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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?

#351

Post by jacobgkau »

paulcole wrote: post #302
jacobgkau wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would've ended up a lot more "fine" if my parents hadn't given up on parental controls almost immediately after I learned to circumvent them. Some of the things they'd have had to tell me would've been embarrassing for all parties involved, but I genuinely believe it would have improved my socialization and overall happiness during critical parts of my development, with ramifications continuing to this day. Instead…

> Things "working out fine" is more how to get to sleep at the end of the day when not everything has gone to plan Yes I agree with this. I mean look at most people’s lives. Have they all gone to plan? For the most part, no. Every part of them could be better if they took different actions and made different choices. So what? They didn’t and they didn’t. They’ve got what they’ve got. Why stress yourself out over what…

I actually agree with you that a vast majority of people are living sub-optimally in one way or another. I don't stress myself out over "most people's lives" because I have no stake in them. I do have a stake in my own life and my family's-- that's why it's to be "stressed out over."

As of right now, despite all appearances, my parents actually haven't "done good enough." Mistakenly thinking it was good enough if I was financially successful, they failed to properly socialize me. But they're on the same feel-good train as you and most of society, so they won't acknowledge it.

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

#352

Post by theoreticalmal »

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…

This is SUCH an interesting comment. There’s a “homeschooling” post elsewhere in HN with a comment that espoused the exact opposite view as this one: raise your kids with humility and openness to other people and families.

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

#353

Post by theoreticalmal »

garrickvanburen wrote: post #142
giarc wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'd say you have little to actually worry about as the landscape will be completely different in a decade. Could be a lot worse though. Imagine if VR/AR does take off and your social media feed is in your eyes 24/7 rather than just when you take out your phone.

VR/AR won't take off. It'll get better, if only in that our moral panic about it will evaporate as it did for comic books and video games. Kids prefer being IRL with other kids w/ or w/o screens.

Last sentence is just…so inaccurate

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

#354

Post by theoreticalmal »

lacker wrote: post #260

As a parent of an 11-year-old, messaging is the hardest thing to handle. If you allow kids to message their friends, their friends will send all sorts of inappropriate content, exposing them to essentially everything bad on the internet. If you don't allow kids to message their friends, then they will miss out on fun events that all of their friends are doing. At least at our local public school, when I talk with par…

Do you have thoughts on allowing messaging but making it clear you have access to those same messaging accounts? E.g you have a backup iPhone signed into the same iCloud account as the kid and occasionally scroll through messages to check for bad stuff?

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

#355

Post by theoreticalmal »

asimpleusecase wrote: post #23

We have limited access to devices for under ten. Even educational apps on tablets have strict time limits. Initially there is an emotional reaction to limits and we talk to them about who is in control. Them or the technology. We want them to have mastery over the tech so that they can put it down. Only when you can put it down and move on to a real world activity are you the one in control. Personal tech is a tool,…

I’m just reflecting, I have scars on my hands and arms from power tool accidents, misuse. I wonder what scars are on my psyche from device use? Certainly some. Harder to pinpoint

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

#356

Post by Rendello »

RhysU wrote: post #332
codingdave wrote: post #5

We don't micromanage their online access, but we do try to encourage being online in healthy ways: We did no smartphones before high school. (Have had zero problems with that in terms of their social acceptance) Also, no computers in their rooms - everything is done in more shared space, with monitors facing the rest of the room. We talk about what kinds of content to watch out for, how to think critically about it,…

> Also, no computers in their rooms - everything is done in more shared space, with monitors facing the rest of the room. Seconded. I saw an older friend have a dedicated computer room for the desktops of everyone in his family. It was a family space where any family member could plunk down at any time. We approach the same via a communal laptop in the kitchen.

I was a preteen getting into computers and programming when Anonymous were the 'cool kids' and all over the news. I remember being on their Wikipedia page, then following to the Wikipedia page for 4Chan. My elder cousin walked in behind me, looked at the screen, and said:

That website... Don't go on that website.

And I didn't!

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

#357

Post by tokioyoyo »

jacobgkau wrote: post #348
tokioyoyo wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You judge people by the amount of kids they have? So like, if a couple has less than 3 kids, they’re awful people and shouldn’t be around? Interesting take, if that’s the only way you look at people, and whether you want to be around them or not. I agree we have fertility problems, but if people don’t have kids, well, that’s so not my business. Every person is different and has their priorities. If a person wants to…

> So like, if a couple has less than 3 kids, they’re awful people and shouldn’t be around? Wow, what a strawman. No, that's not what he said. What I will say, though, is if a "couple" has no kids (and does not plan to), they aren't contributing to continuing society and should not receive tax or other marriage benefits. That's not a punishment, it's treating them the same as everyone else because they have the same b…

You understand that majority of people still want to get married, and have a kid? And eventually most do. The problem with fertility is, nobody wants to have >=3 kids because of multiple reasons. So, society, by large, is fine, and people are decent even by weird standards that have been mentioned in this thread.

Anyways, I have no idea how this conversation eventually became a "everyone should have a ton of kids because otherwise society is doomed!", because my entire point was "by large, people are nice, we should strive to be around them, and learn from each other, instead of trying to actively exclude ourselves because we are better than them".

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

#358

Post by artlessmax »

Two buddies and I built a private “landline” network for their kids (~9 year olds) and their kids’ friends. We used analog phones and VoIP components, so there’s no screens or anything like that. It’s been cool seeing kids go from begging to use the family iPad after school to running to the home phone to dial their friends.

We ended up turning it into a network others can join[1] after other families started to ask about it. Having over a hundred local families join within a few weeks has given me hope that the next generation isn’t just condemned to live in a social-media-saturated hell, or that smartphones will inevitably be a part of kids’ lives earlier and earlier.

[1] https://tincan.kids/ – Disclosure: it’s not free, but we’ve tried to make it low-cost.

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

#359

Post by graemep »

iforgot22 wrote: post #251
juliusgeo wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am someone who was raised with a very similar set of values. I was homeschooled, and often believed that "public-schooled" kids had a worse, more limited set of values. I was not allowed to use computers till I was in 11th grade, and dove into reading as an alternative. Very little screen time, but I ended up with a lot of issues that did not even begin manifesting until I was an adult. I would urge you to re-exami…

Homeschooling is too far for my liking. Kids really need to be around other kids. If anything, my siblings and I needed a bit more of that, because our neighborhood had 0 kids and my parents kept forcing us to hang out with their adult friends. But it was still ok, we still had real enough childhoods. I started going to Catholic church in college, against my parents' wishes. I realized that everyone does have problem…

> Kids really need to be around other kids

they do not have to do that in school. My (home educated) kids did lots of classes and activities where they met other kids. A lot of schools tell kids "you are not here to socialise!" and have strict rules about what you do when which also limits interaction (at least here in the UK)>

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