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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

#81

Post by systemvoltage »

parenting_ wrote: post #30
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”.

A controversial take. We should consider individuals aren't able to parent their kids effectively. Would you rather trust two exhausted individuals or a huge army of trained professionals at payroll by government to parent the kids? There is very less transfer of knowledge and the worldview of individual parents is often limited. If there is an organization parenting thousands of kids, they can run A/B tests, see res…

This runs chills down the spine. Terrifying.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#82

Post by jquery »

As the parent of a young child, I strongly support this bill. Right now, keeping her away from a phone is no problem because at her age, her peers are largely kept away as well. However as she gets older, I suspect peer pressure will become an overwhelming factor and laws like this will tip the scales back into parent’s favor.

If Facebook/Instagram/TikTok or whatever stop operating in California for those under 18, good riddance.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#84

Post by dahdum »

parenting_ wrote: post #30
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”.

A controversial take. We should consider individuals aren't able to parent their kids effectively. Would you rather trust two exhausted individuals or a huge army of trained professionals at payroll by government to parent the kids? There is very less transfer of knowledge and the worldview of individual parents is often limited. If there is an organization parenting thousands of kids, they can run A/B tests, see res…

While I appreciate the social cohesion and equality of opportunity such a totalitarian indoctrination and control could provide, it’s anathema to most Westerners. I would not support it.

Certainly it’s the fastest way to curb religious extremism, racism, and other social ills. Sadly it’s also the fastest way to create them.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#85

Post by mountainriver »

bobsmooth wrote: post #4
andrewstuart wrote: post #3

Why don't people take personal responsibility for things? Why does there always have to be an option to sue someone?

When have parents ever taken responsibility for their own crappy parenting?

You must not have children

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#86

Post by mc32 »

czhu12 wrote: post #72

Creating regulations like this may end up acting as a regulatory moat for existing social network companies. This probably makes the overall social media pie smaller overall but guarantees incumbents slice of the pie. We've seen this happen in other highly regulated areas such as healthcare, telecommunications, etc. I suspect the way things are trending, in 10 years, very few entrepreneurs would be willing to start a…

On the other hand, we want to prevent new companies forming on the premise they can make money from gamifying their product so much it becomes addictive. Now, addictiveness has to have some definition to be useful. It can't be some odd random user who suffers from some kind of condition that prevents them from self-regulating their particular addiction whereas for example other people don't get addicted. There have to be some thresholds and milestones which indicate some service is "addictive" and then regulate against that.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#87

Post by falcolas »

pkaye wrote: post #70
falcolas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How about require that parents not provide a cell phone to a child before a certain age?

I have to ask, how is it better to restrict children (not everything you can do with a smartphone is tied to social media) than the corporations that target them, that intentionally create addictive experiences?

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#88

Post by jquery »

falcolas wrote: post #43
jmyeet wrote: post #32

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 pe…

> It does seem easy to scapegoat companies for these issues though When the addictive factor is deliberately manufactured into a product (AKA engagement), the company absolutely bears some (IMO, a large amount of) responsibility.

Indeed, some of the smartest individuals in the world are hyper-optimizing their products for addictive properties with multi-armed bandit optimization strategies. The average overworked parent doesn’t have a chance in comparison.

If this law isn’t perfect and has some unintended side effects, we can adjust and stay flexible.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#89

Post by seti0Cha »

ummonk wrote: post #33
Calvin02 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You could argue that reading is addictive, maybe some people find math so as well. I became addicted to computers when I was a kid and we didn't even have the internet. Sports can be addictive, along with dancing, or just plain socializing. Silly, yes, but you can bet that there'd be lawsuits claiming all sorts of things are addictive and some number will find sympathetic juries. Seems like a pretty bad idea to me.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#90

Post by izzydata »

czhu12 wrote: post #72

Creating regulations like this may end up acting as a regulatory moat for existing social network companies. This probably makes the overall social media pie smaller overall but guarantees incumbents slice of the pie. We've seen this happen in other highly regulated areas such as healthcare, telecommunications, etc. I suspect the way things are trending, in 10 years, very few entrepreneurs would be willing to start a…

Ideally Facebook, Twitter and the like could be sued into oblivion instead.
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