Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 405 posts

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

#221

Post by worik »

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…

> The best thing my parents ever did for me was cultivate a sense of familial superiority.

Odd!

It was the worst thing my parents did for me, I believed them.

Took a long time to realise I am, we were, quite ordinary.

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

#222

Post by ceejayoz »

iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #213
ceejayoz wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. "Why didn't my kid get invited to that birthday? Oh, it was organized on Snapchat..." We have a no phones in the bedroom and no phones past a certain time rule, but disconnecting entirely makes one a social pariah.

Maybe, maybe not. The real question is.. do I really want my kid to associate with kids that are so heavily invested in social media. I know my personal answer to this. I even know my SO answer and the upcoming battles ahead.

It’s widespread enough your question boils down to “do I really want my kid to have friends”.

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

#223

Post by iforgot22 »

Having kids in the near future. Wife and I agreed to "just say no" until they're 17 or 18.

We've also decided it's important to lead by example. I assume that any adult saying "kids need social media to not get bullied" or "we can't tell them no" is using it heavily themselves. We could be wrong, but we'll see.

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

#224

Post by iforgot22 »

ta1243 wrote: post #55
noufalibrahim wrote: post #28

No phones or SM accounts for kids till they turn 18. Yes, there's a "fear" of being an outcast but they work their way around that quickly and if they have other things to spend time on, they'll be fine. The "need" for social media is mostly FOMO.

Do you have kids in double digits? Our senior schools (from age 11, "6th grade" in US term) literally mandate a phone (not a computer, an actual phone) for school, both to use in class and to receive homework assignments.

That's ok, they can borrow a parent's phone.

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

#225

Post by [deleted] »

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

[deleted]

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

#226

Post by iforgot22 »

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

Those aren't the same, but even those weren't good. I was on that stuff too, big waste of time that I wish I had back.

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

#227

Post by iforgot22 »

idermoth wrote: post #27

Our kids? Hell, my wife and I don't use social media, except in very limited doses for work reasons. Our kids have zero access to it and never will. Their device usage is kept at a minimum and used for mostly educational or quality conversational purposes. I hate how many people now, whenever we're around them everyone has their phones out scrolling through 30 sec videos. They want to show you things which aren't fun…

People talk about kids being addicted, but I had to deal with my dad constantly showing me some Instagram video. Not necessarily a dumb video, but still not something I cared to watch.

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

#228

Post by campak »

You could try out the https://wisephone.com to see if that helps. It doesn't allow social media, but it does allow apps that are tools to get a job done. I think if you let your kids experience boredom, they'd be sad and potentially spiteful, but it's what they need. Kids need to experience boredom. That's when the best experiences and ideas happen.

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

#229

Post by iugtmkbdfil834 »

soulofmischief wrote: post #38
Carrok wrote: post #33

I was an outcast as a kid, and this was years before social media. I think I turned out alright regardless. Your social status as a pre-adult doesn't really matter at all once you join the real world. That and I think kids not having any social media will become more and more common, so it's not going to be that big a deal.

But if you blame your parents' or guardians' overly restrictive dogma for your outcast status then it will likely turn into lifelong resentment. Would you want your kid to resent you? The better alternative is to explore the net together with your children and show them that there is a world beyond typical social media which is far more interesting and rewarding to explore. Encourage them to foster trust and strong r…

shrug I have an opinion about my mother, but not for one second do I doubt that she was making the best call she could make given the information she had at hand. How you feel passes, but the consequences of raising an idiot last yet another generation.

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

#230

Post by jzer0cool »

Aeolun wrote: post #185
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 pl…

> what else they could be doing

Great feedback. Makes me wanting to start building out a cheatsheet (or things to bring) by situation (e.g. restaurant -> coloring book).

Same for daily conversation topics, without it being a bore / repetitive.

Happy to get any ideas were successful (and not).

Post reply on HN