3 ms·

"In scary headlines like these, technology is the subject, and teens are passive victims." -- I am sorry, but how is this not true, when companies like Meta are

"In scary headlines like these, technology is the subject, and teens are passive victims." -- I am sorry, but how is this not true, when companies like Meta are in full control of their algorithms, tuning them to maximum addiction. One can indeed argue what is the best way to deal with the problem of kids and social media, but I think the article is misrepresenting the situation.

vrganj 11d ago
Yup. All this talk of personal responsibility in these types of situations is nothing but a perfidious form of victim blaming. "The crack addict should've known better, it's not the dealer's fault they came back for more!"
- howunfortunate 11d ago
  I think personal responsibility does play into these situations to some extent, but even so, that doesn't imply there should be zero regulation. Both for crack addicts and teens using social media, they not only hurt themselves, but also hurt those around them. The studies on teen mental health largely suggest that mostly it's not about using a lot of social media yourself, but living in an area where social media is the coin of the realm. It's the toxic culture SM generates rather than direct use that's hurting teen mental health.
- talon8635 11d ago
  I actually thinks it’s far more applicable in the crack scenario than the social media scenario. There are lots of people who don’t use crack. The vast majority of humanity. What percentage of teens don’t use social media? I don’t know the answer, and would adjust my thinking if incorrect, but my assumption is “a small minority” Personal responsibility IS a factor that can’t be ignored when it comes to addiction. I say this as a multi substance addict who’s been clean for over a decade. Tech is a whole new beast though, because we are often forced to use it. It’s closer to food addiction than crack addiction, which, IMO, is the most brutal addiction of all (food). No one neeeds crack to survive, so stopping it is one thing. Stopping (junk) food addiction, or severe over eating, or whatever you want to call it… man, that must be brutal. I don’t use social media, but I’m an old fogie. I’d imagine you kids can not very easily “just not use it” if they want to have any semblance of social life and to find a high paying job after college
hmokiguess 11d ago
Exactly, it's like talking about the symptoms and missing the point of the diagnostic.
charlieyu1 11d ago
I grow up with ICQ where you can click a button to talk with a random stranger. Boomers were crying about Internet addiction. 30 years later, I’m fine and the boomers are the ones getting addicted to fake stuff on the internet.
- mohamedkoubaa 11d ago
  I know people who got into car accidents and 30 years later they were fine
- goalieca 11d ago
  Our generation did not turn out fine. Phones are hugely a net loss for society. I stand by that.
  - michaelt 11d ago
    Maybe. But how do we tell the effects of social media and smart phones apart from the multiple financial crises? The endless, incredibly costly Middle East forever wars? The huge rise in costs of houses, education and healthcare? The blatantly corrupt politics? Globalisation and the resulting loss of manufacturing jobs? The inaction on school shootings? The climate situation?
    - s1artibartfast 11d ago
      Maybe without perpetual distraction some of those problems wouldn't be as bad.
  - esseph 11d ago
    Every living generation has a phone "problem", so that's not unique to one made up cohort.
trescenzi 11d ago
If you read the rest of the piece they do argue for more regulation. They aren’t making a personal responsibility argument like other commenters are saying. The problem with bans is they claim the technology itself is purely bad and the only solution is to keep it from children. Which on its face is nonsensical. It’s ok for a 17 year old but not a 16 year old? We need genuine regulation tackling the actual problems with this technology. Blanket bans do nothing but make adults feel good about “protecting the children”.
- somenameforme 11d ago
  Age restrictions don't say it's 'okay' for somebody above a certain age to use something. Cigarettes will screw up your body at 18 just as much as they will at 17. But at 18 you're, legally at least, an adult, the point at which our unstated social contract starts to prioritize liberty over safety. And setting it at such an age also helps significantly reduce the peer pressure to smoke.
  - juiceland 11d ago
    You’re right, and that’s the reason why some states have gone further banning cigarettes that have flavorings including menthol.
    - deleted 11d ago
      [deleted]
    - Chris2048 10d ago
      Ironic since menthols are to me associated with an older generation. AFAIK, their original purpose was for smokers with colds / blocked sinuses.
- doc_ick 11d ago
  Blanket bans are better the no bans at all. I would agree we need genuine and granular regulation, though I don’t think it’s wise to ask kids what they think is best for them. Not a parent but a parent might have some concern for letting kids rule themselves.
somenameforme 11d ago
I'd take this one step further and say this would be a major issue even without 'the algorithm' and other such 'engagement' maximization efforts. Way back before social media existed, things like BBS' and later on newsgroups were similarly extremely addictive. The only thing that changed with social media is that it all barriers to entry came crashing down and these sort of services became socially normalized, instead of being just made up of fringe tech enthusiasts. And it's obviously a big problem for adults as well as kids, but I think there are many nuances there. One would be that we generally accept adults engaging in self destructive behaviors as part of the liberty of being an adult. You're free to go gamble away your life savings as an adult - but you won't even get in the door as a kid. Another is that lot of the undesirable things that happen in schools (gossiping, conspiracies like false reporting, bullying, in-out crowds, image crafting, etc) get greatly magnified when you introduce social media. And that would happen even if the most benign/benevolent social media, absent any 'algorithm', engagement maximizing, and so on.
- juiceland 11d ago
  > Way back before social media existed, things like BBS' and later on newsgroups were similarly extremely addictive. Social media today is almost nothing like BBS and Newsgroups. Social media is supercharged to be a dopamine slot machine that sells attention to the highest bidder with the explicit aim of changing their behavior. None of that existed on BBS or Newsgroups.
- beej71 11d ago
  > Way back before social media existed, things like BBS' and later on newsgroups were similarly extremely addictive. I'm not so sure about this (having lived both). The "algorithm" has a massive addictive effect that simply was not present in the BBS days, it is nearly universally agreed. Certainly it's believed enough for Meta to spend billions on it.
  - somenameforme 11d ago
    This is one of those topics that LLMs are quite good at for digging up information and consensus on, because they've been trained on stuff that you may have either forgotten or not been a part of the culture of. BBS were universally deemed extremely addictive. Early telnet BBSs then brought this up to an even more ridiculous extreme. Their usage even cropped up on early studies of internet addiction like this. [1] And similarly for usenet/newsgroups. I think the algorithm's primary purpose is to be able to more seamlessly push ads. I also think that at some point there was a sort of dystopic interest in seeing if people could be controlled by content. Facebooks emotional control experiments are public validation of that. But these are again tangential red herrings once we establish clearly that addiction happens even without such, and it certainly did and does. [1] - https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED416838 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED416838

vrganj 11d ago

Yup. All this talk of personal responsibility in these types of situations is nothing but a perfidious form of victim blaming. "The crack addict should've known better, it's not the dealer's fault they came back for more!"

howunfortunate 11d ago
I think personal responsibility does play into these situations to some extent, but even so, that doesn't imply there should be zero regulation. Both for crack addicts and teens using social media, they not only hurt themselves, but also hurt those around them. The studies on teen mental health largely suggest that mostly it's not about using a lot of social media yourself, but living in an area where social media is the coin of the realm. It's the toxic culture SM generates rather than direct use that's hurting teen mental health.
talon8635 11d ago
I actually thinks it’s far more applicable in the crack scenario than the social media scenario. There are lots of people who don’t use crack. The vast majority of humanity. What percentage of teens don’t use social media? I don’t know the answer, and would adjust my thinking if incorrect, but my assumption is “a small minority” Personal responsibility IS a factor that can’t be ignored when it comes to addiction. I say this as a multi substance addict who’s been clean for over a decade. Tech is a whole new beast though, because we are often forced to use it. It’s closer to food addiction than crack addiction, which, IMO, is the most brutal addiction of all (food). No one neeeds crack to survive, so stopping it is one thing. Stopping (junk) food addiction, or severe over eating, or whatever you want to call it… man, that must be brutal. I don’t use social media, but I’m an old fogie. I’d imagine you kids can not very easily “just not use it” if they want to have any semblance of social life and to find a high paying job after college

hmokiguess 11d ago

Exactly, it's like talking about the symptoms and missing the point of the diagnostic.

charlieyu1 11d ago

I grow up with ICQ where you can click a button to talk with a random stranger. Boomers were crying about Internet addiction. 30 years later, I’m fine and the boomers are the ones getting addicted to fake stuff on the internet.

mohamedkoubaa 11d ago
I know people who got into car accidents and 30 years later they were fine
goalieca 11d ago
Our generation did not turn out fine. Phones are hugely a net loss for society. I stand by that.
- michaelt 11d ago
  Maybe. But how do we tell the effects of social media and smart phones apart from the multiple financial crises? The endless, incredibly costly Middle East forever wars? The huge rise in costs of houses, education and healthcare? The blatantly corrupt politics? Globalisation and the resulting loss of manufacturing jobs? The inaction on school shootings? The climate situation?
  - s1artibartfast 11d ago
    Maybe without perpetual distraction some of those problems wouldn't be as bad.
- esseph 11d ago
  Every living generation has a phone "problem", so that's not unique to one made up cohort.

trescenzi 11d ago

If you read the rest of the piece they do argue for more regulation. They aren’t making a personal responsibility argument like other commenters are saying. The problem with bans is they claim the technology itself is purely bad and the only solution is to keep it from children. Which on its face is nonsensical. It’s ok for a 17 year old but not a 16 year old? We need genuine regulation tackling the actual problems with this technology. Blanket bans do nothing but make adults feel good about “protecting the children”.

somenameforme 11d ago
Age restrictions don't say it's 'okay' for somebody above a certain age to use something. Cigarettes will screw up your body at 18 just as much as they will at 17. But at 18 you're, legally at least, an adult, the point at which our unstated social contract starts to prioritize liberty over safety. And setting it at such an age also helps significantly reduce the peer pressure to smoke.
- juiceland 11d ago
  You’re right, and that’s the reason why some states have gone further banning cigarettes that have flavorings including menthol.
  - deleted 11d ago
    [deleted]
  - Chris2048 10d ago
    Ironic since menthols are to me associated with an older generation. AFAIK, their original purpose was for smokers with colds / blocked sinuses.
doc_ick 11d ago
Blanket bans are better the no bans at all. I would agree we need genuine and granular regulation, though I don’t think it’s wise to ask kids what they think is best for them. Not a parent but a parent might have some concern for letting kids rule themselves.

somenameforme 11d ago

I'd take this one step further and say this would be a major issue even without 'the algorithm' and other such 'engagement' maximization efforts. Way back before social media existed, things like BBS' and later on newsgroups were similarly extremely addictive. The only thing that changed with social media is that it all barriers to entry came crashing down and these sort of services became socially normalized, instead of being just made up of fringe tech enthusiasts. And it's obviously a big problem for adults as well as kids, but I think there are many nuances there. One would be that we generally accept adults engaging in self destructive behaviors as part of the liberty of being an adult. You're free to go gamble away your life savings as an adult - but you won't even get in the door as a kid. Another is that lot of the undesirable things that happen in schools (gossiping, conspiracies like false reporting, bullying, in-out crowds, image crafting, etc) get greatly magnified when you introduce social media. And that would happen even if the most benign/benevolent social media, absent any 'algorithm', engagement maximizing, and so on.

juiceland 11d ago
> Way back before social media existed, things like BBS' and later on newsgroups were similarly extremely addictive. Social media today is almost nothing like BBS and Newsgroups. Social media is supercharged to be a dopamine slot machine that sells attention to the highest bidder with the explicit aim of changing their behavior. None of that existed on BBS or Newsgroups.
beej71 11d ago
> Way back before social media existed, things like BBS' and later on newsgroups were similarly extremely addictive. I'm not so sure about this (having lived both). The "algorithm" has a massive addictive effect that simply was not present in the BBS days, it is nearly universally agreed. Certainly it's believed enough for Meta to spend billions on it.
- somenameforme 11d ago
  This is one of those topics that LLMs are quite good at for digging up information and consensus on, because they've been trained on stuff that you may have either forgotten or not been a part of the culture of. BBS were universally deemed extremely addictive. Early telnet BBSs then brought this up to an even more ridiculous extreme. Their usage even cropped up on early studies of internet addiction like this. [1] And similarly for usenet/newsgroups. I think the algorithm's primary purpose is to be able to more seamlessly push ads. I also think that at some point there was a sort of dystopic interest in seeing if people could be controlled by content. Facebooks emotional control experiments are public validation of that. But these are again tangential red herrings once we establish clearly that addiction happens even without such, and it certainly did and does. [1] - https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED416838 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED416838