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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

#11

Post by gjsman-1000 »

vmchale wrote: post #6
EatingWithForks wrote: post #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…

[flagged]

Replace "social media" with "alcohol" or "sexual activity."

If you are a child, limits are a very good thing. If you are an adult, take responsibility for the stupidity of your own actions.

Also, please don't do ad-hominem. For "boomers flaming antivax conspiracies," there's plenty of blame to go around and more than meets the eye. Our health experts also did crap like this that got people who listened to them killed: https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898?lang=en

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

#12

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #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 de…

What reasonable action could be taken on the parent side?

I feel like apps should be regulated to for example, only show up to 20 videos max on tiktok per day to prevent doom scrolling. I don't think preventing kids from accessing social media entirely is viable or reasonable.

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

#13

Post by ben_w »

vmchale wrote: post #6
EatingWithForks wrote: post #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…

[flagged]

I don't know why you're making that guess when both are obviously bad in totally different ways.

Cigarettes, which social media is sometimes compared with, are still bad for adults, and the rules for them are for a minimum age of purchase rather than to ban for everyone.

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

#16

Post by youreincorrect »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #12
ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #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 de…

What reasonable action could be taken on the parent side? I feel like apps should be regulated to for example, only show up to 20 videos max on tiktok per day to prevent doom scrolling. I don't think preventing kids from accessing social media entirely is viable or reasonable.

Don't give your kid a smartphone or laptop without only whitelisting certain sites. If they somehow get a device without permission, it gets donated.

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

#17

Post by gjsman-1000 »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #12
ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #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 de…

What reasonable action could be taken on the parent side? I feel like apps should be regulated to for example, only show up to 20 videos max on tiktok per day to prevent doom scrolling. I don't think preventing kids from accessing social media entirely is viable or reasonable.

I think in the future, we should look into device-level age verification. You scan your Driver's License on your iPhone once; and after that, your iPhone tells the website that you are 16 and over without providing any other information unless the user expressly grants it. This solution would not make everyone happy, but politics is all about tradeoffs.

By keeping everything on the device-level, we would hopefully reduce the need for third-parties, ISP-level filtering, or providing too much information. The downside is that for open-source phones, in order for the system to be secure, there would likely need to be a similar Age ID check at checkout for any device that can bypass said filter. This would not be the first time that the US Government strongly "encouraged" device manufacturers to build-in rating system equipment (remember V-Chip?).

And as for "some kids might bypass it," I don't really care. Speed Limits are easily and frequently bypassed, but that doesn't mean it would be safe to get rid of them.

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

#18

Post by ianmcgowan »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #12
ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #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 de…

What reasonable action could be taken on the parent side? I feel like apps should be regulated to for example, only show up to 20 videos max on tiktok per day to prevent doom scrolling. I don't think preventing kids from accessing social media entirely is viable or reasonable.

Not sure if it's reasonable, but a very simple answer is to get your kid a feature phone, if the intent is to be able to stay in touch/emergency contact (we let our kids bike to middle school and it was nice to be in touch). We didn't get them smart phones until high school.

Though if my kids are any indication, it's still 50/50 - one is on tiktok/snapchat/insta constantly, and the other could care less.

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

#19

Post by EatingWithForks »

ben_w wrote: post #13
vmchale wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don't know why you're making that guess when both are obviously bad in totally different ways. Cigarettes, which social media is sometimes compared with, are still bad for adults, and the rules for them are for a minimum age of purchase rather than to ban for everyone.

It's also illegal to partake in cigarettes in certain areas, even for adults. Cigarette packaging and location is also regulated. It's not like adults have unfettered access to things that harm them. It's illegal to drink and drive. In some places, it's illegal to drink in public, or it's illegal to sell alcohol beyond certain time periods. I'm not saying that these things are right, but that if we're going to compare social media to harmful substances we shouldn't misrepresent the access to harmful substances adults actually have.
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