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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?

#201

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

nineplay wrote: post #69

I don't think this is a good place to go in with hard and fast rules. Every kid is different, everything change. What your kid wants and needs may be different from everyone else. Having said that, my broad rule is to keep my kid from any social media where their peers rank them and give feedback. No FB, no Instagram, they can't host their own youtube channel, etc. That is where self-esteem goes to die. I don't think…

I feel like a YouTube channel is different. They might learn to create stuff and be self directed

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

#202

Post by iforgot22 »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #50
Carrok wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying that children need social media to develop competency and communication skills?

If all of your peers are talking about the stuff they saw on YouTube, but you’re not allowed to, this will naturally make you an outcast in that topic. Now, if almost everything they talk about in the internet, and you cannot relate to it at all, it will hinder your interpersonal skills, because you just don’t talk to your peers. I hate how we got here, but watching my nephews go through this stuff made me realize yo…

The solution is always to get different peers. If you're surrounded by bad influences, fitting in or not fitting in are both bad options.

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

#203

Post by dchichkov »

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.

Another Gorilla is the schools, teachers and state-approved recommendations, that extend their reach even into private schools.

Imagine my frustration one day, when I've discovered that my kindergartner has full access to a brand-new, shiny iPad during class. Despite complaints from parents, the teacher refused to reduce iPad usage (or even activate Screen Distance and Screen Time controls on the iPad, or share usage statistics).

The only thing that I've learned, this is all in line with California’s state-approved computer literacy recommendations.

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

#204

Post by iforgot22 »

AstralStorm wrote: post #122
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I hate how we got here, but watching my nephews go through this stuff made me realize you can’t cut the kids off completely. Mine are turning out fine. I don't want them to be like those other children, and I've kept them away from those children. Doesn't seem to have been a problem. >Ideally, you would live in a community where all parents have agreed on the social media limits, This is a matter of who you choose t…

Congratulations, you're raising future disgruntled outcast class of people who are not integrated with the society. The next step is some canny asshole will take advantage of these people by selling them on their superiority or offering community, and radicalize them. It's happened many times.

... because they don't have social media? That's a stretch.

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

#205

Post by thijson »

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:…

It's been a challenge to me to figure out what's too much. If you let them, they will spend hours watching YouTube shorts, or tiktoks. I've removed YouTube from our TV for that reason. Also the devices are locked down using Google family, plus the screen pin code is only known by the parents. One of the most wholesome digital experiences I've seen is setting up a Minecraft server, and watching the kids have a build battle. You do need to set up grief prevention though, they will try to vandalize each other.

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

#206

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

AstralStorm wrote: post #122
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I hate how we got here, but watching my nephews go through this stuff made me realize you can’t cut the kids off completely. Mine are turning out fine. I don't want them to be like those other children, and I've kept them away from those children. Doesn't seem to have been a problem. >Ideally, you would live in a community where all parents have agreed on the social media limits, This is a matter of who you choose t…

Congratulations, you're raising future disgruntled outcast class of people who are not integrated with the society. The next step is some canny asshole will take advantage of these people by selling them on their superiority or offering community, and radicalize them. It's happened many times.

>ongratulations, you're raising future disgruntled outcast class of people who are not integrated with the society.

This society is dying, nearly dead. Anyone who is integrated with it will die by extension. Only lunatics would want to be integrated with it. This society can't even be bothered to make more humans so that it can continue into the future... it wants to be dead.

My children aren't outcast, they have friends. Just not ones that would bully them because they didn't see the latest softcore porn on whatever the most popular social media happens to be today.

>The next step is some canny asshole will take advantage of these people by selling them on their superiority or offering community, and radicalize them.

Uh huh. What if someone taught them that it was normal to possess firearms, or to be skilled at using them? Those crazy radicals. What if they were taught that the most fulfilling thing they could do in their life is to make a family of their own, and raise their children well? What if their teachers were so radical that they taught arithmetic and trig and calculus instead of helping them decide they were trans?

Everyone in this thread knows I'm right, even if they can't afford to agree openly. That's what this thread is... we know the society that our parents and ourselves have created is rotten and pathological, or we wouldn't be talking about how to insulate our children from it.

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

#207

Post by jcul »

qwerpy wrote: post #60
strix_varius wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every week since she was about six months old, I've taken my daughter with me to get groceries. She's absolutely fascinated by the grocery store: the rolling cart, the colors and textures of produce ("ta-to!"), the other shoppers, the illustrations on packaging ("bear!"). I hand her items and give her their names. She shakes them, rotates them, repeats their names back to me. But every time we go, I see at least one…

I used to judge parents who resorted to tablets to keep their children quiet. I don't really anymore. You don't know how exhausted the parents might be or how many hours they've already spent trying to entertain their kids in a more wholesome manner. I've taken a 2 year old on vacation and some of that time is spent going to unique restaurants that take a couple of hours for a meal. My toddler would get bored and squ…

Yeah I don't judge other parents, this stuff is hard.

We do use downloaded stuff on netflix on flights or rarely long drives if we need to keep them awake. But we use colouring, activity books etc on planes before resorting to Netflix.

To be honest, sometimes I feel that if they are on a device too much they just get frustrated and wound up anyway, so you end up shooting yourself in the foot a bit.

Having said that we do let them watch TV at home. If you're parenting alone, sometimes it's the only option to get stuff done.

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

#208

Post by garrickvanburen »

elevatedastalt wrote: post #198
garrickvanburen wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're presuming a great deal here.

What am I presuming? Most social media platforms let you have post-level privacy settings. If a kid wants to post something that they don't want their parents to see they can exclude them from seeing the post

It’s not necessarily about the parent being excluded. It’s about the kid, the kids friends, and the kids friends parents all knowing that a) bad behavior will get back to the parent and b) screenshots are forever.

It’s an entire community.

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

#209

Post by rachofsunshine »

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 did this too. It did make me a condescending asshole, but worse than that, it taught me to be paralyzingly afraid of doing The Wrong Thing.

Did it protect me from driving drunk when I was in college? Yeah, but it also "protected" me from having a healthy social life because I couldn't engage with any sort of normal behavior. Did it protect me from getting on drugs? Yeah, but it also "protected" me from getting on desperately needed psychiatric medication because that was for Other People, Who Are Too Weak To Handle Their Problems Properly. Did it protect my parents from sleeping around? Yeah, but it also locked them into a miserable marriage for half their lives, leaving both them and their children with heaping scoops of extra trauma.

Maybe that trade-off is worth it, but if you're going down this route, make sure your kids know how to experiment and screw up sometimes, too.

I'm inclined to say that a better solution is to recognize that none of us exist in a vacuum. When our societies are full of toxicity and manipulation and brainrot, we can't escape those things without cutting off a part of ourselves. Sometimes we have to do that, but ultimately what we need is a healthy culture to live in - and if we don't have one, we should be working to make one.

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