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Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

nytimes.com

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Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#3
I work at a fancy private school and partially am have hosted numerous events for parents on kids and social media.

We have been banging on this key for easily the past 8 years, with varying levels of emphasis. The response from parents has also been universally consistent: A lot of nodding, and, ultimately, very little action. There has always been a small but consistent group of parents who stand firmly on their decision to delay giving their child broad access to social media until later, and the vast, vast majority who can't be bothered to. I haven't noticed the scale tip in any direction in all these years.

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#4
I argue social media is a profound risk to anyone. It's an entire industry that's made to exploit every insecurity and vulnerability within a human psyche. Nervous about vaccines? Sure, you can go to your local doctor, but in the meantime you ask your fellow parents on Facebook and suddenly someone tells you that not only do these vaccines have the potential to fuck up your child for life, that doctors are totally in denial about it and no one in your friend group has ever had to deal with measles but one or two probably claim to have a vaccine-injured child, so do you really want to risk it?

This happens over and over again for anything. Vaccines is just one known example. I'm also talking about gay people. People who have sex before marriage. Immigrants. People with suspiciously dark skin tone. Body image. etc.

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#6

I argue social media is a profound risk to anyone. It's an entire industry that's made to exploit every insecurity and vulnerability within a human psyche. Nervous about vaccines? Sure, you can go to your local doctor, but in the meantime you ask your fellow parents on Facebook and suddenly someone tells you that not only do these vaccines have the potential to fuck up your child for life, that doctors are totally in…

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Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#7
post #6

I argue social media is a profound risk to anyone. It's an entire industry that's made to exploit every insecurity and vulnerability within a human psyche. Nervous about vaccines? Sure, you can go to your local doctor, but in the meantime you ask your fellow parents on Facebook and suddenly someone tells you that not only do these vaccines have the potential to fuck up your child for life, that doctors are totally in…

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Preventing teenagers from doing things that adults can do is pretty normal. They can’t drink, smoke, or drive until they’re old enough - at which point we decide it’s their life.

To some extent, if adults want to drink from the firehouse of poison we let them.

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#9
post #5

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Ehh

Do you believe that you realistically can change grown ass, old adults? They had plenty of time to realize and should have known better. I dont think there is a hope for them.

Bet on the youth, they are still malleable

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#10
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Preventing teenagers from doing things that adults can do is pretty normal. They can’t drink, smoke, or drive until they’re old enough - at which point we decide it’s their life. To some extent, if adults want to drink from the firehouse of poison we let them.

To other extents, we section those who inflict harm upon themselves or are a danger to others. Our social norms are fairly inconsistent on this and it's easy to make a case (though not widely accepted) that the sort of maladaptive social media use by older adults is both a form of psychic self harm and a danger to society.
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