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The case for banning children from social media

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Re: The case for banning children from social media

#461

Post by jmathai »

lucumo wrote: post #310
Popcorn3865 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel that they do need some freedom in tech land to follow their curiosities I wish that was how it was used, however my own experience (and that of parents I speak to) is that the firehose is determined by the algorithm, not the individual which subsequently drives the habits and interests. For example, my son will want to look up how to do something in Minecraft. Ace, he's using the resources available to him t…

The time limits take pretty good care of that, here. I really don't mind them watching braindead stuff for a limited time. Especially so if that's the price for watching something interesting too. It's also slightly curated, with age limits on videos provided by YouTube, but I mostly care about that to weed out shock videos and extreme violence.

Agree all kids are different. Our daughter is less affected than our son.

But in both cases, they are happier and more creative (as kids should be) when we remove devices altogether.

I’m not sure what curation you’re talking about. YouTube kids is just ads, for example. It’s not violent, but it’s also not … not ads.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#463

Post by andsoitis »

Animats wrote: post #184
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…

> 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…

>> It's not clear how you could effectively regulate this stuff

> It's not hard. It just upsets vested interests.

Vested interests are precisely why it is hard.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#464

Post by jrochkind1 »

Animats wrote: post #184
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…

> 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…

So... I'm not sure that ads are the center of negative consequences... AND it's not actually true that advertisements aren't considered speech with first ammendment protections in the USA, it is (although it has LESS protections than some other speech, and can be regulated, probably including in this way)...

But on top of all of that... what is an "ad"? Is it an "influencer" who is getting paid to promote a product but doesn't actually disclose that? Which already violates FTC regulations, and we aren't even managing to enforce the regulations we've already got, cause this is pervasive.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#465

Post by [deleted] »

Joeri wrote: post #391
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…

Ads have very little to do with the harmful effects on minors of social media use. And besides, banning ads will not prevent social media from trying to lock minors in, either to already have them when they turn 18, or to benefit from peer network effects to rope in more of the 18+ audience.

[deleted]

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#466

Post by jrochkind1 »

camgunz wrote: post #235
iudqnolq wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The court engaged in a complex analysis to determine the appropriate framework for analyzing this specific first amendment advertising case. This shows there isn't a blanket exemption from first amendment scrutiny for advertising.

I didn't delve into the opinions but it seems like the decision relied on basic content-neutral doctrine. That's par for the course 1A stuff.

"par for the course 1A stuff" suggests that advertisements actually ARE first ammendment protected in the USA. Because... they are. Original commenter suggested they were not even considered "speech" and were not, which is not accurate description of the law.

(In fact, though, advertisements are not treated exactly the same way as other kinds of speech, say, political speech. The bar is different, and more regulation of advertisements is allowed than, say, political speech. Who knows if the current supreme court and other courts will change that though, they are changing a lot, often in favor of protections for commerce).

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#467

Post by patrickmay »

dustedcodes wrote: post #430
pevey wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main goal of raising children, after keeping them alive, is teaching them the skills they need to survive and (hopefully) thrive in their world. These skills have changed over time and vary based on environment, society. Today, that means teaching kids how to cope with social media. It is in their world. It’s not going away. As a parent, I can understand the temptation to just want to ban it. I wish I could ban a…

Banning it is a way of teaching them how to deal with it. Snakes are part of the world, but you teach your kids that you don't let snakes into your house because they are toxic. You can apply the same analogy to social media. You make social media inaccessible to your kids until they have developed into a confident young adult at which point they will have acquired the mental strength to navigate through the toxicity…

That doesn't require a ban, it requires parents to be actively involved in their children's lives and to make the decision for how they want to raise their own kids.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#468

Post by BeFlatXIII »

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…

Bring back the time-honored practice of teens lying about their age. If nothing else, it would force kids who circumvent the ban to pretend to be adults. Plus, "you type like a child" could become a legitimate reason to get annoying adults who type immaturely in trouble.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#469

Post by fernandotakai »

andrekandre wrote: post #442
dustedcodes wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone must do an ID check when signing up to social media. If you are not an adult yet then your account will be locked until you become 18. This would also eliminate all the bots and fake people or double/triple anonymous accounts which are trying to game the algorithm to push for certain toxic agendas. Nobody should be anonymous on social media. Social media is to connect with humans, not with trolls or bots, so…

> Everyone must do an ID check when signing up to social media. If you are not an adult yet then your account will be locked until you become 18. what is the definition of social media? does that include messaging apps? > This would also eliminate all the bots and fake people or double/triple anonymous accounts which are trying to game the algorithm to push for certain toxic agendas. any places (countries) where this…

that's my problem with social media bans for children. how the fuck do we do it?

"just id check" -- hey, what if i don't want my social media tied to my personal account for any reason? let's say i'm an atheist and my family is quite religious? or what if i'm gay and i don't want to show it to the world while expressing myself through social media?

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#470

Post by dustedcodes »

patrickmay wrote: post #467
dustedcodes wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning it is a way of teaching them how to deal with it. Snakes are part of the world, but you teach your kids that you don't let snakes into your house because they are toxic. You can apply the same analogy to social media. You make social media inaccessible to your kids until they have developed into a confident young adult at which point they will have acquired the mental strength to navigate through the toxicity…

That doesn't require a ban, it requires parents to be actively involved in their children's lives and to make the decision for how they want to raise their own kids.

Let's make Heroin, prostitution and assault rifles legal to under age kids, because after all if you are a good parent then you can be sure that your child will certainly not get access to those things via their friends or other avenues. Why have rules, laws or bans (just a form of law) for anything anywhere. All evil things in this world are just a matter of parenting. Gosh, you're so fecking clever how come nobody else ever was able to enlighten us before. We could have zero issues in the world this way.
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