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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

#191

Post by prawn »

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?

Kids are using phones and tablets as part of school learning programmes/homework. Additionally, my children (under 10yo) use them for educational apps, language lessons, reading library ebooks and doing word puzzles like Quordle.

Because they're different ages and with different interests, they often use them in place of TV also when they can't agree on what to watch.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#192

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#193

Post by hgomersall »

alar44 wrote: post #181
monsieurgaufre wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're basically saying "put the drink down" to an alcoholic or "put the cigarette out" to a smoker. This issue really is more complicated than you make it to be.

If you think social media is anything like chemical addictions to smoking or alcohol you really don’t have a clue.

I would suggest your comment belies the fact you know anything about addiction.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#194

Post by leksak »

voidfunc wrote: post #99
esrauch wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think cigarettes and alcohol should be legal for sale to children? What about advertising specifically targeted at getting kids interested and hooked on cigarettes? What about child labor? Why not let just parents decide what's right for their kids? There's some behaviors of corporations interacting with children that are correctly regulated in the interest of the broader society we live in. It is completely v…

> 1. Do you think cigarettes and alcohol should be legal for sale to children? Yes. But age limits on them should still exist but be lowered (to say 13). Parents need to teach their kids how to responsibly enjoy vices. In general I think all vice laws should be purged from the books. > 2. What about advertising specifically targeted at getting kids interested and hooked on cigarettes? I'm okay with some limits on add…

And a lot of parents have no idea what is good/right for their kids. What's your solution there?

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#195

Post by kmlx »

> “The era of unfettered social experimentation on children is over and we will protect kids,” said Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham

think of the children.

anyway, i've seen this trend a million times already. two ideologies:

1. people can't protect themselves, can't be trusted to make the right decision etc, so they need to be protected by some law/government/union etc.

2. people can be trusted, they can make the right decisions for themselves, no government involvement is needed.

in today's America point 1 is very trendy.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#196

Post by julianbuse »

to1y wrote: post #169
blagie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See China, opium. The core problem is: 1) We've gotten very good at making things hyper-addictive. 2) Market forces reward clicks. Without regulation, things WILL be hyper-addictive. 3) Private right-of-action is a really good way to implement regulatory frameworks; it tends to be far more efficient than DoJ or similar for these sorts of things. Personally, I'm uninterested into being tricked into getting addicted to…

What's the difference between addictive and fun?

something addictive is something that you can't stop even if you want to. There are lots of reasons why someone would want to stop doing something that is fun, but if it is addictive they can't.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#197

Post by whitesilhouette »

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?

To answer your questions

1/ You do that when you get the idea that they have grown smart enough and sneaking and doing it anyway on their friends' phones. 2/ Apple phones are good and hard to hack (at least by a regular kid). 3/ Yes. Plus a reward/punishment system for additional/curtailed hours on completion of chores.

I personally have a slightly different approach.

1/ I have given them Kindle as replacement devices (they also have jailed phones) and socially engineered them to make them feel superior about that. I've also given them some RPi to play with (to practically apply the things they read and learn from the books on Kindle).

This way, they don't take the phone as a forbidden fruit (since they already have it).

2/ I have created a normal user on Android phones with Microsoft ecosystem (I have a O360 family subscription) so, apart from the regular firewall stuff, it also logs everything my kids do on the phone and reports to me. Occassionally I go through the complete logs in their phones, to see if they tried to bypass their user profiles and do something funny.

However, it's important to make them realise that all this is done for their own good. Plus I make sure not to interfere in everything they do. It's ok to make mistakes as long as I can make sure it's reversible. Otherwise I've seen deep rooted resentment in some other kids. For example, their map locations sync to me in real time. I make sure they understand that this is for their own convenience (kids don't care about safety so no point in highlighting that) like arranging an Uber if they need one or to give them directions. That way, they don't take it as spying on them and are completely comfortable with sharing their live location with me. On the contrary, they take it as their parent (me) taking care of them and are actually pretty proud about it.

3/ I avoid negative feedback loops. I don't say you can use the phone only for 2 hours daily. Rather I say, you can use the phone as long as you want but only after you finish your daily checklist. Chores/Class tasks etc. It's works pretty well.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#198

Post by derevaunseraun »

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…

Exactly. Then we'll have abolished the nuclear family and the problem of generational wealth. There will be an equitable distribution of wealth and disparities along racial, sexual, and economic lines will have evaporated.

Without generational wealth or inheritance, there will be no incentive to own property. All housing will be group housing provided in return for work. All transportation will be provided as a public utility. People will no longer have anything to hide.

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#199

Post by derevaunseraun »

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…

> 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.

If they start requiring some sort of government issued ID for age verification for the services in question, those services might as well go up in flames. It's easier just to find or create an alternative that isn't affected by the legislation

Re: California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

#200

Post by Kbelicius »

czhu12 wrote: post #116
heavyset_go wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is a concern, lobby for applying the law to companies or social networks over set sizes. Tangential laws are proposed in the EU that apply to companies with market caps over ~$80 billion, for example[1]. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/24/22994234/eu-antitrust-leg...

But why do we assume small social media companies are less addictive or harmful than big social media companies?

If the EU was making a directive on this topic it would not differentiate between company sizes because it thinks that the company size has a relation to how addictive their product is.

The reason why it would differentiate on size is precisely the reasoning you presented in your previous post. Because it doesn't want to create moats around big existing players on the market. If you look at the act the GP linked to you'll see that one of its purposes it to tear down a non regulatory moat that those big existing player have.

And because a small company, without a doubt, has less potential for harm on a societal level than a big company.

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