Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 548 posts

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

#151

Post by bart_spoon »

standardUser wrote: post #124
youreincorrect wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can deal with it. In middle school, I was called a faggot, relentlessly, for not owning a Jansport backpack . I am 100% serious. They'll find friends, I'm pretty sure of it.

[flagged]

A key difference here is that Jansport backpacks don't come with the additional baggage of huge risks to mental and emotional health, self-esteem, and increased suicide risk. It's interesting that you are framing immersing children in externalities as the choice to avoid suffering.

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

#152

Post by boring_twenties »

mrguyorama wrote: post #130
swader999 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isolating them from their peers can be just as mentally devastating. I don't think there is a good solution to this.

I had 14 friends on myspace back in its heyday. I could not play runescape because my computer was too old. I had dialup until 2008. It actually was not mentally devastating. Hell, I still have all those friends and we barely have a way to communicate NOW. When you go to school 8 hours of every day and see your friends, you don't really need a stupid app to interact with them. Hell, blocking out social media doesn't…

> you don't really need a stupid app to interact with them

Yes, you do, because they will not want to interact with you if you're not on the preferred app. This is the case even with adults: I somewhat regularly meet people who will flatly refuse to talk to you if you don't have a green bubble, or an Instagram account, or whathaveyou. These are educated professionals in their 20's and 30's.

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

#153

Post by bart_spoon »

mrguyorama wrote: post #138
hammyhavoc wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everything is a pitch trying to sell some sort of viewpoint. What about cities? What about stores? What about TV? What about magazines? What about the radio? What about school? What about music? What about books? Whilst I agree with you, where do we draw the line? Personally, having worked in advertising/marketing for over a decade and grown completely disenchanted with it and pivoted to just doing creative shit, I…

Our state banned billboards like 80 years ago. Make that happen in your state. They are valueless.

Which state is that? I didn't realize that was a thing in the US, but it sounds great.

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

#154

Post by Snoozle »

dathinab wrote: post #28

It also can be a 'profound life safer' to youth people which live has been saved by the internet warn. It also helps a lot with democracy as it's much harder for autocratic states (or governments aspiring to become such) to censor and mute the news about their bad deeds. The main problem I'm seeing is not "social media" but how exactly it is implemented, often stuffed full of dark patterns designed to lead to addicti…

I see a lot of this argument when social media is brought up. A lot of people generally agree with the idea that there are a lot more supportive environments available on the web than in a traditional small town with narrow ideals. I would argue though that the statistics do not bear this truth out: if having these communities and support groups are so necessary, then why is suicide and mental health worse now than they were prior to the internet?

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

#155

Post by omginternets »

standardUser wrote: post #103
omginternets wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully, there are other ways of interacting with one's peers, most of which create more meaningful connections than social media. To put it more bluntly: if social media is the only thing standing between a child and total isolation, that child has far bigger problems. Maybe sign your kid up for little league?

When I was young, the kids who played little league were, how do I put this? Dicks. It's not about shoving two like-aged children next to each other and yelling "bond!", it's about a child being able to navigate their own social life and, hopefully, find and bond with people they relate to. Limiting the activities a child can participate in, especially when those activities are widespread among their peers, will of c…

"When the wise man points to the moon, the fool looks at his finger."

I trust you can find alternatives to little league. I also trust you can understand the broader point.

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

#156

Post by iamacyborg »

dundercoder wrote: post #132
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…

I've worked in tech for 20+ years and I have 4 young kids. We allow our teenager use of a locked down smartphone, with a clearly explained zero expectation of privacy. We don't allow any social media on the phone itself. YouTube and other sites can be used under supervision for agreed on lengths of time. Once or twice a week my wife or I will go through their text messages with them and ask questions about anything t…

I can understand being this careful with young children's usage of a device but giving teenagers zero privacy (to the extent of going through their personal messages) seems wild to me.

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

#157

Post by amanaplanacanal »

zo1 wrote: post #117
swader999 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isolating them from their peers can be just as mentally devastating. I don't think there is a good solution to this.

Sure there is: Identify the degenerate behaviour and punish it. Whatever that may be and 51% of us can agree on. If that's tik tok, all social media, YouTube, infinite scroll, use generated media websites, drug misogyny and degenerate sex promoting lyrics, violent fps games, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, ads aimed at children, pictures of swastikas, hormone altering medicine, or whatever, so be it. If you don't ban it…

You may be right. But free speech and free markets have done a lot of good, along with the bad. Trying to rein them in gets a lot of pushback, because the alternatives have been pretty terrible too.

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

#158

Post by grvdrm »

dundercoder wrote: post #132
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…

I've worked in tech for 20+ years and I have 4 young kids. We allow our teenager use of a locked down smartphone, with a clearly explained zero expectation of privacy. We don't allow any social media on the phone itself. YouTube and other sites can be used under supervision for agreed on lengths of time. Once or twice a week my wife or I will go through their text messages with them and ask questions about anything t…

I'm not going to comment on the specifics of your process. There isn't always a right or wrong to handle this stuff.

Your comment and the parent point to the theme that matters to me most: do you care to understand/show interest in what your kids are doing. Forget about social media - just think about TV. You can park your kid in front of the TV and forget about them, converse with them as they watch, or something in between. Your kids also need quiet/down time as well.

Again, not to say I'm right, but I try not to litigate what is happening so much, and instead I try to just be an active participant in whatever my kids are doing. The counter where you restrict or limit or challenge doesn't always work out better in the end.

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

#159

Post by bart_spoon »

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #123
bebop wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some parents in our social circle have been getting their kids smart watches. This allows talk to text and phone calls, but pretty much no internet. These devices are also good for parental controls like allow listing phone numbers (first thing our friends son did was make crank calls :)

I frequently recommend the apple watch with cellular to families... it has nice built in support to be set up for a child, the watch form factor is nice for lots of kids (harder to lose), and you are still getting a premium product (important for the families that I work with).

I thought Apple Watches required an iPhone to pair with? Is that not the case?

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

#160

Post by [deleted] »

zachturn wrote: post #147
dundercoder wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked in tech for 20+ years and I have 4 young kids. We allow our teenager use of a locked down smartphone, with a clearly explained zero expectation of privacy. We don't allow any social media on the phone itself. YouTube and other sites can be used under supervision for agreed on lengths of time. Once or twice a week my wife or I will go through their text messages with them and ask questions about anything t…

> Once or twice a week my wife or I will go through their text messages with them and ask questions about anything that seems off. > IMO parents are reluctant to intervene because they either don't know where to start, or struggle with how much work it is. There are also parents who disagree with this ideology and would find this an invasion of their child's privacy. I'd caution against the thinking "we find this val…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN