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The case for banning children from social media

newyorker.com

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Re: The case for banning children from social media

#201

Post by lordnacho »

SCdF wrote: post #187
FractalHQ wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone 8 years sober from social media, I’m convinced the benefits of banning it would far outweigh the cost.

Out of interest, what's your definition of social media? Because mine is a site / app whose value is derived from its users, where users are all of (roughly) equal importance. Which puts forums / reddit / hacker news into that category.

You can quibble about definitions, but I'd say it's got a lot to do with being personalized. So anything where you need to know something about the viewer in order to optimise what to show each individual. That can be for anything from the content itself to the advertisements, if you need to know something about who is watching, it's what we currently think of as social media.

FB, Instagram, TikTok, but also Google search, and every ad supported site.

Not WhatsApp or the chat services, interestingly.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#202

Post by staunton »

TheBozzCL wrote: post #60
amatecha wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, honestly, just go all the way and ban advertising altogether (I would be so happy if this happened, even though it obviously never will). Pretty willing to tank my karma to say this, I don't care, I think advertising is one of the biggest psychological pollutants in modern society and any possible benefit (??) is vastly outweighed by the cognitive waste incurred by all who are subjected to it.

I wholeheartedly agree with you here. It’s sad that I haven’t found a way to explain this view to others without sounding like a raving lunatic - which also speaks volumes about the state of the tracking/advertising industry. Pihole via DoH plus uBlock has changed the internet so much for me, I literally can’t stand using other people’s devices. Let’s not even talk about watching TV, going to a sports bar is downrigh…

My impression (after suggesting it elsewhere) is that a lot of HN generally agrees with banning adds.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#203

Post by jen20 »

pyuser583 wrote: post #151
49erfangoniners wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Please explain everything to me from scratch so I can summarily dismiss anything you say."

The phrase “the dopaminergic effects are not dissimilar to drugs and social media is just as addictive” is very unclear. Very few people know what dopaminergic means. It might not be a real word. “Is not dissimilar from” is a stock phrase used in an academia and by people trying to sound very smart. The poster included just enough technobabble and stock phrasing to imply they are a specialist. But specialists know wh…

> It might not be a real word.

It is a real word though.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#204

Post by protocolture »

1. Make it more expensive to run a website.

2. Lament how the open web has fewer options with the better used networks owned by billion dollar tech companies.

3. Blame Capitalism/Communism/Whatever the latest boogeyman is that takes the pressure off of Karens and politicians who push the latest please think of the children bullshit.

4. Goto 1.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#205

Post by dragonwriter »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #67
tastysandwich wrote: post #46

I just don't see any alternatives to banning social media, perhaps even up to the age of 18. The dopaminergic effects are not dissimilar to drugs and social media is just as addictive. It's not clear how you could effectively regulate this stuff - especially in our highly polarised political climate. The right will immediately target "wokeness", and the left will immediately target "hate speech". And the kids will be…

Social media is unlike drugs in that if you abstain while your peers use you're in some ways worse off. I wonder if there's a narrower ban to be had, either on image usage or especially on filters

> Social media is unlike drugs in that if you abstain while your peers use you're in some ways worse off.

I submit that this is not unlike drugs (incl. alcohol), or even golf.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#206

Post by mixmastamyk »

southernplaces7 wrote: post #149
mixmastamyk wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try making the decision that your child will not use social media and watch what happens.

Plenty of people do indeed pull it off, and before that heavy handed step, there are others that on a parental level (not by government decree), moderate the effects and use of social media for their children without relying on blanket bans in a society that seems to view even very basic freedoms as ever more maleable things. The underlying logic of blanket social media bans is awful, and so is the enormous leeway th…

Am doing it now. Prepare for constant complaints and sob-stories, everyone around you including the school doing their best to undermine you.

Adults aren't included. We prohibit kids from doing many dangerous things, as we should.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#207

Post by Animats »

iudqnolq wrote: post #193
galaxyLogic wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point about speech

No it's far far more complicated than that. See for example: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2021/20-1029

The court upheld the City of Austin on prohibiting off-premises digital signs, even if some of what they displayed was non-commercial. So that's not a problem.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#208

Post by rsolva »

A new law in the EU will ban showing ads and using personal data for kids. Here in Norway we have had general ban on showing ads to kids for decades, but it was made in the TV age and has not been enforced on social media.

We can't outright ban social media (for a lot of different reasons), but we can regulate away the most harmfull aspects.

One of the fundemental underlying problems is the lack of good privacy laws. As long as companies can gather whatever they want and use it against us to show us personalized ads and posts to hold on to our attention as long as possible, we will not be able to curb the worst aspects of social media.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#209

Post by mxkopy »

hackernewds wrote: post #156
tastysandwich wrote: post #46

I just don't see any alternatives to banning social media, perhaps even up to the age of 18. The dopaminergic effects are not dissimilar to drugs and social media is just as addictive. It's not clear how you could effectively regulate this stuff - especially in our highly polarised political climate. The right will immediately target "wokeness", and the left will immediately target "hate speech". And the kids will be…

if the dopaminergic effects are not dissimilar to drugs, and evidently just as bad, why not ban them for adults as well?

> if the dopaminergic effects are not dissimilar to drugs

I highly doubt the implied semantics of this statement. We don't know everything there is to know about "dopaminergic effects". The pharmacology of smoking weed is probably very different than from say, scrolling through memes.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#210

Post by hbs18 »

xbmcuser wrote: post #189
tastysandwich wrote: post #46

I just don't see any alternatives to banning social media, perhaps even up to the age of 18. The dopaminergic effects are not dissimilar to drugs and social media is just as addictive. It's not clear how you could effectively regulate this stuff - especially in our highly polarised political climate. The right will immediately target "wokeness", and the left will immediately target "hate speech". And the kids will be…

Funnily enough with ChatGpt like language models available even without banning censorship will become very prevalent. Instead of banning your child from social media outright you will be able to get a bot to monitor their account and filter out what you feel is inappropriate. So instead of their social feed being controlled by a company it can be monitored and controlled by parents.

> So instead of their social feed being controlled by a company it can be monitored and controlled by parents.

Huge win for helicopter parents

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