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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?

#181

Post by Desafinado »

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #71
Desafinado wrote: post #6

A good start is to avoid giving them a smartphone until they're in high school. And once they have a smartphone require them to get permission from you before installing any social media apps, with consequences if they don't follow the rules (take the phone away). Make the consequences known up front, rather than reactive so they know the guidelines regarding their phone use. And whatever you do DO NOT give your chil…

I genuinely don't think the tech medium is the problem. There's good and educational software available on tablets just as there is on anything else. While I've always been anti-tablet myself, and anti-phone for similar reasons (though why a kid would need a phone is beyond me at this stage), there's programs for literacy and learning available on the tablets that work just fine, as well as art, creativity and painti…

It can be done, but my take is that until your kid is through puberty their job is to learn how to navigate the real world, how to talk to people in person, and so on. You can give them technology but it has very minimal benefit compared to the alternative, that is if your home is full of books and you're reading to them regularly.

All that being said we're somewhat liberal with TV, and we'll introduce them to a PC in time. But for now the MO is real world skills and intelligence.

Jonathan Haidt also pointed to evidence that technology during the adolescence phase can wreak havoc. Particularly handhelds and social media.

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

#182

Post by feistypharit »

figers wrote: post #147
ericmcer wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, I see all these idealized strategies around social media and children but the reality is nothing is going to overcome the peer pressure of being 12 years old and the only kid at school without a phone. Until schools and government restrict phone ownership in a real way, parents are going to keep giving phones to their 8 year olds.

We choose an apple watch for this reason, that way we can still call them / locate them, they are part of their friends iMessage groups, but no social media apps are possible...

We just got Apple Watches for our 11 and 13 year olds. It is a decent middle ground, as up to now we’ve been very limiting of their screen time.

Our district has strict blocks in place at school, but most kids still already have phones. We did it for that reason and so so we don’t introduce phones at the same time they start driving (which is when we figured they’d actually need it)

One thing I wasn’t quite prepared for is kids use huge group chats that result in hundreds of messages a day. Learned how to mute discussions really quick. You can also limit access to groups with parental controls.

Key is talking to your kids regularly and helping them navigate life. Real and digital.

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

#183

Post by iforgot22 »

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…

My family didn't exactly say "better," but they meant it.

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

#185

Post by Aeolun »

jzer0cool wrote: post #179

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:…

Our strategy has been limited access, and I feel it’s not a great one. There’s a constant desire to be on a device and a large inability to think of what else they could be doing. Not helped by being a single child and papa not always feeling up to playing pretend Pokémon.

At the same time, it could be far worse. Whenever there are other kids outside/to play with they really easily fall back into a pattern of pure play. We’ve had whole days of just playing basketball too.

I’m largely resentful of my inability to play with devices when I was younger (see how well I turned out despite my parents saying I shouldn’t look at screens too much), and it affects the way I approach this thing.

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

#186

Post by lolinder »

iforgot22 wrote: post #183
lolinder wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My family didn't exactly say "better," but they meant it.

Yeah, I put 'better' in scare quotes because we didn't use that word exactly, but that was definitely the idea. I realize now that that's the opposite of what a quote usually means, but too late now!

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

#188

Post by tootie »

zht wrote: post #100
tootie wrote: post #82

My kids aren't interested but as far as I can tell it doesn't have a huge impact on kids. And I don't believe there's any convincing research to support it's dangers. I tell my kids to not believe everything they see online but that's about it.

what research have you done to lead you to the conclusion that it doesn't have a huge impact on kids?

I don't do research, I'm saying there isn't any academic research to back it up. And some decent research saying it doesn't have much effect at all. And it's such a hot topic and subject to so much research, and there's been very little conclusive data to say much of anything. I'm pretty comfortable that it's not worth worrying about. My kids don't have screen time limits. They are not without their issues, but they are generally healthy and happy and doing well in school.

https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/teens-social-medi...

https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/no-evidence-screen-time...

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

#189

Post by Aeolun »

javier123454321 wrote: post #161
Trasmatta wrote: post #77

Sometimes I feel grief about the fact that I will almost certainly never have kids, but then I also feel immense relief that I don't have to navigate the extremely complex challenge of raising them in the modern world.

Here's something I accepted. I will mess up, but I'll focus on being a good person that leads by example. The rest is details. I don't know what your situation is, and I'm sorry if you are unable, but I would wish more people get to experience the absolute joy of parenting. It is an exercise of being selfless to the point that you are happy doing things that seem miserable to others for the only reason that there's s…

If I’m able to put my 2ct in as well, have (at least) two, fairly close together. You’ll have arguments to mediate but there will always be someone to play with around. Friends are not the same unless they literally live in the same house.

Having someone with the exact same life schedule is critical.

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