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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

#151

Post by kenward »

smt88 wrote: post #130
benatkin wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's a very bad thing. There are a lot of different types of social media. How about projects with Discourse forums? That could be considered social media. Do you want to force them onto Facebook?

Discord doesn't have an addictive algorithm and seems like it would be totally safe.

I think the person you responded to was referring to Discourse[1] forums, not Discord[2]. Although I agree with you and the gp, both Discourse and Discord have very different incentives than traditional social media FB, IG, etc.

[1] https://www.discourse.org/

[2] https://discord.com/

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#154

Post by throwaway0x7E6 »

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…

that's exactly why faecebook etc are fully onboard with other such initiatives, like fines for hate speech. they want it to be prohibitively expensive to dethrone them.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#155

Post by remarkEon »

Barrin92 wrote: post #146

I think the angle of these laws as well as the parenting response here in the thread are both wildly off because they both take a completely individualistic approach to something that's a systemic issue. The litigation culture of having individual people sue for damage doesn't go to the root cause and is a bureaucratic and legal nightmare. Delegating something that is effectively an environmental issue to the respons…

I agree with everything you’re saying up until this point:

> What's necessary is clear rules that align the behavior of companies with social ends. If they can't square making money with keeping public discourse healthy or not making teens mentally ill they need to be culled, it's that simple.

I don’t think it’s that simple, or simple in the way you may imagine. It’s impossible to come up with rules that even a plurality agree with. Just scroll the comment threads here when social media “censorship” comes up, which may not be directly what you’re talking about but is surely related in part if not in whole to the very real mental health issues you are describing.

The auto regulation and leaded drinking water analogies, however, incidentally hint at what the real answer is. We banned those things. If social media is the lead in our water, we don’t need better filters (or whatever) we need to get rid of it.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#156

Post by czynskee »

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.

What's a game of chance to you to him is one of real skill...

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#157

Post by donthellbanme »

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…

No post body was provided.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#158

Post by [deleted] »

sneak wrote: post #120
efields wrote: post #119

Raising the age minimum on digital services from 13 to 16 or 17 would probably fix a lot of the ills caused by it. And/or teach media literacy from a young age. And anyone here who reduces teenage digital addictions to “bad parenting” can pound sand. Nothing about parenting is simply the result of “the parents” and their methods. Raising a child is an impossibly multi-variate occupation and you only have so many knob…

As long as parents can deny their children digital devices, the ills of the use of same can be assigned to the choices of the parents.

[deleted]

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#159

Post by rsch »

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 big issue is how “parenting” has changed in recent decades.

Even a couple of generations ago it was much more of a group effort. Now it is just the parents versus everyone else either not caring or kicking down on them (for example, some comments over here).

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#160

Post by skyyler »

thenerdhead wrote: post #96
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?

You know how as a parent if you do something like read a book, your kid will imitate you? Imagine majority of parents glued to a smartphone and their kid wants to imitate them. The parent allows it because they are addicted to the device and don't know how to cope / moderate it. Kids are a reflection of their parents, if we ought to solve a problem, it should also be for internet addiction of the previous generation.

Every parent should simply read books at home to prevent dark patterns from hijacking the dopamine systems of their children?

That doesn't sound effective.

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