robust solutions to parents.

yard2010 11mo ago

Do you have children? You are correct. But it's easier said than done.