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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

#331

Post by jutrewag »

walrus01 wrote: post #318
jutrewag wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. You can establish your own “identity” when you’re an adult at 18. I don’t have a religious bone in my body but I wish this law was made effective nationwide.

Thankfully, America is not yet operating in the political reality of The Handmaid's Tale, much as you might wish it to be so.

I feel like that’s a hyperbolic take. Outside forces injecting chaos into the internal workings of a family are about as bad as things can get for a growing child. What’s the problem with deferring sexual issues to adulthood when you’re more mature?

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#332

Post by TheHappyOddish »

CalRobert wrote: post #327
noobermin wrote: post #326

While I'm sympathetic, this smells a whole lot like banning kids from malls, which already is happening which along with the deepening suburbanization of America just leads kids to feeling isolated. On some level, you need to let young people socialize and have a space where parents can't micromanage them. I'm not sure parents of yesteryear (boomers) or today (gen X, older millennials) are really okay with that. Give…

I want a town built from scratch where me and other millenial parents who want our kids to be able to run around and ride bikes and go to corner shops can actually do so.

You could try most of the world.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#333

Post by vasco »

croes wrote: post #330
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…

How to implement such a ban without opening the door for user tracking?

We can't track kids so instead we'll track every single internet user so that we can stop tracking kids. Nevermind you'll need to remember this is a kid in the browser session to show them the nerfed / non-tracking version anyway.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#335

Post by cykros »

jmathai wrote: post #245
whatever1 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computer games are also addictive. Back in my days soccer and basketball were addictive as well. I vividly remember my grandpa despising my uncle for having obsession with playing soccer and not spending more time on his homework. It seems like a pattern, grown ups just don’t like the way youngsters are spending their time. Maybe it’s totally normal in your teens to just spend aimlessly time in seemingly useless thin…

I’m not sure if you have children. Soccer and basketball exist today. I don’t think you’ll find many parents who struggle with their kids’ habits with them relative to current video games like roblox. (Super Mario Kart doesn’t have the same addictive and predatory aspects) Find a random parent and you’ll see for yourself. It’s not that parents are frustrated that their kids are playing too many video games. It’s that…

I used to be concerned about my kid's video game use a bit, though more Fortnite and Rocket League than Roblox, as we blocked the latter due to the abundance of user-created content and chatting with strangers (because why on earth would you have your 12 year old on the Internet with strangers? We blocked chat other than "quickchats" in the others.). Then he hit high school, and at this point, I miss the days where that was his computer use I was concerned with.

To be fair though, playing sports had a lot to do with breaking the video game cycle -- when you have 12 hour days between school and 2 sports teams, suddenly worrying about your "dailies" and other hooks these games have just stops being an option.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#336

Post by geysersam »

Dave3of5 wrote: post #269
geysersam wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is SM really responsible for bullying? Bullying happens irl as well. The playground builders are usually not considered responsible when bullying happens at a playground.

> But is SM really responsible for bullying? Yes they are. They are not 100% responsible no but it's the main party as it provides the platform and encourages the behaviour. If their platform has become unsafe and causes harm that's the bit that they are responsible for. It's the same thing as suing a car manufacturer if the car was designed / built with a safety flaw. > The playground builders are usually not consid…

While I appreciate your thorough response (I'm not exactly sure about what to make of this topic myself) I'm still a bit skeptical of assigning the responsibility for bullying to SM companies.

Physical safety in a car (or on a playground) is about the equipment itself.

Bullying can also happen in a car (or a school bus!) but we wouldn't typically consider the car company responsible.

Regarding SM I think it's a case of we-can-so-we-should. We've moved our social interactions to a technical platform, so now social problems are more amenable (superficially in my opinion) to technical solutions.

But bullying is not a problem that has a technical origin nor a technical solution, and I think trying to approach it that way might do more harm than good.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#337

Post by exitb »

ok_dad wrote: post #324
vincnetas wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another problem is the definition of "ad". Is kid playing with fancy toys is an ad? Is product placement in movie an ad? How and who will determine if this is and ad or not?

Anytime someone exchanges cash, goods, or services to promote a product or service, and then repeat this inspection up the chain of shell companies! > Is kid playing with fancy toys is an ad? not enough context, maybe > Is product placement in movie an ad? yes, clearly > How and who will determine if this is and ad or not? Probably some corporate compliance drones and underfunded government stooges.

Doesn't that include most children-directed media, as it inevitably ends up being an ad for related merchandise?

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#338

Post by cykros »

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?

Because banning drugs has worked so well...

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#339

Post by bsenftner »

jutrewag wrote: post #314
Animats wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not clear how you could effectively regulate this stuff It's not hard. It just upsets vested interests. Make it illegal to show ads to kids. You don't have to make "kid" identification airtight, because few people of any age want to opt into ads. The ad industry was very upset when the American Psychological Association proposed this back in 2004.[1] This doesn't raise constitutional issues because ads are con…

What problem does that fix? It’s not particularly the corporations that are a bad influence on the kids, it’s their own peer group.

Ah, the subtle aspect you're missing: it is the corporations that created and promote the environment in which the kids abuse one another. It's similar to creating a large park, and then not policing the situation when bullies take over the park, and probably also accepting payments of some kind from the bullies for their extraordinary access to the corporation's "park for people and kids".

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#340

Post by ok_dad »

exitb wrote: post #337
ok_dad wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anytime someone exchanges cash, goods, or services to promote a product or service, and then repeat this inspection up the chain of shell companies! > Is kid playing with fancy toys is an ad? not enough context, maybe > Is product placement in movie an ad? yes, clearly > How and who will determine if this is and ad or not? Probably some corporate compliance drones and underfunded government stooges.

Doesn't that include most children-directed media, as it inevitably ends up being an ad for related merchandise?

Perhaps, and I'm fine with that. Children's media shouldn't be funded by corporate advertising directed at the children, period. I don't care what kind of sledgehammer that takes to the ad industry, I care about the children's well-being.

Next, let's ban all advertising, is what I'm thinking.

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