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California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

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Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#31

Post by eredengrin »

tintor wrote: post #10
dahdum wrote: post #5

If only there was a way parents could exert some sort of influence or authority over these children to prevent what they believe is harmful. We could call it “parenting”.

How would you do it (serious question)? I live in US, and like China's approach on this specific issue. 1) Disallow smartphone until certain age. Which age? 2) Allow smartphone, but with parental controls. Which ones? Many of them are hackable. 3) Allow smartphone, but with time of day/week restrictions that you enforce by taking away the phone?

Not to mention, beyond the technical considerations, there's also social implications. To what extent can you remove kids from social media before they start feeling excessively socially constricted compared to their peers? For example, taking away phones altogether is likely to lead to a much harder social life. If the tech companies encourage more responsible use of social media, they can make it easier for both the parents and kids who may want to reduce usage of it. In the same way, the lack of any guardrails whatsoever helped bring us to where we are now. I imagine both pieces are necessary/useful. Disclaimer that I'm not a parent so haven't had to think about this too deeply but it is something I consider in a hypothetical sense at times.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#32

Post by jmyeet »

What I've come to realize in recent years is there are an awful lot of people who have children who don't want to be parents. It's like they don't even like children but it seems like they're running down a Life checklist of things you should do.

Or maybe they like the idea of having adult children? I really don't know.

But I know so many people who don't actually like spending time with their children. I get some people actually have to work a lot but it's a shallow analysis to blame it on that (IMHO).

So expectations tend to be super-high. Their children often have to go to Ivy League schools. They themselvves need to save north of $500k+ to pay for that blue blood education. These people will bemaon the high cost of raising children while living in a 7000 sq ft 6 bedroom house with their 2 children, paying $50k/year to send each of those children to private schools and so on.

And while you can argue those things have value (I actually think that's debatable at best), the net effect is that these people actually seem to spend little time with their children. After awhile it occurs to you that's the point.

I feel like an awful lot of people are motivated by living vicariously through their children too. "I'm going to give my child the opportunities I never had". That sort of thing.

As far as social media goes, it's easy to say "don't allow your children on social media" but my guess is it's mostly childless people saying that. Those growing up now are connected socially to their peers through these networks. No social media is a form of forced social exclusion that's pretty all-encompassing. It's a hard problem.

I'd say, if anything, the problem starts way earlier than that. I actually think in an ideal world a child wouldn't even see an electronic screen (TV, phone, tablet, computer) before they're like 8 years old. That's pretty unrealistic though.

One issue with social media is because of US laws most networks are age-restricted. Some to 18 and over. Others to 13 and up. We all know that people lie and use them anyway. Where does responsibility for this lie? With the companies? The parents? I really don't know.

It does seem easy to scapegoat companies for these issues though.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#33

Post by ummonk »

Calvin02 wrote: post #28
iamcurious wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only parents could exert some sort of influence or authority over others harming their children. We could call it "sueing".

Why just limit it social media? Why not also include video games, streaming services, movies, etc.?

Agreed. It should be applied to all services which are optimized for addiction. Social media is just the worst of the bunch due to its built in peer pressure.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#34

Post by khazhoux »

Calvin02 wrote: post #28
iamcurious wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only parents could exert some sort of influence or authority over others harming their children. We could call it "sueing".

Why just limit it social media? Why not also include video games, streaming services, movies, etc.?

And mid-1980s heavy metal music too.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#35

Post by yes_i_can »

iamcurious wrote: post #24
dahdum wrote: post #5

If only there was a way parents could exert some sort of influence or authority over these children to prevent what they believe is harmful. We could call it “parenting”.

If only parents could exert some sort of influence or authority over others harming their children. We could call it "sueing".

> others harming their children

I'd suggest they did harm to their own children when they allowed a smartphone and social media at an early age.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#36

Post by voidfunc »

falcolas wrote: post #25
dahdum wrote: post #5

If only there was a way parents could exert some sort of influence or authority over these children to prevent what they believe is harmful. We could call it “parenting”.

In an ideal situation, it's two parents against thousands of software engineers, marketers, corporate psychologists, and their children's many peers. Many adults can't keep themselves from the addiction. How do we expect parents to keep their kids from it? Or, to put it another way, I'm sure the median parent would have much less luck keeping their kids away from social media than they do with porn.

Why don't we just put everyone in a box after they are born and feed them through a straw like a hamster so they can't possibly ever harm themselves? People need to take responsibility for themselves.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#37

Post by ummonk »

falcolas wrote: post #15

Stupid thought: Perhaps if social media didn't spend so much effort aiming their products at minors, and didn't experiment on their userbase, for example to see if they could make them sad... perhaps social media companies could have avoided legislation like this.

Indeed, and the safe harbor provision in the bill appears more than reasonable.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#38

Post by Teever »

dahdum wrote: post #5

If only there was a way parents could exert some sort of influence or authority over these children to prevent what they believe is harmful. We could call it “parenting”.

Would you say the same thing if someone was standing outside an elementary school peddling drugs and cigarettes?

Or creepy dudes who offer to buy alcohol for minors to get in their pants?

The world is a big place and it's impossible for parents to be everywhere they need to be for their kids all the time. It's only gotten unfathomably bigger since the advent of the web and the explosion of social media.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#39

Post by olliej »

The problem is that the relevant social media companies intentionally design their interfaces such that they are addictive.

If only there were some way for social media companies to not re-order or promote certain content in a way that encourages addiction? Maybe by just leaving content in temporal order, rather than order by popularity or trendiness.

That said businesses removing themselves from children in CA seems similarly effective.

Finally, while I think that while Social media companies are significantly at fault - the development of trending, popular, and other non-temporal ordering of content is explicitly and intentionally designed to be addictive, and in no different from a food company adding addictive chemicals to food. I also think that parents have to have at least tried to parent their children, not simply ignored them until it turned out they had a serious problem.

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