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I'm curious to understand why your approach to TikTok is banning it. Why do you think this is the right solution? Are you concerned at all about your son's abil

by Extropy_ 10mo ago

I'm curious to understand why your approach to TikTok is banning it. Why do you think this is the right solution? Are you concerned at all about your son's ability to cope independently from oversight and control?

rwmj 10mo ago
I'm actually glad to read about a parent taking responsibility. There's nothing important about Tiktok that won't wait until the child is 16/18.
realityloop 10mo ago
No, it’s that he will spend hours doom scrolling whatever they feed to him.. I’ve tried to lead him down a path of watching more educational stuff on YouTube but he will just end up doom scrolling shorts.. I’m trying to figure out ways to enable him access but not have him waste hours with shorts.. I know there must be short form content that’s good but I’ve not seen any evidence watching over his shoulder.. I block shorts on YouTube for myself even.. at this point the best I can think of is allowing access in short windows of time with longer chunks of blocked access.. if anyone has ideas I’d love to hear them.
- alex_suzuki 10mo ago
  Short-form content (if you can call it that) is a weapon of mass attention span destruction. IMHO the doom-scrolling loop it creates should be illegal, regardless of the audience.
  - realityloop 10mo ago
    100% It's this that I have the problem with TBH.. not using services per sae
- Extropy_ 10mo ago
  What happens when he goes to school? Moves out? You die? Who will be there to block TikTok on the LAN?
  - roguecoder 10mo ago
    That is Hank Green's Focus Friend is for, right? Adults actually are trying to solve this problem.
awesome_dude 10mo ago
Serious question: Do you now have, or have you ever had, children to raise?
dghlsakjg 10mo ago
You assume that banning usage was the first step instead of the last step. I'm not OP, but I'm guessing they started with talking to the kid, or more intermediate steps. > Are you concerned at all about your son's ability to cope independently from oversight and control? Kids aren't fully independent for good reason, and a very hard part of parenting is deciding how much independence to give them vs. sheltering them from the parts of the world that will hurt them. If a kid comes home with drugs or hardcore porn it is completely reasonable to confiscate them with no regard for independence and control. Is TikTok the same as heroin? No. But it is provably harmful in any number of ways that young brains do not have the tools to handle, and the benefits are arguably non-existent for most. With other things like sports, we know that there is the possibility of getting hurt, but that can be mitigated and the benefits far outweigh the risks.
- Extropy_ 10mo ago
  I'd rather have my heroin addicted son do it at home, where I can be there to take him to the hospital, talk to him about it, etc., rather than make him go out into the streets alone. Banning it doesn't seem like a productive approach
  - roguecoder 10mo ago
    We aren't concerned only about existing addicts, but potential future addicts. Especially for something like social media with strong network effects, where decreasing use is non-linear. Banning substances dramatically decreases use: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00414-015-1184-4 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00414-015-1184-4 and legalized opioids dramatically increased heroin use: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/15360288.2015.1037521 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/15360288.2015.10... Access matters. The question is always: A. What do people use instead? (banning pot, for example, increases use of heroin and alcohol, which is good for alcohol companies but bad for public health. If banning social media sent kids to 24/7 news channels, it might not help, but I haven't seen evidence of that.) B. How much is organized crime funded by the increased black market? (In this case, kids are a limited population that doesn't have a lot of money, so the answer is probably "not much".)

rwmj 10mo ago

I'm actually glad to read about a parent taking responsibility. There's nothing important about Tiktok that won't wait until the child is 16/18.

realityloop 10mo ago

No, it’s that he will spend hours doom scrolling whatever they feed to him.. I’ve tried to lead him down a path of watching more educational stuff on YouTube but he will just end up doom scrolling shorts.. I’m trying to figure out ways to enable him access but not have him waste hours with shorts.. I know there must be short form content that’s good but I’ve not seen any evidence watching over his shoulder.. I block shorts on YouTube for myself even.. at this point the best I can think of is allowing access in short windows of time with longer chunks of blocked access.. if anyone has ideas I’d love to hear them.

alex_suzuki 10mo ago
Short-form content (if you can call it that) is a weapon of mass attention span destruction. IMHO the doom-scrolling loop it creates should be illegal, regardless of the audience.
- realityloop 10mo ago
  100% It's this that I have the problem with TBH.. not using services per sae
Extropy_ 10mo ago
What happens when he goes to school? Moves out? You die? Who will be there to block TikTok on the LAN?
- roguecoder 10mo ago
  That is Hank Green's Focus Friend is for, right? Adults actually are trying to solve this problem.

awesome_dude 10mo ago

Serious question: Do you now have, or have you ever had, children to raise?

dghlsakjg 10mo ago

You assume that banning usage was the first step instead of the last step. I'm not OP, but I'm guessing they started with talking to the kid, or more intermediate steps. > Are you concerned at all about your son's ability to cope independently from oversight and control? Kids aren't fully independent for good reason, and a very hard part of parenting is deciding how much independence to give them vs. sheltering them from the parts of the world that will hurt them. If a kid comes home with drugs or hardcore porn it is completely reasonable to confiscate them with no regard for independence and control. Is TikTok the same as heroin? No. But it is provably harmful in any number of ways that young brains do not have the tools to handle, and the benefits are arguably non-existent for most. With other things like sports, we know that there is the possibility of getting hurt, but that can be mitigated and the benefits far outweigh the risks.

Extropy_ 10mo ago
I'd rather have my heroin addicted son do it at home, where I can be there to take him to the hospital, talk to him about it, etc., rather than make him go out into the streets alone. Banning it doesn't seem like a productive approach
- roguecoder 10mo ago
  We aren't concerned only about existing addicts, but potential future addicts. Especially for something like social media with strong network effects, where decreasing use is non-linear. Banning substances dramatically decreases use: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00414-015-1184-4 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00414-015-1184-4 and legalized opioids dramatically increased heroin use: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/15360288.2015.1037521 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/15360288.2015.10... Access matters. The question is always: A. What do people use instead? (banning pot, for example, increases use of heroin and alcohol, which is good for alcohol companies but bad for public health. If banning social media sent kids to 24/7 news channels, it might not help, but I haven't seen evidence of that.) B. How much is organized crime funded by the increased black market? (In this case, kids are a limited population that doesn't have a lot of money, so the answer is probably "not much".)