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Ask HN: How do you prevent the impact of social media on your children?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent the impact of social media on your children?

#171

Post by ckz »

lolinder wrote: post #150
ozim wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gorilla in the room are other f*ng parents. You can prevent as much as you want but then kids go to school nd everyone else has accounts they should not have or devices they should not have and your kids are angry at you because now you are the bad guy.

The best thing my parents ever did for me was cultivate a sense of familial superiority. Other families had the TV on all the time, but we read books instead because we were 'better'. Other kids did drugs and drank, but we were better than that. Peer pressure didn't have much of an impact on me because I was raised to believe that I was better than 'that' for most values of 'that'. And my parents never had to force m…

Agreed. So much of it is identity (going back to James Clear in Atomic Habits). "I'm not a smoker" is more powerful than "I'm trying to quit".

"We just don't watch Youtube on our phones in this house." [and you work to develop that into healthy self-confidence rather than ego]

Growing up homeschooled, we had the same simmering sense of pride in not doing what others (e.g. "public schoolers" did). Never had a rebellious teen phase, etc. Some families overdid it, but...idk...I'm still quite close to my parents, so I never felt stifled.

It makes it -very- natural in life to focus on what my SO and I think are optimal and more or less disregard what's normal.

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent the impact of social media on your children?

#172

Post by aczerepinski »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #132
ikiris wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[citation needed] for evidence that somehow TikTok is at all responsible for causing adhd

Bruh we have a decade of Research on this. Go type some words in to Google Scholar.

ADHD is a real neurological condition that people are born with; not something learned via an app. Post links to research please.

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent the impact of social media on your children?

#173

Post by thom »

muzani wrote: post #7

They don't really have any interest in social media as we use them. It's likely there will be some other new form of social media, probably something more metaverse like Roblox or Minecraft. As a kid, I remember we had these things on TV and people would dial on phones just to have messages show up on TV. It seems kind of the same with Gen Alpha and YouTube. There's all these things like Discord, but they feel more l…

Our kids play Roblox but we don’t let them chat or add friends. They just have FaceTime on in the background while playing with school friends. Seems fun to me, and none of them appear to have become demented.

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent the impact of social media on your children?

#174

Post by polski-g »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #136
tylerc230 wrote: post #76

A lot of parents at our school signed a “wait until 8” pledge to wait until 8th grade before getting them smartphones. This way there will be less social pressure from their friends to be connected. My assumption is that without a smartphone they won’t use social media.

Meanwhile I spent every minute of free time from 2000-2005 using phpbb, irc, and aim, on a big CRT and PC

The demographics of those online were probably more healthy than today.

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent the impact of social media on your children?

#175

Post by herewulf »

ozim wrote: post #62
scop wrote: post #29

Four thoughts: 1. I've developed a analog->digital path for my kids. Before they can get a music player, they get a CD player. Before they get video games, they get board games. And then, for video games, before they get Super Mario Odyssey they get the original Super Mario Bros. Each of these "first they get" is a long period. Years long. Give them something that has limitations so they can truly explore it. Find th…

Gorilla in the room are other f*ng parents. You can prevent as much as you want but then kids go to school nd everyone else has accounts they should not have or devices they should not have and your kids are angry at you because now you are the bad guy.

It's okay to be "the bad guy". They're your kids, not your friends. Too many parents want to be buddies with their kids these days. That's just setting everyone up for failure.

My wife and I have a loving relationship with our kids but they are quite clear on the fact that we are not equals. The distinction will lessen as they reach adulthood and prove their responsibility.

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent the impact of social media on your children?

#176

Post by TriangleEdge »

You don't. I have a baby and a teenager and the teenager is pretty mind-rotted even tho mild restrictions were in place. Kids don't exist in a vacuum and you will only have strong influence over them until they turn 12 or so in my experience. The environment they are in matters a lot. Other kids, etc.. I am very worried about the future of my baby. My main concern is that he'll have a hard time being useful since automation looks like it'll do everything soon enough. Purposeless people are not good.

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent the impact of social media on your children?

#177

Post by OkayPhysicist »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #56

>However, it's undeniable that at that age it's all about fitting in and it would likely make them feel like a bit of an outcast if I were to limit them from being a part of it, l Should homeschool. The elimination of peer pressure makes alot of these choices dead simple. "But all the other 11 yr olds are going to the 3am tattoo orgy" just isn't a counter-argument I'll ever hear in my household. The real trouble is t…

Homeschooling without a ton of extracurriculars with interaction with children their age makes your kids weird. It completely stunts their ability to socialize.

I did fencing as a kid. It was basically a 50/50 split between homeschooled kids and private school kids. It was immediately obvious which were which, and the friend groups that formed were made almost exclusively of the private school kids and the smattering of public school kids.

If you're restricting your children's social life sufficiently to avoid peer pressure, you're causing irreparable harm.

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent the impact of social media on your children?

#178

Post by mansilladev »

When kids were young (< 13), kept them off it for as long as possible. In fact, it was forbidden. Friends/colleagues thought I was a tyrant (and some thought I was an idiot) for trying to shield my kids this way, but those were the rules. Eventually, I had to capitulate. But even now, I regularly check in with the now much older kids to discourage worthless hours of doom-scrolling.

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent the impact of social media on your children?

#179

Post by jzer0cool »

We can maybe borrow from some past generational issues, but it seems old forms of media and societal problems are growing worse (e.g bullying, self-esteem, harmful cliques, peer-pressure, etc), or are certain areas getting better (e.g. respecting different cultures and differences, etc.)

1990's: TV, Games (e.g. consoles), ... 2000's: Internet, TV, Games, ... 2010's: Social Media, Games, Streaming Content, ... 2020's: Social Media, Games, Streaming Content, ...

I have to respect all the parents at this time learning to deal with such changes and no past to learn from with the technological changes. Was there ever a time destructive to "reading books too much" (e.g. bookworm)?

Would love to hear thoughts (ideas?) for what ought to be done for a new generation of children being born. What can we learn from the past here and what are some ideas of the correct approaches? Not 100% convinced about banning devices until some later time since technology is being integrated also in classrooms, so I wonder if that hinders growth.

Wondering all these things as a new parent.

Re: Ask HN: How do you prevent the impact of social media on your children?

#180

Post by ckz »

scop wrote: post #105
Trasmatta wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they allowed to play games at other kid's houses? Like, if they're at their friend's house and everyone is playing Super Smash Bros together, but they haven't "graduated" out of the board game phase, will they get in trouble for joining in? In theory I like your idea, but there are so many "edge cases" that make it a challenging thing to implement, and something that could backfire if its too strict.

Good question. Yes they can play. The main absolute no-go activity with friends is something with exploration on the internet. That includes things like YT kids. But, hey you want to play Smash Bros even though we don’t at home, sure have fun! These are not hard and fast rules, more of a system. Our youngest plays video games much younger than our oldest kid, since we have video games in the house now and didn’t with…

This is how we handle it as well. We were at friends' last night and the older kids had the N64 out. The older kids reported that ours just wanted to be read to the whole time, but early doses of things we intend to introduce anyway (video games predating modern addictive mechanics) are fine at that frequency.

We are mindful of potential Pandora's boxes though. You can't ban everything unhealthy without causing long term issues. You strive though to only introduce things when they're developmentally ready to cope with it, even if that means restrictions on yourself as an adult.

You work to constantly provide good examples via your own life, compelling narratives, etc. of people who exemplify the virtues you want to instill. That's how you help shape (the best you can) the life of someone with an innate identity to, when necessary, "just say no", or simply be uninterested in and unswayed by things that don't conform to their value system.

They aren't stifled by rules and wrestling with temptation--not valuing YT Kids is just who they are.

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